Abstract:
This research paper investigates how elements of African American literary tradition
add meaning to the main theme and idea of Hurston’s famous novel Their Eyes Were
Watching God. African American literary tradition is limited in this research to the two
prominent elements of folk motifs and orality, which are investigated through Henry
Louis Gates’ theory of Signifying. This theory explains the tension between the literal
and figurative, in other words, Signifying is a rhetorical strategy wherein ideas and
themes have a deeper meaning that goes beyond their literal sense. In the same way,
the two characteristics of folk and orality in African American literary tradition have a
figurative meaning to the novel. This research paper makes the assumption that the
folk and oral traditions used in the novel signify on the theme of voice and the tension
between the inside and outside.
