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Janie's Hair In Their Eyes Were Watching God

269 Words2 Pages

In Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie’s hair is described ad nauseum; in fact, it is described so often that one cannot help but notice its importance to the text as a whole. The author uses Janie’s hair to demonstrate Janie as an independent woman. To Janie, her hair is one of her defining features, and it becomes a surrogate for her identity. While Janie works inside her and Jody’s store, Jody forces her to wrap up her hair in a head-rag. To Janie, the “business of the head-rag irked her endlessly”, even though she did not want it wrapped up, Jody did. He was jealous of the looks the other men gave her because “she was there fin the store for him to look at,” On one hand, Janie is “irked” by Jody’s request. As a woman who wants to be her

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