Abstract

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a classic in African American literature written by African American female writer Zora Neale Huston. Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker once stated that there was no book more important to her than this one. By depicting Janie’s process of awakening, from an innocent girl to a mature and independent woman with feminist consciousness, the novel tells the story of an African American girl’s journey of desire-pursuing. Desire is deemed as the essence of a human being by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. According to his theory of desire, human yearnings consist of three levels: need, demand, and desire. As the highest level of the three, desire is often unsatisfied and therefore keeps motivating the actions of human beings. Based on Lacan’s theory on desire, this paper focuses on the desire of the protagonist Janie, trying to answer questions such as: What is Janie’s desire? What’s the relationship between Janie’ s desire and other characters’ desires? Through analyzing symbolism in the novel, Janie’s desire or quest for self-identity and love will be revealed.