This paper analyzes Seraph on the Suwanee, one of Zora Neale Hurston's later novels, focusing on systematic problems in the white male-dominated society, as well as on the aspects of deconstructing male(husband) authority. Recently, the works of Huston have been rediscovered and reevaluated by new methods of literary assessment, and the attention of black women writers. Even though Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most famous of Hurson's novels, has drawn many people and critics' attention after years of partial and unfair critical appreciation, most scholars and critics have not paid much attention to Seraph on the Suwanee. This is due to the fact that the main male and female characters of this novel are all white, and that there is no unique ‘blackness’ in this novel. Published in 1948, Seraph on the Suwanee is the story of Arvay Henson's faltering efforts to reject not only her husband Jim’s physical and mental oppression, but also more importantly, the ‘ideal wife discourse’ in the 1940s. On the surface, the love between Arvay and Jim looks romantic and passionate, but their married life reveals the negative and undesirable aspects of male-female relationships in a male-centered patriarchal society. In spite of being described as an attractive and powerful figure in the beginning of the novel, Jim slowly loses his power over Arvay and finally becomes a ‘baby’ as the story progresses. All the while, Arvay realizes her own personal virtues and restores confidence and conviction in the relationship with Jim, and decides to become Jim’s mother at last.Because Hurston's discourse in this novel is distorted by a complex ambivalence and awkward expressions, critics have been discomfited and bewildered, and they have excluded the novel from the canonical track. Arvay's persistent attempts to preserve her integrity through resistance are motivated by a tenacious belief in her own intrinsic worth and in her rights to individual freedom and social respect. The development of her essential identity is slowly realized, but in the end, she finds freedom, meaning, a sense of community, and the potential for continued growth in her discovery of an active, inclusive, and unconditional love. Arvay’s final assertion of feminine authority and maternal power is the result of a continuous quest for identity as a woman. Moreover, Hurston implicitly but powerfully criticizes the patriarchal system in America by making Jim a baby, and making Arvay his mother. Hurston challenges contemporary stereotypes of wives as ‘angels in the house.’ Through the figure of Jim, who has energetic male sexuality, but finally acts like a baby protected by his wife, Hurston raises a fundamental question about what an ideal relationship between husband and wife should be. She also warns American patriarchal culture that it might be totally destroyed if oppression of male/husband on female/wife continues, propagating the concept that marriage between equals does not work.
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