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Female gender roles in literature
Gender roles in Literature
Female gender roles in literature
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In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Janie had very beautiful hair that attracted many young men leading her to find the love of her life, Tea Cakes. Janie’s hair was one of more favorable feature of herself. Janie’s second husband made her cover her hair, because he was jealous of what the other guys would think of her. Janie felt unappreciated. After the death of her second husband Janie burned all the hair rags that covered her hair. After his death she eventually met a young man by the name of Tea Cakes. Tea Cakes strongly admired her hair and one day asked her to brush it, he says,“‘ Ah been wishin’ so bad tuh git mah hands in yo’ hair. It’s so pretty. It feels jus lak unerneath uh dove’s
She uses playful imagery and casual diction to give the reader an experience of friendship and enjoyment, similar to the one she had with her stylist. She shows this when she writes “I clamped like a curling iron onto the first stylist of my adult life.” By using a simile, she is able to create a lighthearted tone while also displaying the attachment she established with Veronica, her stylist. Howard writes about how the changes in her hairstyle come and go with the momentous occasions in her life in the lines “...the angled bob with flowers behind my ears for my wedding; two long braids for the birth of my first daughter….” The intimate manner of the friendship shared between Howard and Veronica is shown in the following quote: “The process seemed comparable: visit, talk, laugh, cry, catharsis, self-reflection, and exit…,” by comparing the personal demeanor of a therapy session to getting one's hair
The author also referred to the hair of Zeena and Mattie quite often. Zeena had only “thin strands of hair”, and she wore a “hard perpendicular bonnet” above her head. The sight imprinted in the reader’s mind is not a pleasant one. Zeena appears to be stern and rigid. On the contrary when Mattie’s hair was described, it is more appealing. Ethan remembers her “smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck”. A ribbon is more appealing to the reader than a “hard, perpendicular bonnet.” Mattie’s hair was also described as looking like a “drift of mist on the moon”. Unlike Zeena’s uninviting hairstyle, Mattie’s hair had a soft and silky quality to it. Mattie seemed to walk about the house with a halo of light surrounding her, almost like an angel. The conflicting hairstyles of the two women represented an overall difference in personalities. Mattie was a feminine young girl, while Zeena was an old hag who made no attempt to better her appearance.
There are a lot of good husbands out there, but there are also a lot of bad ones too. A good husband needs to be honest, loyal, and kind. Janie has to marry her first husband, Logan, because her grandma made her because he has money. Then she ran off with Joe who becomes the mayor of the first black town. After Joe dies she marries Tea Cake, who is younger than her. Which one of the husbands is the best for Janie.
Path to Finding True Love “True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together.” This quote by Ricardo Montalban tells us that true love simply has to develop and it doesn’t happen right away. Janie is the main character from the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and she struggled on the concept of true love. This quote explains exactly why Janie never found true love.
Oprah Winfrey mutilated the classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston by turning the movie into a story with no resemblance to the book. Throughout Janie Crawford’s life, love is a dream she wished to achieve. Oprah makes changes to Janie’s character, her marriages, and the differences of symbolism, the change of themes, and the significance of Janie’s childhood which will alter the entire moral of the story. Another difference is the way the townspeople gossip. Oprah changes the point of Janie’s life journey to find herself to a love story.
The conflicts in Their Eyes Were Watching God fall under the ‘character vs character’ and ‘character vs self’ categories. Character vs character conflicts occur between Janie and Logan Killicks, and Janie and Joe Starks; the conflicts with both men were of the same nature – arguments and dissatisfaction with Janie’s behavior. Character vs self occurs during Janie’s marriage to Logan. Janie wants to obey her grandmother, but she also wants to marry for love. On page 25, Hurston writes “[Janie] knew now that marriage did not make love…[her] first dream was dead…” This quote shows the resolution of Janie’s emotional battle with herself. The struggle between good and evil in the main conflict is obscure rather than immediately perceptible – second example of character vs self, the main conflict is Janie struggling to find her identity amongst numerous people who want to control her life instead of letting her do so herself.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Sweat,” Hurston uses the characters Janie Crawford and Delia Jones to symbolize African-American women as the mules of the world and their only alternative were through their words, in order to illustrate the conditions women suffered and the actions they had to take to maintain or establish their self-esteem.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that presents a happy ending through the moral development of Janie, the protagonist. The novel divulges Janie’s reflection on her life’s adventures, by narrating the novel in flashback form. Her story is disclosed to Janie’s best friend Phoebe who comes to learn the motive for Janie’s return to Eatonville. By writing the novel in this style they witness Janie’s childhood, marriages, and present life, to observe Janie’s growth into a dynamic character and achievement of her quest to discover identity and spirit.
The movie and the book of Their Eyes Were Watching God both tell the story of a young woman’s journey to finding love; however, the movie lacks the depth and meaning behind the importance of Janie’s desire for self-fulfillment. Oprah Winfrey’s version alters the idea from the book Zora Neale Hurston wrote, into a despairing love story for the movie. Winfrey changes Hurston’s story in various ways by omitting significant events and characters, which leads to a different theme than what the novel portrays. The symbolisms and metaphors emphasized throughout the book are almost non-existent in the movie, changing the overall essence of the story. While Zora Neale Hurston’s portrayal gives a more in depth view of Janie’s journey of self-discovery and need for fulfilling love, Oprah Winfrey’s version focuses mainly on a passionate love story between Janie and Tea Cake.
So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation-- they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston’s famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character’s natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.
Lee Coker - Lee Coker lives in Eatonville. He was one of the first people to meet Jody and Janie.
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight,” (11). The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching, God by Zora Neale Hurston, tells a story of a woman, Janie Crawford’s quest to find her true identity that takes her on a journey and back in which she finally comes to learn who she is. These lessons of love and life that Janie comes to attain about herself are endowed from the relationships she has with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
Power dynamics control the way that our lives work. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie experiences marital relationships with power hungry men. As Janie moves from relationship she slowly gains more power and discovers the importance of the power she is receiving. Janie longs to be freed from her controlling partners as she learns of the benefits of freedom, like decision making. When Janie first grows up she begins to fantasize of what lies beyond her grandmother’s gate, specifically marriage. Janie’s lack of knowledge of marriages, cause her to struggle through her relationships with Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake, allowing Janie to have a self-revelation, [and discover marriage is not easy and the perfect fairytale she thinks it is].
In every book, symbols provide ideas that form the overall themes. Janie is represented by multiple object; this helps the reader understand her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there are many objects like Janie’s hair, the mule, the pear tree, the horizon, and the hurricane that form Janie and help the readers understand who she is.
In this world, there is no such thing as a perfect husband, they can have a lot of good traits but also some bad ones. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, their were a lot of examples of how a husband should and shouldn’t act. The character Janie gets married two different times before she married the guy she really felt infatuated for. Although he wasn’t the perfect husband, his traits outweighed the other two guys. In her first marriage with a gentleman named Logan Killicks, she was not allowed to have any input in the marriage, therefore did not have the feelings which a relationship really needs. Her second marriage was a lot better than the one with Logan Killicks, but with Joe Starks, he was completely