Janie as Feminist an Alpha Female
Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston and published in 1937 at a period where females were not recognized for their hard work. Hurston 's novel features the first strong, independent black woman in a novel to search for her identity and happiness. It tells about a woman who acquires the power to speak, who finds her voice and so learns to tell stories and create metaphors. Although Janie is a victim again and again of male repression, Janie stands up for herself at several points throughout the novel. The story starts out with Janie, a middle-aged African American Woman, returning to her hometown in Eatonville, Florida. Her surprise visits gets the town talking. " What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Can 't she find no dress to put on?-Where 's dat blue satin dress she left here in?-Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?-What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin ' wid her hair swingin ' down her back lak some young gal?-Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid?-Thought she was going to marry?-Where he left her?-What he done wid all her money?-Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain 't even got no hairs-why she don 't stay in her class?-"(Hurston 2). Janie did not mind all what the people were saying about her, she instead goes in and finds her friend Pheoby whom she narrates over the events in her life. Robin Morgan, an American poet, describes feminism has something more profound. It means freeing a political force the power, energy and intelligence of half the human species hitherto ignored or silenced (3). Cleary, Hurston shows how Janie had to undergo all the hardships in order for her to realize who she really is and what she really wants. The path to that dissatisfied eminence has been a long one for Janie. It began with her grandmother, feeling that she was soon to die, seeking safety for the sixteen-year-old girl, threatening her with the dangers awaiting the unprotected black woman and ending with a plea: "Ah didn 't want mah daughter used dat way neither......Ah can 't die easy thinkin ' maybe de menfolks white or black is making ' a spitcup outa you" (Hurston 18,21). The safety envisioned by the grandmother is marriage to Logan Killicks, and elderly man who is prosperous in that he owns a sixty-acre farm. But the grandmother warns even against Killicks. ".......de white men throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh picks it up. He picks it up because he has to, but he don 't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule de world so fur as Ah can see"(16). "It was all according to the way you see things. Some people could look at a mud- puddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to the other kind that loved to deal in scraps. Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon...and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter 's neck tight enough to choke her."(85) One of the few responses to the New Face of Feminism article echoed this " It takes alot of guts not only to stand up to the kind of sisterly abuse.....but also to compete effectively in a traditionally male-dominated filed" (Mrozek A 18). Janie 's response to this warning is, in fact, to establish firmly the sex-oriented roles in their marriage. When her husband calls her to come to assist him in the barn, she calls back from the kitchen, …show more content…
These successive relationships provide the novel 's structure, for each new lover brings about both a change in setting and s new stage in the story of Janie 's life. Though each relationship is different from the others, there are two in which Janie is involved, her short-lived romance with Johnny Taylor and her marriage to Tea Cake, and two in which she is restricted and unhappy, her marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe
Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston and published in 1937 at a period where females were not recognized for their hard work. Hurston 's novel features the first strong, independent black woman in a novel to search for her identity and happiness. It tells about a woman who acquires the power to speak, who finds her voice and so learns to tell stories and create metaphors. Although Janie is a victim again and again of male repression, Janie stands up for herself at several points throughout the novel. The story starts out with Janie, a middle-aged African American Woman, returning to her hometown in Eatonville, Florida. Her surprise visits gets the town talking. " What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Can 't she find no dress to put on?-Where 's dat blue satin dress she left here in?-Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?-What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin ' wid her hair swingin ' down her back lak some young gal?-Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid?-Thought she was going to marry?-Where he left her?-What he done wid all her money?-Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain 't even got no hairs-why she don 't stay in her class?-"(Hurston 2). Janie did not mind all what the people were saying about her, she instead goes in and finds her friend Pheoby whom she narrates over the events in her life. Robin Morgan, an American poet, describes feminism has something more profound. It means freeing a political force the power, energy and intelligence of half the human species hitherto ignored or silenced (3). Cleary, Hurston shows how Janie had to undergo all the hardships in order for her to realize who she really is and what she really wants. The path to that dissatisfied eminence has been a long one for Janie. It began with her grandmother, feeling that she was soon to die, seeking safety for the sixteen-year-old girl, threatening her with the dangers awaiting the unprotected black woman and ending with a plea: "Ah didn 't want mah daughter used dat way neither......Ah can 't die easy thinkin ' maybe de menfolks white or black is making ' a spitcup outa you" (Hurston 18,21). The safety envisioned by the grandmother is marriage to Logan Killicks, and elderly man who is prosperous in that he owns a sixty-acre farm. But the grandmother warns even against Killicks. ".......de white men throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh picks it up. He picks it up because he has to, but he don 't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule de world so fur as Ah can see"(16). "It was all according to the way you see things. Some people could look at a mud- puddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to the other kind that loved to deal in scraps. Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon...and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter 's neck tight enough to choke her."(85) One of the few responses to the New Face of Feminism article echoed this " It takes alot of guts not only to stand up to the kind of sisterly abuse.....but also to compete effectively in a traditionally male-dominated filed" (Mrozek A 18). Janie 's response to this warning is, in fact, to establish firmly the sex-oriented roles in their marriage. When her husband calls her to come to assist him in the barn, she calls back from the kitchen, …show more content…
These successive relationships provide the novel 's structure, for each new lover brings about both a change in setting and s new stage in the story of Janie 's life. Though each relationship is different from the others, there are two in which Janie is involved, her short-lived romance with Johnny Taylor and her marriage to Tea Cake, and two in which she is restricted and unhappy, her marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe