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The Concepts of Hybridity, Miscegenation, and Mimicry on Zora
Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Maryam Moein Kharazia
a
Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Islamic Azad University
Abstract
The present article traces Homi Bhabha’s Postcolonial concepts of hybridity, miscegenation, and mimicry on Zora Neale
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) in order to demonstrate how subtly Hurston introduces these concepts in her
novel. These three concepts render the close relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. These notions highlight the
effects that the two opposite groups of black and white have on each other. In his theory of hybridity, Bhabha believes that
identity is not fixed and the encounter between the two cultures always affects both. The concepts of miscegenation, that is the
sexual union of different races, and mimicry which means the ways that the colonized imitates and repeats the colonizer’s ways
and manners also represent the hybrid relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The hybrid relationships between the
characters are traced and the notion of miscegenation and mimicry are applied on the novel.
Keywords: Postcolonial, Hybridity, Miscegenation, Mimicry;
1.
Introduction
Hybridity, miscegenation, and mimicry are the key terms in Postcolonialism. Ashcroft (1998) states
Postcolonialism “deals with the effects of colonization on cultures and societies” (p.186). Ashcroft (1995) also
asserts that in post-colonialism, there are discussions about different kinds of experiences such as: “migration,
slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, [and] place” (p.2). Major exponents of
Postcolonialism are Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), Edward Said (1935-2004), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (b. 1942),
and Homi K. Bhabha (b. 1949). Homi Bhabha has been a professor in several prestigious universities, including
Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University. One of his main works, Location of
Culture (1994), contains his twelve articles in which he introduces his postcolonial ideas and concepts (Bressler,
2007, p. 241).
Zora Neale Hurston (1891) was an African American novelist who published five works: Jonah’s Gourd Vine
(1934); Mules and Men (1935); Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); Tell My Horse (1938); and Moses, Man of
the Mountain (1939). Her other books include, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), her autobiography, and Seraphs on
the Suwanee (1948). She died as a result of a fatal stroke on January 28, 1960 (King, 2008, p.7).
2 Hybridity
Homi K. Bhabha, as the most important critic to analyze the concept of hybridity, tries to focus on the relations
and interactions between colonizer and colonized. In colonial relations the identities of colonizer and colonized are
not stable so that in his view the relationship between the two cultures is very complex and always affects both of
them. According to Ashcroft (1998), hybridity “refers to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact
zone produced by colonization” (p.118).
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Many sociologists and anthropologists believe that there is no pure identity or culture. As Huddart (2006)
suggests, “Bhabha insists less on hybridity than on hybridization; in other words, he insists on hybridity’s ongoing
process. In fact, for Bhabha there are no cultures that come together leading to hybrid forms; instead, cultures are the
consequence of attempts to still the flux of cultural hybridities”. Bhabha believes that the meaning of hybridity as
the interaction of distinct pure cultures is wrong; therefore, he attracts our attention to see what happens between the
cultures. Bhabha brings the idea of “liminal”, suggesting “that which is on the border or the threshold” (p.7).
Interviewed for the journal Art in America, Bhabha suggests the following about his own writing:
“In my writing, I’ve been arguing against the multiculturalist notion that you can put together harmoniously any
number of cultures in a pretty mosaic. You cannot just solder together different cultural traditions to produce some
brave new cultural totality. The current phase of economic and social history makes you aware of cultural difference
not at the celebratory level of diversity but always at the point of conflict or crisis.” (Huddart, 2006, p.124)
Bhabha distinguishes between hybridity with multiculturalism in which all separate cultures can be molded into
a harmonious whole. It is in the time of conflict and crisis when cultures have some effects on each other and that
brings about cultural hybridity.
2.1 Their Eyes Were Watching God
The notion of hybridity can be traced through Janie, the main character and her second husband, Joe Starks. The
two characters have internalized some values of white culture. Janie, as an African American, has internalized some
traits of white culture such as desire for capitalist life style, primacy of self over family, and feeling of superiority.
According to Hattenhauer (spring, 1994), Nanny arranges Janie's marriage with a farmer, named Logan
Killicks, who can provide her with “adequate economic security”. But Janie prefers the “capitalist Starks” to
Killicks and leaves him to live with Starks (p.49). Joe Starks and Janie meet when she is married to Logan. Janie’s
first meeting with Joe highlights that she is attracted to Jody because he presents to her a capitalist life which is a
white value. Janie is interested in him because he looks like a rich white man: “Janie took a lot of looks at him and
she was proud of what she saw. Kind of portly like rich white folks” (p.34).
