On Zora Neale Hurston: Fictionalizing Funerals in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
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On Zora Neale Hurston: Fictionalizing Funerals
in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Sharon Lynette Jones
In a pivotal scene in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watch-
ing God, the townspeople of Eatonville, Florida, attend a funeral for
Joe Starks, a prominent citizen and mayor. Hurston’s depiction of
the funeral—which features an elaborate procession with luxury au-
tomobiles, people from a variety of social and economic levels, and
a band performing religious music—highlights Starks’s importance,
influence, and stature in comparison to other people in the commu-
nity where he resided for many years. The funerals in Their Eyes Were
Watching God for Joe Starks and other characters such as the mule and
Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods show how Hurston used fiction to dem-
onstrate the rituals, customs and values of African Americans during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hurston uses funerals
in the novel to reflect, represent, and reproduce social and historical
aspects of African American culture.
When looking at the depiction of funerals in Their Eyes Were
Watching God, it is essential to acknowledge the scholarship on the
distinct social and historical contexts that shape funerals and burying
practices among African Americans. Suzanne E. Smith’s To Serve the
Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death and
Karla FC Holloway’s Passed On: African American Mourning Stories
provide important information on these distinct characteristics that
appear in African American funerals. The commentary by Smith and
Holloway in their respective texts provides a context for understanding
Hurston’s treatment of African American funeral practices, rituals, and
activities in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
In To Serve the Living, Smith stresses that African Americans have
historically viewed death as a form of emancipation. Smith claims that
enslaved African Americans viewed dying as positive because it meant
On Zora Neale Hurston 3
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 3 4/25/2013 12:17:17 PMthey would no longer face discrimination and that dying symbolized
emancipation from the brutality they endured while being forced la-
borers in the United States within the period of legalized enslavement
(17–18). She also contends that Africans historically also believed that
those who died continued to control the lives of people who lived,
and that dying does not sunder the relationship or connection between
those who have died and those who are still living. Smith suggests
that Africans ideas about dying might have contributed to ideas among
African Americans about dying which are expressed through African
American funerals (19). In Passed On, Holloway emphasizes the eco-
nomics of funerals and the idea of how African American funerals of-
ten display a lavish, public, and extravagant quality rooted within an
African American cultural context (181). She also writes about Hur-
ston’s funeral (124) and Hurston’s account (in Dust Tracks on a Road)
of her mother’s death (122–23). Smith and Holloway’s commentaries
provide an important social and historical context for understanding
the role of funerals in African American communities in the past and
the present within the context of American history.
Drawing on Smith’s To Serve the Living, which shows that funerals
symbolize liberation from discrimination and the connection between
those who died and those who lived (17–19), and chapter 4 of Hol-
loway’s Passed On, which emphasizes how funerals reflect aspects of
African American culture, I will argue that funerals in Their Eyes Were
Watching God serve three functions: 1) Funerals celebrate the idea of
dying as emancipation from being an oppressed person or animal; 2)
funerals show the important religious, emotional, spiritual, and psycho-
logical connection between those who have died and those who remain
alive; and, 3) the extravagance of the funerals reinforces ideas about the
stature of the person who died. In this essay, I examine how in Their
Eyes Were Watching God Hurston’s representations of the funeral for
the mule, Mayor Joe Starks, and Tea Cake Woods also demonstrate
these three primary functions while showcasing the power of African
American culture and traditions in a social and historical context.
4 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 4 4/25/2013 12:17:17 PM“Death had to take him like it found him”: The Mule
Funeral in Their Eyes Were Watching God
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the funeral for the mule symbolizes
emancipation in addition to symbolizing the connection between the
deceased mule and the rest of the community who remain alive. Also,
the structure and content of the funeral reflects aspects of African Amer-
ican culture and traditional ways of memorializing the dead in African
American communities. In chapter seven of Their Eyes Were Watching
God, Janie Starks, the protagonist (and wife of Joe Starks), laments the
treatment of a mule by people in Eatonville, Florida. Although she is
the wife of the mayor and lives in relative comfort, she still cares about
the less fortunate mule. This empathy stems from her own feelings of
being oppressed in her marriage by a controlling husband who stifles
her independence, and her voice. Like Janie, the mule also faces a situ-
ation where he is exploited, mistreated, and given second-class status.
The mule’s owner, Matt Bonner, is notorious for not properly feeding
the mule or treating it in a humane manner. Other people in the com-
munity are also abusive, mocking, and disrespectful toward the mule
because it is an animal of low status. Janie most likely identifies with
the mule because she feels badly treated in her own marriage by Joe
Starks. After she expresses her disgust at the townspeople’s behavior
towards the mule and her empathy for the mule’s situation, Joe decides
to liberate the mule by purchasing it from Matt Bonner.
After Joe purchases the mule, the mule lives for awhile, and then
dies. Unfortunately, Joe Starks denies Janie the opportunity to attend
a funeral for the mule by alleging it would be inappropriate for her
to be there due to her gender and high economic status. Instead, the
funeral features eulogies by Joe Starks, townsperson Sam, and com-
mentary by a buzzard later on after the humans leave the funeral site.
In “Free Mules, Talking Buzzards, and Cracked Plates: The Politics of
Dislocation in Their Eyes Were Watching God, “ Sharon Davie states,
“She cannot come with the rest of the community, just as she cannot
exchange stories with the others on the front porch of the store” (450).
On Zora Neale Hurston 5
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 5 4/25/2013 12:17:17 PMIn contrast, Joe gets the opportunity to eulogize the mule at the funeral.
In the article “From Mules to Muliebrity: Speech and Silence in Their
Eyes Were Watching God,” Julie A. Haurykiewicz states, “His eulogy
is an attempt at self-aggrandizement, and he, significantly, stands on
the dead mule in order to make himself heard, just as those in power
stand on the silenced” (58). In addition, a male character named Sam
speaks at the funeral for the mule. Describing Sam’s eulogy, Hurston
writes, “He spoke of the joys of mule-heaven to which the dear brother
had departed this valley of sorrow; the mule-angels flying around; the
miles of green corn and cool water, a pasture of pure bran with a river
of molasses running through it, and most glorious of all, No Matt Bon-
ner with plow lines and halters to come in and corrupt” (60–61). Sam’s
exploitative and abusive comments about Matt Bonner constitute a
kind of retribution in which Bonner is treated as he had treated the
mule in the past. In mimicking the behavior of humans at a funeral for
humans, people react to the powerful sermon by Sam by shouting in a
kind of imitation of religious ecstasy.
After Joe and Sam’s eulogies, birds gather and another funeral cer-
emony occurs, featuring buzzards. The funeral ceremony featuring the
birds follows the “call and response” pattern of the African American
oral tradition in churches in which the preacher makes a statement and
the congregation or onlookers respond to that statement, so that there
is a constant dialogue between the pastor or preacher and the listeners.
Gorman Beauchamp points out, “And when the people leave, the buz-
zards hold their own funeral rites over the departed, with a call-and-
response parody of Negro church services” (78). In Passed On, Hol-
loway writes about how “call-and-response” functions as a vital part
of funerals for African Americans in general (175). Even the mule’s
funeral follows the traditional way of eulogizing a human being in the
African American cultural context, and Hurston brilliantly highlights
this aspect in her depiction of the mule funeral.
The mule becomes memorialized in a way. Hurston writes, “The
yaller mule was gone from the town except for the porch talk, and for
6 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 6 4/25/2013 12:17:17 PMthe children visiting his bleaching bones now and then in the spirit of
adventure” ( Hurston 62). In reality, the mule continues in “porch talk”
(Hurston 62) and the funeral for the mule by people represents the cen-
trality of the mule to their existence in both the human and the natural
world. It also illustrates the importance of mules in African American
communities in the early twentieth century. Thus, Hurston’s rendering
of the mule funeral reinforces the idea of emancipation as revealed in
Sam’s eulogy for the mule, the concept of the mule being connected
with members of the community after he dies due to “porch talk” (Hur-
ston 62) and recollection of the mule through the oral tradition, and the
evocation of “call and response,” which is an important part of African
American funeral traditions.
