The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Abstract

In his article, "The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God," Patrick S. explores the conception and representation of the self as a cognitive construct in Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By this approach, Bernard proposes that cogni- tive paradigms, such as knowing, seeing, thinking, and speaking, for example, and their capacities to engender knowledge and perception, identity and consciousness, memory and narrative, language and speech, are central to the novel's exploration of the self as an epistemological and ideological product. Using tools of interpretation adapted from cognitive psychology and radical constructivism, Bernard proposes in his analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God that the claim of the self as a cognitive- derived, constructed agent is central to the novel's discourse on self-formation and the constructivist philosophy that underlies it. In cognitive psychology the self is understood as contextual, or ecological, intertwining cognitive capacities with social experiences and Bernard's analysis affirms the novel's nar- rative where the self develops through cognitive and cultural interconnections.