Janie mostly cares about herself and does not care about finding her mother or tending Nanny's grave.
Hattenhauer asserts that “the high value that Janie places on doing what she wants rather than what family and
society want is, of course, a strong part of American culture” (p.50). This shows how Janie is affected by the white
culture.
As Hattenhauer states, Janie has internalized the whites’ “feeling of superiority” (p.52). Referring to Janie’s
feeling of superiority, Killicks once tells her: “You think youse white folks by de way you act” (p.30). She feels
self-importance and Hurston describes Janie’s ambition, “She had been getting ready for her great journey to the
horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she would find them and they find her.... She had
found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around”
(p.138).
According to Huddart (2006), hybridity suggests the “mixed-ness” or “impurity of cultures”, therefore no
culture is really “pure”. This concept also suggests “an original mixed-ness within every form of identity”. Huddart
notes that “cultures are not discrete phenomena; instead, they are always in contact with one another, and this
contact leads to cultural mixed-ness” (p.6).
Jody is another character whose identity is fully influenced in the relationship with the white colonizers since he
has internalized some values such as desire for economic prosperity, domination on the other people and feeling of
superiority.
Jody values material success like a capitalist white man. He desires to be a “big ruler” and a “big voice” so he
goes to live in “a town all outa colored folks” (p.28) where he can find the chance to prosper economically. When
Jody settles in the town he becomes the mayor of the town. He is also influenced by the ways whites gained
authority through the exploitation of blacks. Despite the fact that Joe contributes to the prosperity of the town, the
people in the town feel mistreated by him and by his “bow-down command” (p.44). People’s comments about Jody
represent this fact. For example once one of the town’s people says: “all he do is big-belly round and tell other folks
what tuh do. He loves obedience out of everybody under de sound of his voice” (p.49). Another person comments:
“it was bad enough for white people, but when one of your own color could be so different it put you on a wonder”
(p.45). People's comments illustrate the fact that Jody is not very different from white people who exploit and
mistreat the blacks.
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Jody's feeling of superiority is very much influenced by the white culture. As “Mrs. Mayor Starks,” Janie is not
allowed to communicate with “trashy people” or “folks dat don't even own de house dey sleep in” (p.51). According
to Kim (1999), Jody's limiting Janie's relationship with the people in the town represents “his intense desire for
racial differentiation, and his wishes to see his social position reflected through his wife” (p.67).
The notion of hybridity can also be traced in the penetration of Christianity to the blacks’ culture. There are
some biblical references in the novel which represent the influence of Christianity to the black culture. When Joe
and Janie’s relation deteriorates, Janie is described by Joe as “older than Methusalem” (p.78). Joe says Janie’s
overpowering him is like “the thing that Saul’s daughter had done to David” (p.79). The fact that Christianity has
influenced black culture shows the hybridity of their culture.
3 Miscegenation
According to Ashcroft (1998), Miscegenation, “the sexual union of different races, specifically whites with
negros (OED), has always haunted colonizers”. The union between blacks and whites was widespread in
colonialism, especially during the slavery period. Ashcroft claims that “French colonizers, for example, developed
about 128 differing degrees of pigmentation to distinguish between the children of mixed race relations”. Since the
discrimination between whites and blacks or colonizers and colonized was important for the colonizer’s
maintenance of power, miscegenation was considered as a danger for the colonial domination (p.142).
There are different terms implying miscegenation. Mestizo and métisse are the terms, respectively Spanish and
French in origin, rendering the meaning of “a mixing of races or cultures”. These terms originated from “a colonial
discourse that privileged the idea of racial purity and justified racial discrimination by employing the quasi-scientific
taxonomy of racial admixtures (mulatto, quadroon, octaroon, etc.)” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin, 1998, p.136).
According to Huddart (2006), as critics and theorists such as Bhabha have suggested, “the fear of
miscegenation” is derived from the colonizer’s desire to “maintain the separation between civilized and savage”. But
there is still “a profound longing” that the colonizer hides toward having a relation with the colonized and that
represents “the idea of the inevitable dependence of one on the existence of the other” (p.142).
According to Loomba (1998), the idea of miscegenation “brings together anxieties about female sexuality and
racial purity, and, as colonial contacts widen and deepen, it increasingly haunts European and Euro-American
culture” (p.134). The fear of “cultural pollution”, which is hybridity and “racial pollution”, which is miscegenation
brings about the idea of “instability of race”. Sexuality is therefore considered as “a means for the maintenance or
erosion of racial difference” (Loomba, 1998, p. 135).
