本論文旨在探討左拉˙赫斯頓《他們的眼睛望著上帝》和理察萊特《本土之子》小說中人物的身分建構。身為二十世紀初重要的黑人作家，左拉˙赫斯頓和理察萊特在他們的作品中，都以黑人自我的追尋為主題藉此傳達他們對於種族議題的覺知。因此，本論文將指出在他們的文本中，種族、階級以及性別如何影響小說中角色自我的建構。
   在本論文中，除了指出種族、階級以及性別對於小說中黑人主角的自我發展上所扮演的重要角色，也將更進一步探究導致左拉˙赫斯頓和理察萊特在這兩本小說中，對於黑人身分建構議題上意見分歧的原因。經由探索左拉˙赫斯頓和理察萊特的自傳資料，本論文將陳述左拉˙赫斯頓和理察萊特出生背景的不同和個人經驗如何影響他們的寫作，包含了在這兩部小說中對於黑人身分建構的看法、小說的風格、以及黑人角色的塑造。對左拉˙赫斯頓來說，出生於一個充滿黑人口述文化的地區、人類學的訓練以及身為黑人女性，左拉˙赫斯頓強調的是在黑人社區中兩性的關係。因此，在《他們的眼睛望著上帝》，所呈現的是她對在黑人社區中女性內心世界的描寫和黑人的方言的引用。然而與左拉赫斯頓不同，小時候環境的壓迫使得理察萊特更意識到種族之間的衝突。之後在芝加哥與馬克思主義思想的接觸更讓他採用社會以及經濟的觀點來分析黑人與白人間的對峙。無疑的，理察萊特對於兩個種族間關係的強調，和將城市形容成是一股壓迫黑人的強大力量之描述，在《本土之子》也是清楚可見。

This thesis endeavors to explore the concept of construction of identity in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Richard Wright’s Native Son. Two significant black writers in the first half of the twentieth century, Hurston and Wright both transmit their awareness of racial issue by adopting the theme of a quest for identity for the black people in their works respectively. Thus, in the thesis, a textual analysis of the way the black characters construct their subjectivity in terms of race, class and gender will be presented.   
In addition to showing how race, class and gender play an important role in the development of the black characters’ selfhood, this thesis further examines what causes these two black writers’ divergent views on the construction of the black’s identity in their works. Through delving into these two writer’s autobiographical information, this thesis will delineate how their different rearing and personal experience influence their writing: the way their protagonists construct their identity, their style and their characterization of the black people in these two novels. As a black female, born in an area rich in Afro-American oral culture, and trained in anthropology, Hurston stresses the relationship between the two sexes within a black community. Therefore, a portrait of the black female’s inner world within a context of black community and an adoption of vernacular black speech is evident in Their Eyes Were Watching God. By contrast, Wright was more aware of the racial conflict because he grew up in an oppressive surrounding. Later, his knowledge of Marxist thinking equipped him with the necessary tool to analyze the black/white collision from a socio-economic perspective. Without doubt, the emphasis of the relations between the two races and the depiction of the city as a strong force oppressing the black individuals can be seen clearly in Native Son.

Table of Contents

Introduction:..................................... 1  
Chapter One: 
Janie Crawford’s Quest for Identity in Their Eyes Were Watching God........................... 11
Chapter Two: 
Bigger Thomas’s Quest for Identity in Native Son...............................................49        Conclusion:.....................................  81 
Works Cited:......................................89

Arman, Charles De. “Bigger Thomas: The Symbolic Negro and the Discrete Human Entity.” 1978.  Rpt. in Bigger Thomas.  Ed.  Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990.  83-89. 
Awkward, Michael.  Inspiriting Influences: Tradition, Revision, and Afro-American Women’s Novels. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.  
---. “Introduction.” New Essays on Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Ed.  Michael Awkward.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.  1-27.
Baldwin, James.  Notes of a Native Son.  Boston: Beacon P, 1955.  
Bell, Bernard W.  The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition.  Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1987. 
Bethel, Lorraine. “‘The Infinity of Conscious Pain’: Zora Neale Hurston and the Black Female Literary Tradition.” All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave.  Ed.  Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith. New York: The Feminist P, 1982. 176-88. 
Brignano, Russell Carl.  Richard Wright: An Introduction to the Man and His Works. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1970. 
Bryant, Jerry H. “Explaining the Violence of Native Son.” Readings on Native Son. Ed. Hayley R. Mitchell.  San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2000.  157-62.  
---. “The Violence of Native Son.” Southern Review 17 (1981): 303-19.  
Butler, Robert.  Native Son: The Emergence of a New Black Hero.  Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.   
Camus, Albert.  The Rebel.  Trans.  Anthony Bower. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962.  
Christian, Barbara. “Trajectories of Self-Definition: Placing Contemporary Afro-American Women’s Fiction.”  Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition.  Ed.  Marjorie Pryse and Hortense J. Spillers.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985.  233-48.   
---.  Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. New York:Pergamon P, 1985.  
Collins, Patricia Hill.  Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.  New York: Routledge, 1991. 
Cooke, Michael G. “Beginnings of Self-Realization.”  1984.  Rpt. in Modern Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston.  Ed.  Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea
Publishers, 1986.  139-50.   
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903.  New York: Vintage Books/The Library of America, 1990.   
Fadiman, Clifton. “Native Son.”1940.  Rpt. in Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah.  New York: Amistad, 1993.  6-8.  
Fannon, Frantz.  Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann.  New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1968. 
Felgar, Robert. “The Kingdom of the Beast: The Landscape of Native Son.” CLA Journal 17(1974): 333-37. 
Fishburn, Katherine.  Richard Wright’s Hero: The Faces of a Rebel-Victim. Metuchen:The Scarecrow P, 1977.  
Fisher, Dexter. Introduction. The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States. Ed. Dexter Fisher.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.  139-49.  
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African- American Literary Criticism.  New York: Oxford UP, 1984.    
Gibson, Donald B. “Wright’s Invisible Native Son.”  1969. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Richard Wright’s Native Son. Ed. Kenneth Kinnamon.  New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.  75-85.  
Gloster, Hugh M.  Negro Voices in American Fiction.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1948. 
Hemenway, Robert E.  Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography.  Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980.  
Hill, Herbert. “Introduction.” Anger and Beyond: The Negro Writer in the United States.  Ed.  Herbert Hill.  New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1966.  Xiii-xxii.   
hooks, bell.  Taking Back: Thinking Feminist , Thinking Black.  Boston: South End P, 1985.   
Howe, Irving. “Black Boy and Native Sons.” 1963.  Rpt. in Bigger Thomas.  Ed. Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990.  6-9.   
Hsu, Huei Hua.  Black Female Voice and Identity in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  MA thesis.  National Chung Cheng U, 1994.     
Hurston, Zora Neale. “Art and Such.” Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology.  Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Meridian, 1990.  21-26. 
---.  Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography.  New York: Virago P: 1986.  
---.  “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.”I Love Myself When I Am Laughing and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader.  Ed.  Alice Walker.  New York: The Feminist P, 1979.  152-55. 
---.  Their Eyes Were Watching God.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1937.   
---.  “Uncle Tom’s Children.”  1938.  Rpt. in Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present.  Ed.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah.  New York: Amistad, 1993.  3-4.  
---.  “What White Publishers Won’t Print.” I Love Myself When I Am Laughing and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader.  Ed.
Alice Walker.  New York: The Feminist P, 1979.  169-73. 
Jackson, Esther Merle. “The American Negro and the Image of the Absurd.” Phylon 23 (1960): 359-71.  JSTOR.  24 Jan. 2006.  <http: // www.jstor.org. search>.  
Johnson, Barbara. “Metaphor, Metonymy and Voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black Literature and Literary Theory.  Ed.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Methuen: 1984.  205-19.  
---, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “A Black and Idiomatic Free Indirect Discourse.” 1987.  Rpt. in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Ed.  Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea Publishers, 1987.  59-71.  
Joyce, Joyce Anne. “The Tragic Hero.” 1986.  Rpt. in Richard Wright’s Native Son.  Ed.  Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.  67-88.
---.  “Richard Wright.” African American Writers.  Ed.  Valerie Smith.  2 vols.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001.  875-94. 
Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. “Tuh De Horizon and Back: The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black American Literature Forum 17 (1983): 109-15.  JSTOR.  16 Jan.  2006.  <http://www.jstor.org/search>.    
Margolies, Edward.  Native Son: A Critical Study of Twentieth Century Negro American Authors.  Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968.
