Theme Of Patriarchy In Their Eyes Are Watching God

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.

In the beginning of the novel, Nanny forces a romantically curious Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a mature land owning man, in hopes of ensuring her a stable life. Although Janie is apprehensive of her grandmother’s decision, she submits to Nanny’s will after she lectures her of life’s harsh truths and the lessons that she had learned, stating, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de n----- man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n----- woman is de mule uh de world..." (Hurston 14). Nanny’s words illustrate her twisted view of black women, which influenced her ideals of life and in turn, tarnishes Janie’s dream of finding true love. Through experience, Nanny learned that black women were mules; people who were brutally discriminated against by everyone other than themselves for being both the less dominant gender and a minority. In order to prevent Janie from experiencing the same abuse in life, she arranges a marriage for Janie with Logan. While doing so, Nanny disregards Janie’s personal needs, which soon took her down a turbulent path in life. Years into the future and long past her neglected youth, Janie comes to the realization that, “She hated her grandmother…She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love.” (Hurston

     Then Janie meets Tea Cake. Their courtship and marriage involve many different forms of equality which are not seen in Janie's past relationships. The equalities exhibited include Tea Cake and Janie's equality to one another as persons, and equality in "age," love, and money.

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.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the heroine Janie, a beautiful mixed white and black woman, is on a journey to find someone who will make her feel love to find her own identity and freedom, away from her spouses. Janie’s marriages and quest for love impede her individual search for freedom, but in doing this she has discovered what exactly she wants for herself. Janie’s search for her identity and freedom is very much evident. Being abused and controlled during her marriages has made it clear how she wants to be treated and how she wants to live her life; as an individual who does not have to listen to anyone. The story opens with Janie’s return to town. Janie tells Phoebe Watson the story of her

This is not because she did anything wrong, but rather because a neighbor’s brother showed interest in her. Tea Cake was not, truly, free of the misogynistic stereotypes of women, and the event showed deep down the possessiveness he felt for her. “Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). Again, Janie is in a marriage where her husband thinks of her as a property. Tea Cake’s character brought much hope for a lifestyle in which Janie could be independent and powerful, participate in conversation and checkers, and be respected on an equal level. Ultimately, Tea Cake was still possessive, and in many ways was not in fact free of the suppressing beliefs of society as a whole. His character is evident of how deep rooted the beliefs were. Tea Cake passed away, but Janie carried on, returned to Eatonville, once again showcasing her

Feminism and gender equality is one of the most important issues of society today, and the debate dates back much farther than Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. To analyze Janie’s existence as a feminist or anti-feminist character requires a potential critic to look at her relationships and her reactions to those relationships throughout the novel. Trudier Harris claims that Janie is “questing after a kind of worship.” This statement is accurate only up until a certain point in her life, until Janie’s “quest” becomes her seeking equality with her partner. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s main goal pertaining to her romantic relationships undergoes multiple changes from her original goal of a type of worship to a goal to maintain an equal relationship with her husband.

When Janie is in a relationship with Joe “Jody” Starks, he restricts the freedom she has through Hurston’s symbolization of hair. Joe begins this oppression of her freedom when he witnesses the townsman Walter stroking the end of Janie’s braid “ever so lightly as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing” (Hurston 55). This violation of Janie’s body enrages Joe, for he views Janie’s body as exclusively his property. Regardless of Janie’s desires, he demands “Janie to tie up her hair around the store” (Hurston 55). By revoking Janie’s ability to wear her hair as she pleases, Joe strips her freedom to make her own choices. As she does not yet have the

Zora Neale Hurston had an intriguing life, from surviving a hurricane in the Bahamas to having an affair with a man twenty years her junior. She used these experiences to write a bildungsroman novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, about the colorful life of Janie Mae Crawford. Though the book is guised as a quest for love, the dialogues between the characters demonstrate that it is actually about Janie’s journey to learn how to not adhere to societal expectation.

Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the

Their Eyes Were Watching God was a book that presented the world with a new look on writing novels. Zora Neale Hurston’s experience in what she has seen through research was embodies in this novel. She demonstrates what data she has collected and intertwined it into the culture within the novel. While being a folklorist/anthropologist, and inspired by her life experiences, she developed a character who dealt with the issues that were not yet uncovered, female empowerment was one of them. Zora Neale Hurston defined this topic of female empowerment throughout the character Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

The novel “The Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston takes place in the Harlem Renaissance period where African American culture exploded in the United States. Slavery has been abolished which gives more rights to black men, leaving women to fill the position as a modern slave. This was a period of such suppression of woman that they were treated as if they were brainless property, much like slaves. Janie refuses to succumb to society 's standards of how woman should be treated. She becomes a feminist by fighting for women 's rights to be bettered, if not equal to men’s rights. Janie became a feminist through trial and error of her three marriages. Through her failed marriages, Janie learns and constructs her own standards for how she will be treated, resulting in her finding true love. Her standards were far higher than society 's for women, making Janie a pioneer for feminist views and women 's rights.

Another example, where Janie struggles to find her voice is with her second husband Jody Starts, a man who starves for power and the mayor of Eatonville. Jody rarely allows Janie to speak her mind, participate in social

Everyone can struggle with self validation, personal ambitions, and self identity. Hurston establishes that throughout the book, creating characters that test Janie’s development as an individual. Janie knew that “womenfolks” were never given the time of day, but the reasons as to why were invalid to her. She passed through oppressive relationships and harsh criticism in order to make herself what she wanted to be. In Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author gives Janie a feminist mentality to play out the real life struggles of ambitious black women in a society dominated by men, and how they struggle with power and self love.

This paper is discusses on the novel Zora Neale Hurston in the light of Patriarchy. The protagonist of the novel, Janie is taken for analysis. This paper also involves in delineating characteristics traits of the male characters in the novels. Further, the paper studies the treatment that is meted out to the protagonist at the hands of men in the selected novel. The paper studies the novel in terms of the violence, subjugation and oppression that the male characters pose to the protagonist in the novel. The paper discusses on the various levels of suppression that Janie undergoes at the hands of the people who are highly patriarchal in mind set. Further, this paper details on how the protagonist stands as a model to shun suppression at the