3.1 Their Eyes Were Watching God
There are different African-American characters with mixed black and white parentage in this novel such as
Janie, her mother, Leafy, and Mrs. Turner. Janie's mother, Leafy, was born of a rape by a plantation master. The
mistress of the plantation knew that Nanny’s child was for her husband so she threatened to whip Nanny until she
bled to death and sell the baby into slavery when it was a month old. Nanny ran away from the plantation that night
and named the baby Leafy because she hid her in the leafy moss. Fortunately the war ended within a few months,
and Nanny never had to be a slave again. Leafy was raped by a schoolteacher whose racial identity was not
mentioned. She left her family after Janie was born. Janie never knew her mother or her father, and she was brought
up by her grandmother. Nanny worked for a white family named Washburn, and brought up Janie among the white
children.
Janie is described as having coffee-colored skin and straight hair. The imagery of Matt Bonner’s mule is
repeated over and over again in the novel. Joe Starks buys and frees this mule. According to Ashcroft (1998), the
term ‘mulatto’ means ‘young mule’ in Spanish. He notes:
“From the Spanish word for young mule (1595), referring to the progeny of a European and a negro (OED), the
term is sometimes used interchangeably with mestizo/métisse to mean a mixed or miscegenated society and the
culture it creates. However, its usage is usually confined to the classifications of miscegenation employed in racist
slave discourse, specifically referring to a slave who is one half white.” (p.147)
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Matt Bonner’s mule is “yellow” (58). According, to Jones (2002), “the term ‘high yellow’ was often used to
refer to light skinned African Americans, who were part of the mulatto elite and descendents of slaves and slave
masters”. The mulattos usually benefited from more social opportunities than the blacks because of the lighter color
of their skin (p.88). Matt Bonner's yellow mule stands for Janie and the way she is treated.
Mrs. Turner is a character who is very proud of her mulatto features. Hurston describes: “her nose was slightly
pointed and she was proud. Her thin lips were an ever delight to her eyes. Even her buttocks in bas-relief were a
source of pride. To her way of thinking all these things set her aside from Negroes” (p.140). Mrs. Turner hates black
people and criticizes Janie for marrying Tea Cake, her third husband. The idea of miscegenation is evident in Mrs.
Turner's words when she says: “who want any lil ole black baby layin’ up in de baby buggy lookin’ lak uh fly in
buttermilk? Who wants to be mixed up wid uh rusty black man, and uh black woman goin’ down de street in all dem
loud colors, and whoopin’ and hollerin’ and laughin’ over nothin’? Ah don't know” (p.141).
4 Mimicry
In “Of Mimicry and Man” (1984), Bhabha introduces mimicry as one of the key terms in postcolonial theory.
Mimicry is the act of imitation of the colonizer’s ways, behaviors, and customs. In this way the colonized either out
of choice or compulsion repeats the colonizer’s ways and culture in order to undermine the colonial binary
opposition of self and other. In bhabha’s opinion, mimicry is “the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a
subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite”. By imitating the colonizer’s behavior, values and
culture, mimicry “must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (Bhabha, 1994, p.122).
Mimicry represents resemblance but at the same time it consists of both “mockery” and “menace” (p.123).
Mimicry contains mockery because there are different elements of excess, slippage and difference that the colonized
uses in order to imitate the colonizer. As Ashcroft (1998) puts it, the result of mimicry “is never a simple
reproduction of those traits. Rather, the result is a ‘blurred copy’ of the colonizer that can be quite threatening. This
is because mimicry is never very far from mockery, since it can appear to parody whatever it mimics” (p.139).
Mimicry also contains a certain kind of menace or threat to the colonizer’s position. According to Huddart
(2006), colonialism needs “the colonized to be extremely like the colonizer, but by no means identical”. If the
colonizer and the colonized were identical, then the “colonial rule” would be shattered. This is because colonialism
“assumes that there is a structural split between superior and inferior which explains why the superior can dominate
the others” (p.59).
Bhabha (1994) states: “The desire to emerge as ‘authentic’ through mimicry—through a process of writing and
repetition—is the final irony of partial representation” (p.126). As Huddart (2006) mentions, “Bhabha suggests that
the partiality of presence in colonial discourse leads to a kind of drive to become authentic: authentically British
perhaps”, but this could always lead to “being more British than the British” (p.65).