Marks, Donald R. “Sex and Violence and Organic Consciousness in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black American Literature Forum 19 (1985): 152-57.  JSTOR.  16 Jan. 2006.
<http://www.jstor.org/search>.   
McCredie, Wendy J. “Authority and Authorization in Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Black American Literature Forum 16 (1982): 25-28.  JSTOR.  16 Jan. 2006. <http://www.jstor.org/search>.  
McKay, Nellie.  “Crayon Enlargements of Life: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as Autobiography.”  New Essays on Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Ed.  Michael Awkward.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.  51-70.    
Meese, Elizabeth. “Orality and Textuality in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” 1986.  Rpt. in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Ed.  Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea Publishers, 1987.  59-71.  
Nagel, James. “Images of ‘Vision’ in Native Son.”  1969.  Rpt. in Critical Essays on Richard Wright’s Native Son.  Ed.  Kenneth Kinnamon.  New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.  86-93. 
Ou-yang, Hsing-Hua.  The Racial /Textual Politics of Richard Wright’s Native Son.  MA thesis.  National Taiwan U, 1997.    
Pryse, Marjorie. “Introduction: Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and the Ancient Power of Black Women."  Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition.  Ed.
Marjorie Pryse and Hortense J. Spillers.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985.  1-24.    
Racine, Maria J. “Voice and Interiority in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” African American Review 28(1994): 283-92.  JSTOR.  16 Jan. 2006.  <http: // www.jstor.org. search>. 
Sartre, Jean-Paul.  Existentialism and Human Emotions.  New York: Citadel P, 1957. 
Skerrett, Joseph T., Jr. “Composing Bigger: Wright and the Making of Native Son."  1975. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Richard Wright’s Native Son.  Ed.  Kenneth Kinnamon. 
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.  104-18. 
Smith, Valerie. “Alienation and Creativity in Native Son.” 1987.  Rpt. in Bigger Thomas. Ed. Harold Bloom.  New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990.  143-50.  
Sollors, Werner. “The Clock, the Salesman and the Breast.” The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 6, Prose Writing 1910-1950.  Sacvan Bercovitch, et al, eds.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.  490-502.   
Stepto, Robert B.  From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative.  Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1979.  
Tremaine, Louis. “The Dissociated Sensibility of Bigger Thomas in Wright’s Native Son.” 1986.  Rpt. in Richard Wright: A Collection of Critical Essays.  Ed.  Arnold
Rampersad.  Princeton: Prentice Hall, 1995.  41-52. 
Walker, S. Jay. “Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: Black Novel of Sexism.” Modern Fiction Studies 20 (1974): 519-27. 
Wall, Cheryl A. “Zora Neale Hurston: Changing Her Own Words.” American Novelist Revisited: Essays in Feminist Criticism.  Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.  371-93.  
Ward, Jerry W., Jr. “Everyone’s Protest Novel: The Era of Richard Wright.”  The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel.  Ed.  Maryemma Graham.       
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.  173-88.  
Washington, Mary Helen. “The Darkened Eye Restored: Notes Toward a Literary History of Black Women.” Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Meridian, 1990.  30-43. 
---.  “Zora Neale Hurston: A Woman Half in Shadow.”I Love Myself When I Am Laughing and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader.  Ed.  Alice Walker.  New York: The Feminist P, 1979.  7-25.  
Wills, Susan. “Wandering: Hurston’s Search for Self and Method.” 1987.  Rpt. in  
Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present.  Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K.A. Appiah.  New York: Amistad P, 1993.  110-29.  
Wolff, Maria Tal. “Listening and Living: Reading and Experience in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” 1982.  Rpt. in Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present.  Ed.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah.  New York: Amistad P, 1993.  218-29. 
Wright, Richard.  Black boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.  
---.  “How Bigger Was Born.” Native Son.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1998. 
433-62. 
---.  Native Son.  1940.  New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.  [The restored text as established by the Library of America, 1991]  
---.   Their Eyes Were Watching God.  1937.  Rpt. in Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present.  Ed.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K.A. Appiah.  New York: Amistad, 1993.  16-17.   
Zafar, Rafia. “Southern Daughter, Native Son: Hurston and Wright.” The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 6, Prose Writing 1910-1950.  Sacvan Bercovitch, et al, eds.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.  340-47.