Feminism In Jennifer Jordan's Their Eyes Were Watching God

John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces depicts the grotesque Ignatius J. Reilly as he waddles through the streets of 1960 New Orleans. In the beginning of the novel, Ignatius is the passenger of a car crash piloted by his mother, Irene Reilly, who drunkenly crashes into the front of a building which launches them into severe debt. Mrs. Reilly, who is becoming increasingly frustrated with the sporadic behaviors of Ignatius, decides her son must finally get a job to help pay off the damages of car crash. Ignatius finds his first job at a company named Levy Pants. After doing very little work, becoming an enemy to most of his coworkers, and organizing a rebellion of the factory works, Ignatius is fired and sullenly returns to his angry mother. On a forced job hunt the next morning, Ignatius stumbles upon a mobile hotdog vending service named Paradise Vendors. To his mother’s

The black culture is very diverse in different parts of the world-even in different parts of the state. Janie as moved throughout Florida to places such as West Florida, Eatonville, and the Everglades. Residing in these different places helps develop and define the character of Janie. Throughout Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie experiences many variations of black culture that helps build her character as she travels through Florida.

Everyone knows Joe doesn’t need a mule for anything, yet he insists on buying the mule off of Matt for no more than five dollars. Matt complains “If you wants tuh rob uh poor man lak me uh everything he got tuh make uh livin’ wid, Ah’ll take de five dollars” (57). Before Joe hands the money to Matt, he “deliberately changed his shoes before he reached into his pocket for the money” (58). Joe shows off his wealth by changing his shoes in front of matt because they weren’t comfortable. Here is a man who just lost his life work and is figuratively slapped in the face by having to watch the rich man change into his “black gaiters”. At this point he is boasting his upper class wealth, and it doesn’t bother him that he took a man’s life work for five dollars. In the long run Joe will get richer and Matt will get poorer. The mule becomes somewhat of a mascot for the town of Eaton, but eventually dies. A funeral is held for the mule which turns into a big event. Janie is eager to attend the “draggin’-out” of the mule, but is quickly shot down by Joe who claims she doesn’t want to be seen “wid any and everybody in uh passle pushin’ and

After Hurston heard the court ruling that schools will be desegregated , Hurston wrote that she has “no sympathy nor respect for the “tragedy of color” school of thought among us”. She felt there was no need for schools to desegregate. By saying this, it shows us Hurston was against desegregation. Therefore her goal was never for total equality for blacks and whites. She let’s this belief of hers show through in Their Eyes Were Watching God by illustrating abuse among the black community to each other. For instance Mrs. Turner’s racism towards black men and women that were “too dark.”When somebody talked mah husband intuh comin’ down heah tuh open up uh eatin’ place Ah never dreamt so many different kins uh black folks could colleck in one

Their Eyes were watching God is overwhelmingly centered on Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake. Whereas certain critics recognize the female search for self and need for community as key issues in the novel, most still give priority to heterosexual love and experience as the sole informers of Janie’s existence. Feminism and Black self – determination in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God” that “Tea Cake expands Janie’s horizons both literally and figuratively”(57). Later in the article Zora writes, “the sense of sexuality and shared roles found in Janie’s relationship with tea Cake is another aspect of Janie’s development as a person. …. It is in her life’s on the muck’ of the Everglades with Tea Cake that Janie achieves Equality with man”(60).

Is it worth risking everything in order to be happy? In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, an African American woman named Janie makes many challenging decisions in order to be happy. This novel takes place in the 1920’s which creates many obstacles that Janie must overcome in order to achieve happiness. There are many stereotypes and inequalities during this time that make life extremely difficult for Janie. Although Janie allows others to mistreat her at points throughout the novel, she is overall an excellent role model for young readers because she overcomes several stereotypes of African American females during this time period, and she makes many difficult decisions based solely on her own happiness.

when she addresses that Janie Starks, the protagonist, never got to fulfill her dreams. Janie’s

