When Nature Triggers Trauma: Environmental Racism and Ecofeminism in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Abstract

This paper deals with the depiction of environmental racism, natural trauma and the woman/nature or woman/animal relationships in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The main goal is to identify and critically evaluate the impacts of such depictions or relationships in the context of the systemic oppression of African American women and men in the United States of America. For this purpose, excerpts from throughout the novel are discussed with regard to their depiction of dehumanization, animalization, natural trauma, or the metaphor of the female body, with the emphasis on ecofeminist and ecocritical aspects in Hurston’s work