Compare And Contrast Joe Starks And The Eyes Were Watching God

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Recommended: Influence of African American literature and importance

During a period of time, the world lost its values due to ambition. Blacks were enslaved for being different. Races became a huge part of people’s everyday talk and to succeed, farmers and business owners had to make African Americans do their dirty work for them. During this period of time, people like Joe Starks from “The Eyes Were Watching God” and people like Frederick Douglass’s slavemasters became abundant in the world. The belief that they were superior to everyone else lead them to impose power in a way that even themselves could not tolerate. Even though “The Eyes Were Watching God” was written after slave abolition, Joe Starks and Douglass’s slavemasters have many characteristics in common and differences which are worthy to be noticed. …show more content…

In “The Eyes Were Watching God” Janie is hurt by Starks. More importantly, Janie becomes emotionally hurt by Stark’s demand of obedience. Starks jealousy and insecurities leads him to force to Janie hide her beautiful hair, Starks doesn’t let Janie give a speech when they were outside inaugurating the lamp, and also, Starks make everyone call her the Mayor’s wife. Essentially, Starks takes Janie’s identity (Prof. Haynes class) in addition to actually physically hurting her in an argument over dinner. In the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” we see slaveholders beating and whipping the African American slaves daily. Additionally, from Douglass’s perspective, he was so emotionally pressed that these beatings led him to suicidal thoughts and depressions which were caused by being oppressed every day knowing that there could be something better out in the world for …show more content…

As mentioned above, in “The Eyes Were Watching God” Starks takes Janie’s identity by his overprotective and controlling traits over Janie. Janie, who essentially just wants to find herself, sees trouble doing so because Starks takes her freedom. He demands her to do what he asks. Janie, to find herself, felt the need to do what she wanted. Consequently, she stopped loving Starks. In Douglass’s narrative, slavery is depicted by ignorance and knowledge as a way to get out. Slaveholders knew that if a slave started reading and became literal, their train of thought and rational thinking would lead them to question their situation. Douglass also knew this, therefore he pushed harder to learn how to read and write. In reality, Douglass became the man he was thanks to slavery, but his literal, comprehensive, inner self was always present during his slave

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