Bart Moore Gilbert (1997) asserts that mimicry works with the aim of “civilizing” the colonized and changing
the colonized culture by the imitation of the colonizer's culture. Simultaneously, the strategy of mimicry needs the
distinction “between being English and being Anglicized”. The difference between “being English” and “being
Anglicized” brings about the distinction between the colonizer and colonized on which colonial power relies
(p.120).
4.1 Their Eyes Were Watching God
Joe Starks is a character whose aim in life is to be a “big voice” (p.28). In order to achieve this aim he acts like
a white man through his relations with the other blacks. As the mayor of Eatonville, Joe dominates the others. He
also mimics the life style of the whites to discriminate between himself and the other blacks. Bhabha (1994) defines
mimicry as “the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of difference that is almost the same, but not
quite. Which is to say, that the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective,
mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (p.122). Joe's mimicry stems from his
“desire for a reformed, recognizable Other” (p.122). Joe likes to be elevated to the whites’ position and he shows the
excess of mimicry by the way he behaves.
Joe desires to be white so he mimics the whites’ mistreatment of blacks and the whites’ luxurious life style. Joe
gained his power by mimicking the white colonizers’ taking power from others. Janie observes that he is “kind of
portly like rich white folks” (p.34). Hurston suggests that: “he had a bow-down command in his face, and every step
he took made the thing more tangible” (p.47). When some of the town folks comment about Joe, one of them says:
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“He can’t help bein’ sorta bossy. Some folks needs thrones, and ruling-chairs and crowns tuh make they influence
felt. He don’t. He’s got uh throne in de seat of his pants” (p.49).
In emulating white people in power, Jody makes ridiculous attempts to differentiate his own life style from
those of others. Jody’s house is an imitation of white mansions in the south: “a gloaty, sparkly white,” which makes
“the rest of the town look like servant's quarters surrounding the big house” (p.47). Jody ridiculously mimics white
behavior by swinging around in chairs, biting down cigar and spitting in “gold-looking vases” that other people
would value as ornaments (p.47). He buys expensive furniture such as gold spittoons for him and his wife. Jody’s
clothing style also represents his desire to imitate white rulers. Hurston describes: “It was a citified, stylish dressed
man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these parts. His coat was over his arm, but he didn't need it to
represent his clothes. The shirt with the silk sleeveholders was dazzling enough for the world” (p.27). Starks's
mimicry of the whites’ clothing style reveals his ambition to be separated from the black ‘Others’.
Another character who mimics the whites is Annie Tyler. Tyler, who leaves the town with a younger man, has
her make-up in a way to look like a white woman. Hurston describes her: “Mrs. Tyler with her dyed hair, newly
straightened and her uncomfortable new false teeth, her leathery skin, blotchy with powder and her giggle” (p.118).
She makes her appearance in a way to look like a white woman.
5 Conclusion
In this article Homi k. Bhabha’s key terms in postcolonial theory such as hybridity, Miscegenation, and
Mimicry were elaborated and traced on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hybridity refers to
the cultural interactions between colonizer and colonized. In colonial relations the identities of colonizer and
colonized are not fixed so that in Bhabha’s view the relationship between the two cultures always affects both of
them. Then the character of Janie, the main character of the novel, and her second husband, Joe Starks are analyzed
to highlight the hybridity of their cultures. The characters have internalized some traits of white culture such as
desire for capitalist life style, primacy of self over family, and feeling of superiority. The postcolonial concept of
Miscegenation refers to the sexual act between different races, specifically whites with Negros. Colonizers have
always had the anxiety about the idea of miscegenation out of their fear of impurity of race and getting mixed with
the colonized as inferior beings. Therefore they have developed different degrees of pigmentation to distinguish
between the children of mixed race relations. There are different African-American characters in this novel such as
Janie, her mother, Leafy, and Mrs. Turner. It was mentioned that the mulattos usually benefited from more social
opportunities than the blacks because of their features. Even mostly those blacks who are the descendants of a white
blood consider themselves more refined and better than the other black people. At last the concept of mimicry was
elaborated and traced in the characters of Joe Starks and Annie Tyler in the novel. Mimicry is the act of imitation of
the colonizer’s ways, behaviors, and customs. As the mayor of Eatonville, Joe achieves power in the same way that
white colonizers did, by gaining a position of leadership and using it to dominate others. He also mimics the life
style of the whites to discriminate between himself and the other blacks. Another character who mimics the whites is
Annie Tyler who has her make-up in a way to look like a white woman. The concepts of hybridity, mimicry, and
miscegenation were applied on the novel to represent the existence of a complex and close relation between the
colonizer and the colonized.
1. References
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