Gilded Six Bits Stereotypes

643 Words2 Pages

The Gilded Six-Bits tells the story of a black family dealing with social restrictions and expectations during the 1930s. The story begins with a picturesque snapshot of a newlywed couple in Eatonsville, the first black integrated community in the United States. Zora Hurston in The Gilded Six Bits demonstrates gender stereotypes through a newlywed couple’s dialogue in the early 1900s. The quintessential women in American society was still the bosomy beautiful homemaker with a penchant for cooking and cleaning. The husband was usually placed on a pedestal as the breadwinner and had the more power in the household and in their marriage. The typical woman during the 1930s was expected to cook, clean, and take care of the household chores.
Woman during this time were worthy only if they were beautiful and often treated as their husbands belongings. Joe says “Ah’m satisfied de way ah is so long as ah be yo husband, ah don’t keer bout nothing else.” (p.1442). He is proud she is very attractive and treats her as an object and feels he owns her. Joe also feels the need to parade Missie around to show she belongs to him. Joe advises his wife to eat only one portion of sweet potatoes in an attempt to make sure she keeps her figure and aesthetically pleases her husband. Joe represents the typical man …show more content…

A husband is thought to be a money maker, a powerhouse, and a leader while a wife is thought to be a cook, a cleaner, and a follower in Gilded Six Bits. The reader recognizes Hurston's representation of gender stereotypes through the typical southern dialect between Missy and Joe, and joe's reaction to Missy after she is caught cheating. Hurston demands the reader to question power inequality in marriages during the 1900s. The Gilded six bits illuminates the haunting idea that female stereotypes to this day may not have completely

Show More
Related

  • Comparison Of Joe Sparks And Vergil Tea Cakes

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joe Sparks and Vergil Tea Cakes: Comparative and Contrast. All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determining much of their lives, including happiness, overall quality of life, whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals, while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s

    Read More

  • Homemaker to Superwomen: The Evolution of Betsy Rath

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1950’s becoming a wife, having and raising children and taking care of the home was the primary goal for most women. Post war brides were marrying young, having children at significant and unrivaled rates, and settling into roles that would ultimately shape a generation. This ideal notwithstanding, women were entering the workplace like never before and changing the face of American business forever. In the movie The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit directed in 1956 by Nunnally Johnson, we get an inkling of the type of voice American women would develop in the character of Betsy Rath. We are introduced to a wife and mother who leverage her role in the family to direct and influence. The decade of the 50’s signify the beginnings of the duplicity that women would embrace in America, being homemakers and independent women.

    Read More

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

    2317 Words  | 5 Pages

    Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie

    2315 Words  | 5 Pages

    During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...

    Read More

  • Free College Essays - Setting in Their Eyes Were Watching God

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hurston describes Eatonville not in a negative way, but more as a place that is not beneficial to an independent woman like Janie. Janie Starks, the wife of the mayor, is sentenced to spend her days as a worker in the town store, hair tied up, and silent. She must deal with money and figures without being able to enjoy the “lying sessions” on the porch, or attending such impressive town events like the “muleogy.” To the reader, Eatonville represents all that is repressive in life. Janie’s nature is restricted not by the town itself, but by her status in the town.

    Read More

  • A Feminist in Action in The Yellow Wallpaper

    1794 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen.  She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577).  These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...

    Read More

  • JoAnn Marshall - The Roles of Southern Women, Black and White, in Society

    1648 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lillian Smith provides a description of the typical black woman and the typical white woman "of the pre-1960's American South" (Gladney 1) in her autobiographical critique of southern culture, Killers of the Dream. The typical black woman in the South is a cook, housekeeper, nursemaid, or all three wrapped up in one for at least one white family. Therefore, she is the double matriarch of the South, raising her own family and the families of her white employers: "It was not a rare sight in my generation to see a black woman with a dark baby at one breast and a white one at the other, rocking them both in her wide lap" (Smith 130). The southern black woman's duties extend far beyond rearing children, as she also serves as a family counselor, confidant, and nurse for the entire white family (Smith 129) and her own if time permits. She can do all this and more because she is strong, wise, and insightful in all areas of life (Smith 119). In short, the southern black woman is the cornerstone of the southern, domestic life. The white woman in the South has an equally important role. The southern white woman is responsible for maintaining southern social order, better known as Southern Tradition.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Neale Hurston

    1781 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hurston begins the essay in her birth town: Eatonville, Florida; an exclusively Negro town where whites were a rarity, only occasionally passing by as a tourist. Hurston, sitting on her porch imagines it to be a theatre as she narrates her perspective of the passing white people. She finds a thin line separating the spectator from the viewer. Exchanging stances at will and whim. Her front porch becomes a metaphor for a theater seat and the passers

