Social Immobility Essay

Chung-yu Liao
Amy Novak
English 355T
05/04/2014

Social immobility has been a problem for many people, whether they are citizens of United States of America or immigrants from another country, this is something people confront from time to time in their lives. Janie from Under the Feet of Jesus by Zora Neale Hurston, and Estrella from Their Eyes were Watching God by Helena Maria Viramontes are both examples of characters restricted by the intersectionalism of their gender or social and racial class. Through the two class texts mentioned above, social immobility will be further expounded in the context of characters such as Estella and Janie, and it will also be explored as a force that leads to the restriction and/or the loss of innocence for the characters.
Their Eyes were Watching God is set during a time period in the American history where African Americans were still segregated and suppressed by the white supremacist government. Janie Mae Crawford is shown to be born in a family with no male presence, and the women in her family are not married due to their past experiences with men. Her mother and grandmother have suffered and nursed many grievances caused by the men in their lives, such as the rape of the grandmother and Janie's mother. Thus, in order to prevent and eliminate this seemingly consecutive and bad generational history with men, and to ease her own worry about her granddaughter's future, the grand mother decides to marry Janie off despite her objections. This is shown with this quote:
Ah raked and scraped and bought dis lil piece uh land so you wouldn’t have to stay in de white folks’ yard and tuck you’ head befo’ other chillun at school[...]But when you got big enough to understand things[...]Ah don’t wan...

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...re are circumstances such as social immobility that cause problems for people, Estrella as a symbol of hope represents how one must have faith and hope in overcoming these problems.
In conclusion, through these two characters Janie and Estrella, it is shown that social immobility is something that causes people to lose their innocence and become restricted. Through these two characters, the readers are able to women going through many instances of trouble, and overcoming the boundaries and restrictions. Janie shows the readers that materialistic marriages are bound to be inevitably unhappy in the end, and women can achieve happiness in a marriage through love and choice. Estrella in her own way shows how social immobility causes many problems for people in the migrant working social class but hope is something needed to overcome the demons and hardships in life.