Were Watching God Womanhood

In a world usually depicted as a “man’s world,” a woman’s role is not considered as significant and thus can be repressed. It is why a feminist perspective or criticism comes into place, especially in literature. By definition, a feminist criticism consist of scrutinizing “the ways in which literature reinforces the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women.” (Tyson) In Gail Godwins’s A Sorrowful Woman, the leading female character is concentrated in her efforts in distancing from her structured lifestyle. A feminist would critic Godwins story by as the female character is in pursuit of peace and happiness and wants to escape from the role she has been implanted. The critic would concentrate on the experience woman

Zora Neale Hurston's “Their Eyes Were Watching God” follows Jamie Crawford who consecutively becomes involved in three marriages with distinct men that she eventually leaves, but not without finding a semblance of her identity through them. Janie’s ability to seek out her dreams and her persistence towards discovering not only love, but herself through relationships portrays her as a peculiar individual who defies the social norm of the time period where a woman, especially black women, should not have a voice. The confounding qualities Janie emits prompts for an in-depth study on how Hurston develops the growth of a black woman’s personal autonomy in a highly oppressive setting.

The struggle for women to have their own voice has been an ongoing battle. However, the struggle for African American women to have their own voice and independence has been an ongoing conflict. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie struggles a majority of her life discovering her own voice by challenging many traditional roles that are set by society during this time. Hongzhi Wu, the author of “Mules and Women: Identify and Rebel—Janie’s Identity Quest in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” recognizes the trend of African American women being suppressed by making a comparison between animals throughout the novel and Janie. Wu argues that there are ultimately two depictions of the mule that the reader remembers and compares both of these interpretations to Janie’s transformation throughout the novel. While Wu’s argument is sound in the fact that it recognizes certain stereotypes African American women faced during this time, Wu fails to recognize Janie’s sexuality in depth as her major push away from the animalistic pressures she has faced.

Zora Neale Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God demonstrates many of the writing techniques described in How to Read Literature like a Professor by Tomas C. Foster. In Foster’s book, he describes multiple reading and writing techniques that are often used in literature and allow the reader to better understand the deeper meaning of a text. These of which are very prevalent in Hurston’s novel. Her book follows the story of an African American woman named Janie as she grows in her search for love. Hurston is able to tell Janie’s great quest for love with the use of a vampiric character, detailed geography, and sexual symbolism; all of which are described in Foster’s book.

The United States is a notoriously patriarchal society in which men view women as objects and their own possessions. Through history, men consistently constrained the rights women have to equality and self-expression because they deemed women as inferior. As a result, feminist movements erupted and propelled the importance of self-identity in victims of oppression, not just in females. One element of these movements was the use of literature as social protest. Zora Neale Hurston is an author who predominantly wrote through the Great Depression to advocate for equality, specifically for African American women. In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston employs the symbolization of hair and the motif of speech to substantiate that one must be confident in making decisions to have individual power.

Janie, the main character, marries three times throughout the novel. Her marriages do not contain unconditional love and because of this, do not last. Her first husband, Joe Starks, belittles Janie as a person including her intellect. "Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves." (119). Joe shows his dominance over Janie by being the breadwinner in the relationship. Janie’s next marriage is with a man named Joe Starks. He tries to show his dominance over Janie by controlling her. “Janie! "Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gits hot. You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place. ‘Tain’t no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long…" (42). Joe belittles the

was told, or rather, expected to do. Janie didn’t want to marry Logan, but if it made her grandmother happy, then by all means, why not give it a shot. If it meant that she’d be secure. In her marriage to Logan, she found out that that’s not what she wanted. Janie wanted love, happieness, comfort and enjoyment. She didn’t want her first marriage to be like a prison sentence. “Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated, did it compel love like the sun the day?” This is asking if marriage made love for Janie as the sun makes the day for the world. Is the basis of love marriage...just as the basis for day is the sun. To Janie, this was not true. She did not feel as though she loved Logan, and that’s all she really wanted. She didn’t want to be treated as the rest of the world was treated. She wanted to be treated as an individual and not as a slave. She was a slave to marriage. She didn’t want to be there, where there was no warmth.

“I’m a woman…Phenomenal woman, that’s me.” This quote from Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” characterizes the common theme between the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the speech, “Ain’t I a Woman”, by Sojourner Truth, and “Phenomenal Woman”. The common theme between these three different pieces is the idea of a strong, independent woman, which ties into feminism and the concept of being equal to men. Even though these three pieces are each diverse genres, they are all conveying the same general theme in their own way. Throughout any of these texts, it is evident that the authors are pushing the idea that a female is not inferior to any man just because they have a different body structure or a different gender.

Author Zora Neale Hurston begins the novel by saying, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now women forget all those things they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly” (page 1). In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston indicates the relationship between men and women by using gender roles. Although seeming undeniably contrasting, there are not many differences between the two besides their incentive in life. Men being stubborn to fail, give up their dreams in spite of that, whereas women acquire what they want from life; that which is most important to them, to support them through failure. Knowing this, a main theme to take from the novel is that despite the distinction between men and women, they both should not be restricted to the gender roles of society.

The Role of Women in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Go Tell It On the Mountain

In the 1930s, in Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston, women are seen as the weaker sex, they are expected to not possess any major qualities or abilities. In addition to this, men control women’s actions by silencing their voice, limiting their choice of actions, and insulting their appearance. Women are not to show any signs of what is classify to be male characteristics such ambition, intelligence, and authority. Men on the other hand would try to prove to their peers that they are real men by showing their wives who’s the boss using domestic violence against women. The themes and context in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston demonstrate how women were represented as inferior to men in the 1930s.

Of all the modern theories that are embraced under the umbrella-term of `critical Theory', feminist criticism is undoubtedly the most agreeable to apply. Drawing on notions and theories from psychoanalytical criticism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and Marxist criticism, it seeks to bring to light the inequality between the sexes in literature, and how our entire social ideology is in fact structured according to `the male gaze'. As Barry points out in Beginning Theory, the representation of women in literature ."..provided the role models which indicated to women, and men, what constituted acceptable versions of the `feminine' and legitimate

It is impossible to discuss the role of women in literature without mentioning the influence of feminism. The later in the timeline one reads, the more prominent it becomes. Each new wave of feminism brings with it its own goals, yet it also continues to strive for some of the same goals as past generations because not everything is accomplished all at once. Although “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall and “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown, are two starkly different texts that strongly reflect the feminist eras in which they were written, they have some similarities as well.

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

Helen Keller once said, “I fall, I stand still… I trudge on. I gain a little… I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory." Keller’s ideas embody the change that occurs in women’s roles in American literature. The first writings of 16th century America contained little reference to women at all. In the early 19th century, women play somewhat larger roles but remain only in supporting roles until later in the century when a shift takes place and women now hold leading roles as the heroines of stories. Not only does the character’s role change, but also beginning in the 1800s, a continual shift occurs in the portrayal of women. Initially, women were portrayed as members of society who served as the man’s wife and remained silent influences to a man’s judgment. Eventually, this portrayal progressed to women of thought who desire to rebel from social norms. As women authors began writing about the suffrage they set internal fires in women that would cause an uproar and craving for change.