In addition, it is essential to point out that while this concept of a
funeral for a mule might seem quite surprising in the text, Hurston
actually wrote about an animal that was memorialized very much like
a human in Tell My Horse. Edwidge Danticat in her “Foreword” to
Their Eyes Were Watching God has even suggests that the mule funeral
in Their Eyes bears similarity with a Haitian goat funeral that Hurston
wrote about in Tell My Horse (xiii–xiv). Although the publication date
for Their Eyes was 1937, the publication date for Tell My Horse was
1938 (“Chronology” 215). Hurston writes about this extravagant cer-
emony in honor of the goat that died in Tell My Horse. Thus, Hurston’s
representation of the funeral for the mule in Their Eyes was not her
only foray into writing about an animal that receives the type of me-
morializing that one would associate with a human being. In this sense,
however, the key difference lies in the fact that, unlike the account
in Tell My Horse which purports to be truth, in Their Eyes Hurston
fictionalizes a funeral for a mule and sets the ceremony within an Af-
rican American community, using the funeral as a means to symbolize
the ideas of emancipation, the connection between those who die and
those who live, and the ideas that the extravagance of the ceremony re-
flects the status of the deceased within this particular African American
community in Florida.
On Zora Neale Hurston 7
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 7 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PM“Weeping and wailing outside”: Joe Starks’s Funeral
and A Community’s Reaction
The second prominent funeral in Their Eyes Were Watching God is for
Mayor Joe Starks (Janie’s spouse). The funeral for Joe symbolizes the
idea of death as emancipation, the connection between the deceased
and those who remain alive, and his social and economic status due
to the elaborate nature of the funeral ceremony. Hurston creates a fu-
neral that is truly a community event to highlight his stature as mayor,
real estate mogul, and business owner. Hurston writes, “Joe’s funeral
was the finest thing Orange County had ever seen with Negro eyes”
(Hurston 88; emphasis in original). Hurston’s description here is very
important for it categorizes the funeral within an African American so-
cial and historical context. From the wording of this passage, the fu-
neral that takes place may not be finer than any other funeral in Orange
County, but it is “the finest thing Orange County had ever seen with
Negro eyes” (Hurston 88) to suggest that the type of funeral he had
was uncommon among African Americans at the time because of the
scope and the expense of it. The passage implies that funerals were not
uncommon for African Americans but this type of grandiose funeral
was uncommon among African Americans at the time in that part of
Florida. The grand scale of the funeral is described in vivid and bold
terms. The reader is provided with a description of the types of auto-
mobiles there including a Buick as well as Cadillac (Hurston 88). This
showy display conveys the sense that some of the funeral participants
were from the upper classes, given that, historically, fewer people at
this time had mechanized forms of transportation—never mind ex-
pensive vehicles such as Cadillacs. At the same time, individuals from
more humble backgrounds are present as well. Hurston writes, “People
on farm horses and mules; babies riding astride of brothers’ and sisters’
backs” (Hurston 88). This suggests a range of people, from those who
can afford luxury automobiles to individuals relying on farm animals.
Hurston’s depiction of the funeral shows a broad section of the com-
munity here. Hurston describes Joe Starks’s death as “The Little Em-
8 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 8 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMperor of the cross-roads was leaving Orange County as he had come—
with the out-stretched hand of power” (88). The language reinforces
the idea of Starks as still having a connection with the people in Ea-
tonville even though he no longer lives. His death still holds a power-
ful sway over humans and animals because his influence is revealed
in the huge outpouring of individuals that show up for this occasion.
Despite the mixed feelings people in Eatonville had about Starks due
to his money, his position, and his domineering ways, the community’s
residents show up in full force for his funeral. Holloway’s commentary
in Passed On regarding the elaborate nature of funerals for some Afri-
can Americans of high status and stature within society helps provide
a social and historical context for understanding Hurston’s depiction
of Starks’s funeral. She writes, “Twentieth-century African Americans
also implicitly understood that, at this final moment, when there is lit-
erally no time left, to take the requisite time to honor and dignify a life
is a determinative form of final tribute” (181). Holloway also points
out, “For many it was important to note the procession of cars and
prominent numbers of mourners. Their visual excess expressed a story
that African America otherwise had difficulty illustrating—that these
were lives of importance and substance, or that these were individuals,
no matter their failings or the degree to which their lives were quietly
lived, who were loved” (181). Hurston’s fictionalization of Joe Starks’s
funeral reflects this idea of “visual excess” in terms of individuals pres-
ent, automobiles, and the Eatonville residents’ reaction to his death,
despite the complicated nature of both admiration and resentment to-
wards the man who rose to such great heights in their town.
Even Janie recognizes the importance of her presence at her hus-
band’s funeral. Hurston writes, “Janie starched and ironed her face and
came set in the funeral behind her veil” (Hurston 88). She is putting on
a public display, recognizing that she must show a particular persona
or image to the rest of the world on this occasion. Hurston writes, “The
funeral was going on outside. All things concerning death and burial
were said and done. Finish. End. Never-more. Darkness. Deep hole.