Racism can be defined as prejudice, discrimination, or contributions to a system that perpetuates the idea that one race is inferior to another. Racism was heavily enforced throughout American history, specifically in the early 1900’s. Coincidentally, this was the same time feminists, or women’s-rights activists, were in the in the midst of their fight for equality. Feminism is the theory that women should be treated equally to men in terms of social, political, and economic matters. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses the protagonist, Janie, to convey both concepts through her journey to self-love and acceptance. Due to Janie’s realization of the racial caste system and the structural misogyny in society, the focuses of

Desire is a general and popular human sensation. Zora Neale Hurston discusses many instances of desire in Their Eyes Were Watching God. The novel portrays numerous varieties of desire that demonstrate the protagonist, Janie’s alteration from wanting an object to desiring a specific idea throughout the novel. As Janie acquires her own desires and possibly lives a better and more fulfilling life, Hurston indicates that these desires are in fact not structured by Janie’s own thoughts and experiences, but rather implicated by antagonists in the novel and also often making Janie the desired focus. Through the first four chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston allows Janie to experience multiple life altering desires that mold her into

All people grow and develop at different rates, with factors such as heredity and environment strongly influencing one's development. The age-old debate of nature-vs-nurture is at the forefront, as always. The people one meets, and the experiences one goes through play vital roles in forming that person. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford grows as a woman with the men she was married to. Through the tides of life and relationships she realizes how a person is truly supposed to live their life. Janie's three marriages play crucial roles as elements in her development as a person and as a woman. Countless allusions and symbols crafted by Zora Neale Hurston flow fluidly throughout the novel and allow for the reader to understand Janie Crawford’s journey and extensive development. These recurrent patterns serve to better illustrate abstract concepts in the novel. Hurston's powerful use of symbols and allusions work to describe Janie’s relationships along with clarifying and intensifying the telling of Janie's story and growth.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows the main character Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania. Jurgis immigrated to the United States and made his way to Chicago in order to follow the path of a legendary hometown name, Jokubas, who supposedly made a lot of money in the states. Upon reaching the United States and arriving in Chicago they realized it would be much harder to establish an income in a city they weren’t familiar with. Their luck changed when they happened upon the infamous Jokubas and found out he ran a local delicatessen in the stockyards in Chicago. Jokubas helped them find a place to sleep for the night in a boarding house while they used those first days to look for work in order to move to a nicer place of living. Jurgis then takes a tour of the stock yards where he is first introduced to the quality of living these animals are in before slaughter. He also notices that the inspectors don’t pay close attention to the carcasses to check for

The United States Constitution states that the country values liberty, life, and happiness for all of its citizens. These three values shape the ideal American experience. Most view it as living freely, where all men, women, and races are created equal, and where oppression of genders and races does not exist. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, however, Zora Neale Hurston challenges the traditional view of this experience by illustrating how gender roles and racism change it, manifesting that it is not close to what the average citizen goes through, especially if he or she is black.

She acts as the driving force behind the thematic commentary and narrative as a whole. Several literary critics have made comments, on the use of voice within the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I have concentrated much of their research on the setting, theme, symbolism, characterization, form and style of Hurston’s work, in order to illustrate and support the different arguments that I have came up with. The first argument on the theme of silence, which is found within the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s voice is considered the main component. My view is supported by an article from a critic known as, ‘From Mules to Muliebrity’. She also argues that the main theme can be said to “examine the effects and the empowerment that arises from breaking free from that

The characters in Beloved, especially Sethe and Paul D are both dehumanized during the slavery experiences by the inhumanity of the white people, their responses to the experience differ due to their different role. Sethe were trapped in the past because the ghost of the dead baby in the house was the representation of Sethe’s past life that she couldnot forget. She accepted the ghost as she accepted the past. But Sethe began to see the future after she confronted her through the appearance of her dead baby as a woman who came to her house. For Sethe, the future existed only after she could explain why she killed her own daughter. She insisted on explaining the reason why she killed her daughter to the grown-up woman Beloved because Sethe felt