Were Watching God Stereotypes

In the early 1900s, Janie struggles to find her self worth. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, expands on the story of a girl who goes through many different relationships before finding herself. Janie faces emotional abuse, insecurities, and a variety of men. Her grandmother taught her many life lessons and engraved in her head that she needed to find a man to take care of her for the rest of her life. Janie grows through each relationship and soon comes to the conclusion that she is able to care for herself.

Some amount of time after Joe dies, Janie marries Tea Cake and has, for the first time, a happy marriage. However, this marriage is still short-lived. Janie is forced to shoot her husband while he is under the influence of rabies in order to save herself. This later leads to a court case, which is the ultimate proving point of Janie's strongest powers: her will and choice. Janie's choice to not “plead to anybody” (Hurston 236) and to only say what she needed to proved her own power.

Oprah Winfrey made “Their Eyes Were Watching God” new by changing Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece. She altered the relationships and gave characters new strengths. Oprah distorted the moral fiber that Zora Neale Hurston gave the audience. She deceived readers with false purity. Oprah Winfrey misrepresented what made the book motivating.

From a young age, many people are told that they have free will to do what they want and that their actions are what define them as a person; however, what people are told isn’t always the complete truth. In the realms of reality, individuals are always influenced by the people they spend the most time around to such an extent that it can change who they are as a person. Zora Neale Hurston 's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, epitomizes such truth through the development of Janie, a women who grows from not knowing her own race or what love even means to someone that has gained and lost countless relationships with people. Initially, she marries a wealthy man named Logan Killicks for financial security, but then runs away with a man named

Janie is both the narrator and the main character of her own story, and the way in which Janie's two styles of communication are used is integral to the illustration of the development of Janie's voice over time. During Janie's stifling marriage to Joe Starks, she is forced to be a woman of few words. Like her hair tied up with a rag, her voice is choked into silence by her controlling husband. Nonetheless, while her mouth is largely unmoving through large periods of her life, her brain is hardly unthinking. The separate ways in which Janie's thoughts and the dialogue of the story are presented emphasize the juxtaposition of Janie's internal self with her external reality.

Janie’s struggles played a huge role in finding her self relevance. People, life, words, rumors, and love all made impacts on her appearance and actions. Joe Starks made her life tougher and treated her like she was banal and small. Joe did not like the fact that Janie’s beauty attracted other men to her, so Joe made her look superior so they did not try anything. All Janie wanted was to join in on the conversations around her, but Joe thought otherwise.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, each relationship that Janie has is defined by the rare silences within it. One sees exactly how a relationship functions from the silences within it. From the characteristics of the silences, one can see the success or the failure of a relationship and of the people within it. In her first relationship with Mr. Killicks, her silences are in solitude, and always at times where she wouldn’t be with him. Her second relationship, Jody, had a constant one-sided silence from Janie.

Not only does she have an unsuccessful marriage with Logan but she has a futile marriage with Jody Starks as well. At first Jody was the guy of Janie’s dreams. He was nice, articulate, intelligent, and said he would treat Janie like a queen and that working on a farm was no place for lady of her caliber. This enchants Janie and convinces her to run away with Jody. However when running away together Janie realizes Jody is not who he seems to be.

Gender and Dailiness : A Convergence The concept of gender and gender roles has been sewn into the very fabric of society. The stereotypes associated with them shape the habits, thought and lifestyle of an individual and influence their actions. Gender is a routine influence in life, whether in a subtle or forthright manner. This “dailiness” of gender is seen in Joan Scott ’s essay “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” and in Imtiaz Dharker’s collections of poems “The Terrorist at my Table” and “Postcards from God”.

Influence of Popular Media on People’s View on Gender People are not born with their own opinions, rather their opinions are created and shaped through what they see and hear from sources that they consider trustworthy. This why most popular media mostly showcase ideas and opinions that the average person finds the most acceptable. When it comes to stereotypes, they originate from those in power who creates an overgeneralization that ends up repeated countless times that it eventually begins to be considered a fact. Authors such as David Brooks assert that women are better students than men and that men are more aggressive, an assertion I disagree with.