On Zora Neale Hurston 9
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 9 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMDissolution. Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expen-
sive black folds were resurrection and life” (Hurston 88). Hurston
adds, “She sent her face to Joe’s funeral , and herself went rollicking
with the springtime across the world. After a while the people finished
their celebration and Janie went on home” (Hurston 88–89). These
passages from the novel illustrate that Starks’s death represents a form
of emancipation for Janie, who is now free from him. The townspeople
of Eatonsville are also free now from Starks, who believed that he was
superior to them. At the same time, it can be argued that death frees
Starks, too, in the sense that he no longer is in the position to feel that
he has to oppress others in order to maintain his status in society due
to the fact that he is dead. At the same time, he continues to exert an
influence on the community even in death given that Janie finds herself
compelled to attend his funeral, as do the many others in attendance.
His departure is just as monumental as his arrival in the town, and the
throngs of people and automobiles in attendance also reflect hallmarks
of African American culture as articulated in Holloway’s commentary
on African Americans and funerals and “visual excess” (Holloway
181), which Hurston expertly depicts.
Despite his death, Joe continues to influence Janie’s life and those
of other people in Eatonville. For example, after Joe dies, the towns-
people still associate Janie with her dead husband, and they expect her
to behave in ways that are considered socially appropriate for a griev-
ing widow. When she later becomes romantically involved with Tea
Cake Woods, they do no not approve of the relationship because Tea
Cake does not have the same social status or stature as Joe Starks. The
people in the town consider Janie to only have an identity in connec-
tion with her dead husband. Thus, Starks continues to symbolically
rule the town even after he dies because they recall his powerful and
enduring legacy in Eatonville. Nevertheless, Janie manages to break
free from his oppressive ways by moving on to a different stage in her
life and becoming involved with Tea Cake even though there is opposi-
tion to their relationship.
10 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 10 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PM“He looked almost ready to grin”: The funeral for
Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods
The final funeral in Their Eyes Were Watching God, that of Vergible
“Tea Cake” Woods, reinforces the idea of death as a form of emancipa-
tion, the strong relationship that exists between the dead and those who
mourn them, and the importance of having an elaborate ceremony that
befits and matches the regard people had for the deceased as well as the
deceased’s status in the community. The scholarship on Their Eyes ac-
knowledges the importance of Tea Cake dying in the text. More impor-
tantly, it acknowledges how Tea Cake’s dying functions as a vital part
of the novel’s structure and theme. In his article “Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Influence of Jens Peter Jacob-
sen’s Marie Grubbe,” Jon Woodson writes, “Chapter one of Their Eyes
Were Watching God establishes the frame for Janie’s narrative: Janie
Woods has buried the ‘sudden’ dead–her third husband Tea Cake—and
returned to her home town on foot” (5). Similarly, Darryl Hattenhauer,
in “The Death of Janie Crawford: Tragedy and the American Dream in
Their Eyes Were Watching God,” writes, “The announcement of Tea
Cake’s death in the beginning (the first chapter in this flashback plot
includes some events from the end of the story) imparts the fated qual-
ity of tragedy” (46). Thus, if the novel focuses on Janie’s attempt to
gain an understanding of her place in the world and her relationship to
other people, then Tea Cake comes to symbolize the possibilities of her
attaining her goals and desires and also the limitations given that she
is the one who kills him. In fact, Janie helps to precipitate Tea Cake’s
funeral by killing him whereas in the other cases where the characters
died and there was a funeral, her actions did not cause death.
Unlike Logan Killicks (Janie’s first husband) and Joe Starks (Janie’s
second husband), Tea Cake does not have a lot of money, a powerful
job, or many possessions. He is the antithesis of Killicks and Starks;
however, Janie cherishes Tea Cake. For example, she meets him after
Joe Starks dies. They begin a courtship and she has the opportunity to
engage in activities with Tea Cake that she could not with Joe Starks.
On Zora Neale Hurston 11
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 11 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMPeople in the town do not approve of her relationship with Tea Cake,
because they do not see him as being at the same level as Joe Starks.
In fact, they start to lament the impact this would have on Joe Starks.
