O Périplo de Janie Crawford em Seus Olhos Viam Deus, de Zora Nelae Hurston: autoconhecimento, identidade e liberdade

Abstract

This qualitative work analyzed the journey of Janie Crawford, protagonist of the novel Their Eyes Were God ([1937] 2021), by the African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston, from the point of view of the double journey she undertook in search of self-knowledge, a journey that started with the aim of finding for herself an identification that would accommodate her desire for self-definition, affirmation and freedom, amid the challenges of the journey of a black woman born in the 1930s, in the patriarchal and misogynistic South of the United States, and the facts that contributed to the fracture of her identity, evidenced by events that occurred in her past, present and future, alongside companions who influenced, for better or for worse, her process of identity construction and self-realization. The main objective of this research was to highlight the importance of self-knowledge as the key to achieving her freedom and acquiring the voice that had always been denied to her, from childhood to adulthood, a desire that eventually came to fruition, through a physical and spiritual journey that gradually made her move from object to subject in her own story. To achieve the objective described above, theoretical approaches, formulations and postulates were took from the studies by Hall (2006); Santa Bárbara (2018); hooks (1981); Hurston (1975; 1979; 2006; 2021); Butler (1990); Campbell (1997); Bonnici; Zolin (2003), Kaplan (2003); Nogueira (2016); Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1982); Orlandi (2007); Smith (2007); Mangueira; Leite (2018), Perrot (2019), Basques (2019); Vizu (2019); Davies (2021), Bortoni, (2022), Gamze Ar (2023); Fonteles (1987) and Liebig (2024), among many others who helped in the conclusion of the research, culminating in a victory that was not only of the protagonist, but of all women in identical conditions of oppression.