Gender Roles In 'Women And Their Eyes Were Watching God'

Famed author Charles Dickens once said “A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.” This describes the underlying sentiment of society throughout history. Men are better than women. In short, the quote touches upon the consequential presence of the man-made gender roles. Gender roles can be defined as a group of societal norms which are different and considered acceptable based upon one’s sex. Women in today’s society are made to be compliant, beautiful, and nurturing, while men are supposed to encompass masculinity, dominance, and self-confidence. With these ideas reverberating through society, it is clear that why women are lucky if they are the last love of men; the reason being that due to men’s supposedly dominant

In addition to Janie’s rebellious personality in “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, the actions of the Duke in “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, exemplifies his aggressive nature. This sort of violent behavior is very difficult to instill in children and it is most likely a combination of upbringing and personality that leads to dangerous members of society such as this speaker. The cumulative effect of both personality and environment can either lead to a positive effect on the individual like in my parents case. They were both brought up in middle class homes with loving parents. They were schooled and turned out to be upstanding citizens. In stark contrast, Hitler was brought up with parents who did not really give him much love and the environment that he grew up in was harsh. In addition, he had a penchant for violence already present in him, as he would always get in fights at school. Thus, the combination of his innate personality and upbringing led him to develop into a dangerous dictator and kill millions of innocent