Huston writes, “Poor Joe Starks. Bet he turns over in his grave ev-
ery day” (Hurston 110). The residents treat her relationship with Tea
Cake as an affront or insult to Joe Starks, with the idea that she should
have a more suitable mate because of her social and economic class.
In addition, Janie and Tea Cake fish, hunt, attend the cinema, and in
other ways display a relationship that differs from Janie’s previous
partnerships. Even Janie’s friend Pheoby Watson does not approve of
the relationship and actually promotes the idea of Janie dating a San-
ford, Florida, man who works in the funeral business (Hurston 111,
113). These comments reveal that Pheoby views Tea Cake as socially
and economically beneath Janie and Joe Starks. Hurston’s inclusion
of Pheoby’s comments also indicates an awareness of the economic
advantages that someone in the funeral business would have in terms
of being financially secure or stable due to his profession.
Suzanne E. Smith’s book To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors
and the African American Way of Death supports this idea of people
in the funeral business historically playing a vital role in the economic
fortunes of African Americans. According to Smith, change occurred
in American culture within 1800s, when families started having pro-
fessional undertakers be responsible for preparing bodies of people
who had died for viewing rather than individuals related to the per-
son who had died. This change occurred due to people relocating to
city environments (Smith 31–32). She writes, “The undertaker would
manage all other funeral arrangements, which now involved ordering
a range of products from factory-made caskets to burial robes. Burial
no longer took place at a private graveyard but at a lawn cemetery with
landscapes that evoked the restfulness of a park rather than the sober
setting of the early nineteenth-century graveyard. A funeral ultimately
became a commodity that was purchased in the free market and, there-
fore, was used to determine one’s status in American society” (32).
12 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 12 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMThus, by the early 1900s when Joe Starks dies, individuals in the funer-
al business would have been prevalent in the United States, including
states like Florida. The Sanford man that Janie’s friend Pheoby refers
to would illustrate this fact.
Despite her friend’s plea that she be involved with someone with
more money and prestige, Janie decides to wed Tea Cake. Although
Janie eventually marries Tea Cake and is happy for a period of time, he
becomes ill with rabies after saving Janie’s life from a rabid dog that
was about to attack her during a hurricane. Janie later kills Tea Cake
to protect herself. She is briefly imprisoned, stands trial, and then is
acquitted. Later, she has a funeral for Tea Cake. Given Smith’s account
of African Americans and the funeral industry during this period of
time, Hurston’s representation of the funeral remains quite realistic,
for a variety of reasons. Smith reminds us that African Americans did
have funerals for loved ones, and that the type of funeral reflected the
person’s position (Smith 32). While Tea Cake came from humble ori-
gins, Janie symbolizes wealth and she ensures that Tea Cake has a fu-
neral befitting her care and concern for him. This funeral, like the ones
for the mule and Joe Starks, emphasizes aspects of African American
culture in relation to funerals including the connection between those
who are alive and those who are dead, the extravagance, the numbers
of people there, the fancy coffin, and the reaction of the people to Tea
Cake’s death. Furthermore, Hurston describes it as a majestic funeral,
and it highlights the notions of death as emancipatory due to him no
longer suffering from the effects of rabies. Unlike the mule memori-
alized by Joe Starks and Sam, Tea Cake did not face the same type
of exploitation as the mule. However, death still means emancipation
from the tribulations he faces in life due to the discrimination he en-
dured due to race and class from individuals like Mrs. Turner, a black
woman with a light-complexion who did not approve of Tea Cake due
to her prejudice against black people with a darker complexion, and
the townspeople who disapproved of his relationship with Janie due to
their class prejudice based on the fact that he does not have as much
On Zora Neale Hurston 13
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 13 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMmoney as Janie’s previous husband Joe Starks. In death, he becomes
emancipated and is no longer affected by Mrs. Turner and the preju-
dice of the people of Eatonville who practice class snobbery.
Despite Tea Cake’s humble position in life, Janie buries him as if he
were a prominent member of society. Hurston writes, “The Undertaker
did a handsome job and Tea Cake slept royally on his white silken
couch among the roses she had bought. He looked almost ready to
grin” (Hurston 189). Hurston’s depiction of Tea Cake conveys the idea
that there is still life, vitality, and energy in Tea Cake despite the fact
that he has died, which suggests he still communicates with the living
even though he died, and the idea that he is now emancipated from any
physical, emotional, or psychological suffering brought on by rabies.
