Identity Formation: A Study of Conventional Marriages and Structure of African American Families in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Passing

Abstract

In America, social, moral, and national unity issues have arisen because of the country's rapid population growth and the spread of many ethnicities. The Constitution then chose to make African Americans citizens of the United States by allowing them the freedom to marry. the constitution made it permissible for Afro-Americans to wed among themselves as well as in their locality. Many African Americans embraced this offer of citizenship by accepting the freedom to wed legally. Sadly, these rules gave them a new method of subjugation. This research aims at emphasizing on the difficulties and dilemmas that African American families, as portrayed in Nella Larsen's Passing and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. They had little privileges but numerous difficulties. Critical Race Theory provides information to understand the construction and deconstruction of law either in favor or against minorities. The nature of the study is qualitative because it deals with ideas and their social implications. Textual analysis of the texts proves that conventional and unstable marriages created barriers in their path. African American families are portrayed as being fragile, weak, pitiful, and loosely constructed under the sway of fast and traditional marriages. It further reveals that racism is deeply ingrained in American culture and has disastrous effects on African American family structures.