Gender Roles in Their Eyes Were Watching God - 1087 Words

Gender Roles in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God During the 1900’s, women, specifically black women, were considered to be property of men in the United States, especially down south, in states such as Florida and Georgia. Legally, women had no voice. For example, if a woman was abused by her husband, the court system would not acknowledge it even if it did really happen. In the article â€Å"Sexism in the Early 1900’s†, Becca Woltemath states that â€Å"†¦a woman’s job is to take care of the house and to bear children. She’s no good for anything else. She’s just a simple thinker.† Women were forced into submission and there was nothing they could do about it. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston shows the†¦show more content†¦Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road†¦Lawd have mussy! Dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hu ng on’† (Hurston 23). In Nanny’s speech, Hurston is trying to emphasize that the female’s only role is to marry and look good, and let the man do all the work. Also in her article, Hartman says that â€Å"†¦due to the fact that the man was almost always working, little room was left to develop a connection between husband and wife; love was a foreign concept.†, which describes what Janie and Logan have together exactly. Despite being given all she should want, Janie seeks more. When Joe â€Å"Jody† Starks appears out of nowhere, Janie feels like her dreams have finally come true. But after a while, the marriage turns out to be little more than the stint with Killicks. Starks, like Killicks, treats her as property and not as someone he actually loves. One example is how Jody makes Janie put her hair up in a wrap while working in the store, rather than leave it down. Another is when he publicly criticizes her appearance, saying sh e is starting to show her age, when he is clearly at least ten years older: â€Å"’ You ain’t no young courtin’ gal. You’se uh old woman, nearly fourty’† (Hurston 79). Joe feels the need to tear down Janie, in order to make himself feel more important, which was an important part of being a man during this time. ByShow MoreRelatedMarxism And Feminism In Sweat By Zora Neal Hurston949 Words   |  4 Pagesoverlaps with her novel â€Å"Their Eyes are Watching God† which also supports the idea that culture is affected by periods of economic â€Å"base†. Hurston’s â€Å"Their Eyes Were Watching God† also portrays African-Americans in the early 20th century as the way she sees them. Hurston is known for her contributions to African-American literature. She creates a unique storyline in her readings that almost allows the reader to feel a connection with Marxist and Feminine as well as gender roles Picture this: a man comingRead MoreTheir Eyes Were Watching God : Gender Differences1584 Words   |  7 PagesKhealsea Elkins Professor Katherine Chiles ENG AFST 233: Major Black Writers 14 October 2014 Their Eyes Were Watching God: Gender Differences Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the most unsurpassed writers of twentieth-century African-American literature. Published in 1937, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God depicts the life of Janie Crawford, an African-American woman, who is in search of true love and ultimately her true self. In the novel, Janie shows us that love comesRead MoreThe Film Their Eyes Were Watching God692 Words   |  3 PagesThe film Their Eyes Were Watching God, based off of the novel by author Zora Neale Hurston, is a story of a young woman named Janie who spends the film narrating her life story to a friend. Janie’s story is one of self-exploration, empowerment, and the ability to express her freedoms both as a maturing woman and African American, throughout her life experiences. As she navigates through sexism and racism to find herself it becomes more evident that it will be more difficult than she initially thoughtRead MoreWhose eyes were watching God?1400 Words   |  6 PagesWhose eyes were watching God? In the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, Oprah Winfrey manipulates events that happened in the book by Zora Neale Hurston. Oprah morphs many relationships in the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God. She changes the role of gender, and also makes changes in Janie’s character strength. Oprah also changes the symbolism in the movie to where some important symbols in the book change to less important roles. Oprah changes many important events in the book Their Eyes WereRead MoreVarious Types Of Literary Devices1182 Words   |  5 Pagesproblem that is often portrayed in novels is the roles of gender and their independence. According to the online dictionary, gender roles can be defined as, â€Å"the public image of being male or female that a person presents to others†. Independence can be defined as, â€Å"freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others†. In the early 1900s down in the South, gender roles and their independence was very prominent. Women who were white started to gain more independence, and theirRead MoreAnalysis Of Zora Neale Hurston s The Eyes Were Watching God Essay1690 Words   |  7 Pagesrace and gender through the story of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, rather than seeing the way in which Hurston deals with this intersection, the author Richard Wright claims, â€Å"The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought. In the main, her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy.† While Wright is correct in suggesting that Hurston’s focus is not on race, but rather gender, he is incorrectRead MoreTheir Eyes Were Watching God Summer Assignment1071 Words   |  5 Pages Their Eyes Were Watching God Summer Assignment Passage: â€Å"Listen, Sam, if it was nature, nobody wouldn’t have tuh look out for babies touchin’ stoves, would they? ’Cause dey just naturally wouldn’t touch it. But dey sho will. So it’s caution.† â€Å"Naw it ain’t, it’s nature, cause nature makes caution. It’s de strongest thing dat God ever made, now. Fact is it’s de onliest thing God every made. He made nature and nature made everything else.†(Hurston 64-65) Journal Entry: (R) This is a passageRead MoreAnalysis Of Double Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston And Invisible Man1335 Words   |  6 Pagesbildungsroman, essentially, is a coming of age novel. Both Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison are considered a bildungsroman. In the case of those two novels, there is one unique concept that contributes to their examples of self discovery. Double consciousness is that idea. It emphasizes how a person may struggle to adapt to more than one varying identities in order to fill a role within society. Double consciousness is present in both novels throughRead MoreFeminist Ideals in Zora Neale Hustron ´s Eyes Were Watching God1430 Words   |  6 Pagesworks are viewed as essential to the continuum of American feminist literature. One of the first great American black female writers, Hurston refused to concede to gender conventions and was often criticized for her deportment. And as a proponent f or gender equality, Hurston penned her most acclaimed work Their Eyes Were Watching God. The bildungsroman novel follows the story of a fiercely independent African American woman named Janie Crawford and her evolution through several marriages. While enduringRead MoreTheir Eyes Were Watching God1268 Words   |  6 Pagesnovel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of them being the development of gender roles. While it may seem that the novel is a story of one woman discovering herself on her own, an underlying theme is how people’s identities are determined by their relationships. Through a multitude of relationships in the novel Hurston develops the different roles of men and women within a relationship. In Zora Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston emphasizes the development of gender roles to suggest