First Impressions Of Women In Their Eyes Were Watching God

astray.Through her marriage with Joe Starks Janie gains social standing, with the sacrfice of her

She ended up living a life full of manipulation and mediocrity. While living with Joe, she had to tend to many different tasks as his wife.  She wasn't independent with him either.  She was Joe's tag-a-long.  'She went through many silent rebellions over things like that.  Such a waste of life and time.  But Joe kept saying that she could do it if she wanted to and he wanted her to use her privileges.  That was the rock she was battered against.' (Hurston, 51)  Janie always had to wear her hair a certain way, always up in a head rag, in order not to attract attention to other men and women. She was always in a state of loneliness with herself.  While married to Janie, he would not allow her to attend the people's gatherings believing that she does not belong to such a group of lower class people.  Joe was depriving Janie of her independence and sanity.  "Naw, Ah ain't no young gal no mo' but den Ah ain't no old woman either.  Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too.  But Ah'm us woman every inch of me, and Ah know it.  Dat's uh whole lot more'n you kin say.  You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but 'tain't nothin' to it but yo' big voice.  Humph!  Talkin' 'bout me lookin' old!  When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life." (Hurston, 75)  This quote spoken by Janie proves that she was getting sick and tired of being pushed around by Joe and his stuck-up ways.  This was a slow

In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie marries Jody “Joe” Starks. They moved to Eatonville where Joe becomes mayor. As mayor, Joe starts to show Janie off like a trophy to the public but in their personal lives together, Joe tries to prove his dominance over Janie. To the townspeople, Janie was seen higher up the social pyramid, as indicated by a townsperson exclaiming she was “noble,” merely because she's the mayor’s wife.

Janie disregarding the “social standards” of society gives readers a better understanding as to Janie's independence and strength as a woman. Janie's independence and strength didn't come effortlessly for her, it was the encounters along her path through life that in the long run gave her strength. She was hunting down a more profound self satisfaction and flexibility. Along this excursion, she is swept off of her feet by Joe Sparks and abandons her at that point spouse, Logan, to take after Joe and his enormous dreams. Not long after they subside into Eatonville, Joe is soon the

The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, explores a young woman’s quest to analyze her relationships by looking deeper than the surface. Characteristics such as wealth and status no longer hold a strong value for Janie by the end of the novel, because the challenges she faces show how these frivolous attributes can strain relationships between people. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford embarks on a journey in which she becomes aware that trivial characteristics are temporary and do not justify love, whereas the ability to rely on oneself can withstand even the most intense struggles.

Janie is a highly believable character due to her being so self-determined and authentic. She is a very complex character who has many strengths and weaknesses. Janie’s strengths are evident in her determination to live life on her own terms. She overcomes leaving an unsuccessful arranged marriage, an abusive marriage, a natural disaster, and the death of her loving husband, Tea Cake. After Janie decides to return to Eatonville, the narrator states, “She called in her soul to come and see” (Hurston

Janie’s past is what causes her to be oppressed by men who expect her to be submissive; this is shown when Joe doesn’t allow Janie to speak, when Joe orders Janie to do whatever he wants, and when Tea Cake slaps her to be in control. In Janie’s past she has always been able to speak her thoughts, but Joe doesn’t let her speak out of turn because of gender roles. His friends are talking in the store when Janie interrupts them, causing Joe to fire back at Janie, “Janie did what she had never done before, that is, thrust herself into the conversation,‘You gettin’ too moufy, Janie’ Starks told her ‘Go fetch me de checker and de checkers” (Hurston 75).

When she runs off with him, he promises to make her feel loved and that she will sit above everyone else. They run off to a run down town called Eatonville. Janie likes it there until Joe starts to abuse her physically and mentally. He keeps Janie away from everyone and won’t let her participate in anything around town except for working at the store because he wants to keep her for himself. He admits that Janie is an amazing cook, but when the food doesn’t get done to his preference Joe, “Slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store” (72).

While she thought Joe Starks would lead her into the life of adventure she so craved, she turned out to have judged Joe’s intentions wrongly. Once Joe established Eatonville, he set Janie to work in the general store like a princess locked inside a tower. Janie wanted to be seen and heard, to speak and be spoken to, but she instead found herself trapped selling groceries. Janie has found herself, and with that, realized that she was more than a wife made to obey Joe’s every word, hence the “jewel” she found within herself. I think it is important in life to re-evaluate our needs and wants like Janie does at this point in the story. We all sometimes find ourselves unhappy with our current situation in life; what’s important is that we identify these emotions and work to improve our lot in

Similar to her circumstances following Starks’s death, Janie is able to provide for herself, clearly severing her ties to being dependent on men in all aspects of her life, subsequently welcoming her independence once more. For the duration of Janie’s marriage to Tea Cake, she defies gender roles by learning a skill in a field dominated by men and shooting her husband, defining her as smart, capable, and independent in an era of women lacking hobbies outside household chores and depending on men to act as the

When Joe “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 she is starting to show her age, when he is clearly at least ten years older: “’ 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.

On December 6, 1894 the short story “The Story of An Hour” was published in the weekly newspaper Vogue. The story features the protagonist, Louise Mallard who discovers her husband is dead. The story was instantly regarded as highly controversial because it went against the standards of the 1890’s and features a female protagonist that feels liberated by the news of her husband's death. Although the idea that women were able to survive without men was a foreign concept at the time, the story resonated with many women. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie the female protagonist also experiences liberation through the death of her husband and faces the stereotype of women needing men in order to survive. This stereotype along with many other gender roles/stereotypes are present in Their Eyes Were Watching God and requires Janie and the many other characters to either adhere or break free of the gender roles/stereotypes they come across. Some of these gender roles/sterotypes is that women need to be married in order to be seen as decent and woman should remain quiet and not be outspoken or attract attention. Jaine breaks free of the respective gender roles by her unwillingness to conform to man in her relationships and succeeding in breaking many of the conventional gender roles. Other characters like Jody, Logan, and Janie’s grandmother adhere to the gender roles/ stereotypes and enforce them.

This loneliness was supposed to be filled by another man, her second husband Joe Starks. She continued her development as a woman especially in the beginning of the new relationship when Joe “spoke for change and chance” (28). The problems Janie had to face in this marriage were that her husband did not treat her equal but rather treated her as an ornament. She found out that the love he provided to her in the beginning was rather part of the ulterior moves Joe had about becoming an important landlord and major. Joe gave only material goods to Janie who felt again as if something misses in her life.

Gender roles, race, and social class are integral parts of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Gender roles within the book define the relationships between the male and female characters, while social class and race separate the black characters from the white. The concept that gender roles, social class, and race come together to create power is evident throughout the book. Hurston simulates reality with the idea that gender, social class and race play significant roles in how power is distributed within the book. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, power over inferior races and social classes, is created through the interplay between the concepts

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 comes in all shapes and forms, and love is different with each person you choose to love. In the opening of the novel, Hurston uses a metaphor to say that, while men can never reach for their dreams, women can direct their wills and chase their dreams. Hurston uses this metaphor to make a distinction of men and women gender roles, and Janie went against the norms that were expected of her.