    Read More

  • Sweat, by Zora Neale Hurston

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” is a distressing tale of human struggle as it relates to women. The story commences with a hardworking black washwoman named Delia contently and peacefully folds laundry in her quiet home. Her placidity doesn’t last long when her abusive husband, Sykes, emerges just in time to put her back in her ill-treated place. Delia has been taken by this abuse for some fifteen years. She has lived with relentless beatings, adultery, even six-foot long venomous snakes put in places she requires to get to. Her husband’s vindictive acts of torment and the way he has selfishly utilized her can only be defined as malignant. In the end of this leaves the hardworking woman no choice but to make the most arduous decision of her life. That is, to either stand up for herself and let her husband expire or to continue to serve as a victim. "Sweat,” reflects the plight of women during the 1920s through 30s, as the African American culture was undergoing a shift in domestic dynamics. In times of slavery, women generally led African American families and assumed the role as the adherent of the family, taking up domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, the males, slaves at the time, were emasculated by their obligations and treatment by white masters. Emancipation and Reconstruction brought change to these dynamics as African American men commenced working at paying jobs and women were abandoned at home. African American women were assimilated only on the most superficial of calibers into a subcategory of human existence defined by gender-predicated discrimination. (Chambliss) In accordance to this story, Delia was the bread victor fortifying herself and Sykes. Zora Neale Hurston’s 1926 “Sweat” demonstrates the vigor as wel...

    Read More

  • Theme Of Patriarchy In The Gilded Six Bits

    2245 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The Gilded Six Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston centers on the views of capitalism and patriarchy. This short story is not only about love, betrayal, and reconciliation. “The Gilded Six Bits” conveys a deeper message about race, class status, power, and money. These messages all tie in together with the capitalistic-patriarchy that distorts Missie May and Joe marriage. Although Joe does not leave Missie May the reconciliation between the two is left unassured causing Joe to still have dominance over his wife Missie May.

    Read More

  • Sappho's Roles In The Negro Woman And The Negro Community

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    The sewing circle is a matrifocal space of political and social engagement that serves as Hopkins’ fictionalization of the black women’s club movement (Patterson 72). Here, the women of Contending Forces gather together to raise money, discuss political concerns, and forge social coalitions. A blackboard occupies a central space in the parlor of Ma Smith’s boardinghouse, and upon it each woman has contributed some news or raised a concern pertaining to the community. The gathering and discussion of these women makes the circle fertile ground for Hopkins’ linking of race, class, and gender concerns through the figure of the New Negro Woman. This space, filled with female voices and domestic tasks, features several versions of womanhood. And like other communal spaces, Hopkins argues for the collaboration of each woman figure and the value of all expressions of womanhood when united under the collective goal of racial uplift. Mrs. Willis and Mrs. Smith represent alternative approaches to motherhood—Ma Smith offers space but cedes the intellectual energy to the younger women, while Mrs. Willis figures more as a race mother that influences and directs the path of racial progress. Mrs. Willis is also a foil to Sappho in this scene as a

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper and A Doll’s House

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.

    Read More

  • Book Review - Good Wives

    1675 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...y uses anecdotes and stories of women in the 17th and 18th centuries to provide evidence to the reader and demonstrate the roles women filled and how they filled those roles. Furthermore, she illustrates the individuality in each woman’s story. Although in several of the stories the women may be filling the same roles, the uniqueness of the situation varies from woman to woman. Ulrich’s use of period stories helps add to the credibility of the arguments she makes. She makes the reader feel the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of colonial New England women. A sense of appreciation is gained by the reader for the sheer number of roles fulfilled by the women of New England. In addition, Ulrich’s real life accounts also give valuable insight to life as it was during this time period in American history and the silent heroes behind it – the wives of New England.

    Read More

  • The Influence Of The Color Purple By Alice Walker

    1943 Words  | 4 Pages

    As written in Literature and it's Times, a distinct place where racism and prejudice took place was the South. In the early 1900's, the South remained mostly rural and agricultural in economy. Poverty was everywhere, and sharecropping had replaced slavery as the main source of black labor. Blacks who remained in the South received the burdens of poverty and discrimination. The women faced sexual and racial oppression, making th...

    Read More

  • Compare and Contrast

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story “I Want a Wife”, is a narrative essay signifying the demand placed on females during the 1970's. The author goes on to demonstrate the expectations that our male counterparts placed on women during that era. The way in which the author brought this issue to the surface was enthralling. As described by the author, a wife was to be seen and not heard, she is to cater to every impulse her husband has.Written out in sequence, a woman's duties were overwhelming and needed to be brought to the light. Men were treated like royalty by their wives, while showing little appreciation. A wife was expected to take care of the family while nothing was required of the husband. In addition, a wife was expected to look her best while tackling all of life's problems. The essay does not provide a notable amount of detail, yet the s...

    Read More

More about Gilded Six Bits Stereotypes

Open Document