Social Class In Their Eyes Were Watching God

In our society today social class effects us in our everyday lives. Social class may effect how people treat you and what friends you make. Social class played a big role in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. In the eyes of Janie’s grandmother moving up in social class was the best thing that could happen for Janie. As a result of her upbringing, Janie would make important decisions such as who she would marry based on social class. Once Janie was of age to have serious relationships, Janie’s grandmother tried to guide Janie in the direction of the upper class and money. The point was so that Janie would never have to work a day in her life and only have to fulfill her normal housewife duties. But once word got

Later on she finds a revolver of Tea Cake’s that was loaded, Janie thought that he was going to kill her and keep the rest of her money. So instead she spins the revolver to wear it had no bullets and giving her enough time to react and grab a rifle to kill him instead. This was a very tactical move on Janie’s part, she didn’t want him to notice that gun was unloaded because there could be a weight difference and also she wanted to make sure that his plan was to kill her. So once he tries to shoot her, she can react and make it all look legal, and get out of another marriage. Clearly social class plays a big role in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, because all of the three marriages that Janie had were based on money. Then later the marriages had dramatic problems based on the amount of money they had. In Janie’s first two marriages, she didn’t love her husband but only used them to sustain her financially while she didn’t have to work. Her last marriage was the exception because Tea Cake would use her to fuel his gambling problem. If social class was taken out of this novel there would no longer be a plot, and the plot would have to be replaced by something