The funeral also helps Janie regain the trust and respect of people
in the community. Although residents of the area in which they resided
were angry about Janie killing Tea Cake and were not happy with the
outcome of the trial, they change their minds due to the extravagance
of the funeral; clearly there is a parallel in their minds between how
much one cares about the deceased and how much one spends. Hurston
writes, “So the day of the funeral they came with shame and apology
in their faces. They wanted her quick forgetfulness. So they filled up
and overflowed the ten sedans that Janie had hired and added others to
the line” (Hurston 189). While Tea Cake did not have the same amount
of money or belongings as Joe Starks, Janie makes sure that this event
honoring Tea Cake is respectful and expensive. Hurston pays careful
attention to details in her depiction of the funeral so that readers see
how much the community cared about Tea Cake and how his death
does not go unnoticed or unacknowledged by other people. The exces-
sive number of sedans present reflects Holloway’s point in Passed On
regarding the correlation between automobiles and the deceased’s stat-
ure (181). The cars show that Tea Cake was held in high esteem. Janie
clearly spares no expense with this ceremony for Tea Cake. It also
functions as a very open and public acknowledgement of how much
he means to her and, more importantly, to other people. In fact, one of
14 Critical Insights
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 14 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMTea Cake’s friends cites the funeral as evidence that Janie cares about
Tea Cake (Hurston 190). The friend’s statement reveals how impor-
tant funerals are to African Americans and represents or reflects Janie’s
reverence for Tea Cake since the friend fondly remembers this funeral
and the expense and effort Janie goes to in order to publicly mourn her
husband.
After Janie returns to Eatonville following Tea Cake’s funeral, she
continues to think about him, which suggests that despite his passing
he still remains as a presence for his widow. Hurston writes, “The kiss
of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall” (193).
In commenting on the significance of the “kiss of his memory” section
in Their Eyes, Tracy L. Bealer argues that “the function of memory is
highly ambivalent in this passage. Though the ‘kiss of [Tea Cake’s]
memory’ suggests erotic touch and intimacy, it is only a memory that
necessarily excludes the material sensuality and physical contact so
critical to the pear tree vision” (324). I would argue that Hurston’s in-
clusion of the idea of the “kiss of memory” (Their Eyes 193) reveals
the notion that despite his physical death, the two remain united and
connected with each other, and that the funeral just represented an-
other form of communication between the two of them, for they still
are linked with one another, even if Janie is alive and Tea Cake is
dead. Thus, Janie continues to have a relationship with Tea Cake even
though he is deceased. If Tea Cake fulfills her desire for union with
another, then his death does not sunder that union due to the nature of
their marriage.
Implication for Funerals in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were
Watching God
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston renders funerals in a way
that shows how they function for African Americans. Although one
funeral is for a mule, another one is for a mayor (Joe Starks), and an-
other is for a laborer (Tea Cake), each funeral shows aspects of how
meaningful funeral ceremonies are to the characters within Hurston’s
On Zora Neale Hurston 15
CI5_ZoraNealeHurston.indd 15 4/25/2013 12:17:18 PMtext. Funerals also represent transitional moments in Janie’s life. Each
of the three funerals in the book symbolizes Janie’s new status as an
emancipated woman who can now begin the new or next stage of her
life. The notion of death or a funeral symbolizing emancipation, the
connection between those who have died and those who continue to
live, and the extravagant and elaborate ceremonies in the funerals for
the mule, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake show the significance of funerals in
an African American social and historical context. While the funerals
may not generate as many pages in the text as other incidents, the rel-
evance of the funerals cannot be denied. They perform a function for
the members of the communities where Janie spends much of her time
and expose the reader to African American culture within Florida dur-
ing the early 1900s. Thus, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
proves to be a novel that is focused on living, dying, and memorial-
izing. Hurston allows us, as readers, to be privy to these events, and
we get the opportunity to witness, experience, and observe the role of
funerals within the world that she creates.
Works Cited
Bealer, Tracy L. “‘The Kiss of Memory’: The Problem of Love in Hurston’s Their
Eyes Were Watching God.” African American Review 43. 2/3 (2009): 311–27. Aca-
demic Search Complete. Web. 23 Dec. 2012.
Beauchamp, Gorman “Zora Neale Hurston’s Other Eatonville.” Texas Review 32.3/4
(2011): 75–87. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Dec. 2012.
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On Zora Neale Hurston 17
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