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Elements of feminism in literature
Elements of feminism in literature
The life of zora neale hurston
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In Their Eyes Were Watching God , author Zora Neale Hurston uses symbolism to add depth to the book by representing other people's feelings or thoughts. Just like Janie thoughts and feeling . In the book Janie’s life was often related and compared to a mule’s life. one reason is because she was a hard-working woman. She was oppressed and a mistreated woman for much of her life during the novel. And just like a mule she is bought by different men. During the beign of the book janie’s nanny (grandma) referenced a mule when comparing, that as a balck women janie would have to go threw all the bulshit and obuse of the whitemen. just as mule would take all the work on its back and get whipped. Later on in the book Logan (1st husband) started to mistreat her even more and started to treat her like one of his mules and not caring for any of her feelings what so ever and or what she had to say. Making her wanting to run away with this “Hotty with a body" according to my teacher Jody Starks …show more content…
Then there's the incident of the Town Mule .Now with her 2nd husband Janie is at the boring store she don't like because she can’t do the math .
And then couple of guys start to bother a helpless mule which belongs to Matt Bonner . But then Janie mutters her disapproval of their cruelty toward the mule. But Jody is standing nearby and hears her complaint. So he buys the mule for five dollars so that the poor beast can rest in peace for once in his life to “rescue” him. In the book everyone considers Jody’s freedom of the mule very heroic comparing it to when Abraham Lincoln’s made emancipation to free northern slaves. Janie can also relate with the mule. Just like the Mule which remains stubborn but at the sametime is independent even though their master’s effort to beat them down is
painful. And finally just like when a mules owner dies the mule starts to finally feel free again. And that's exactly how janie felt once Jody had died because she was now free from all the abusement and unfairness. The author is showing how women should be treated better. And that they shouldn't see women as animals that can be tool. And that's how author Zora Neale Hurston uses symbolism to add depth to the book by representing other people's feelings or thoughts. Just like Janie thoughts and feeling throughout the book Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston uses many rhetorical devices to depict the relationship Janie has with Joe Starks in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In chapter 7 Hurston uses devices such as metaphors in three paragraphs to convey how Joe Starks role of a mayor has a tremendous weight on him and Janie. Also how he’s aging physically and mentally is affecting their relationship in a negative way.
Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells about the life of Janie Crawford. Janie’s mother, who suffers a tragic moment in her life, resulting in a mental breakdown, is left for her grandmother to take care of her. Throughout Janie’s life, she comes across several different men, all of which end in a horrible way. All the men that Janie married had a different perception of marriage. After the third husband, Janie finally returns to her home. It is at a belief that Janie is seeking someone who she can truly love, and not someone her grandmother chooses for her. Although Janie eventually lives a humble life, Janie’s quest is questionable.
Logan is one of the first characters to make a comment about Janie’s class. He says “Considerin’ youse born in a carriage ‘thout no top to it, and yo’ mama and you bein’ born and raised in de white folks back-yard.” (Hurston 30). Logan means that he is of a higher social class than Janie because she was a slave for the Whites for a large majority of her life. Once again, Janie holds this idea as true, until she meets Jody. When Jody gets elected as mayor, Janie and his position on the social class stratification gets moved up. However, Jody becomes a changed man and their relationship becomes strained. Janie tells Jody about his position on mayor, “You’se always off talkin’ and fixin’ things, and Ah feels lak Ah’m jus’ markin’ time” (Hurston 46). Janie immediately does not like their new social position. It is taking time away from them being together as Jody is constantly attending to problems of the town. Her ideas on the higher position stay the same even into her relationship with Tea Cake, because he belonged to a lower
The yellow mule and Janie share many similarities. Both the mule and Janie were lighter in color than the others of other kind to show their difference. Yellow mules are not rare, but they are not common either like biracial people. Both the mule and Janie were deprived of a source needed in life. The mule is said to be “skinny” in the book and people tease the owner for not feeding him. Likewise, Janie was deprived of love in her relationship with Janie making her almost lifeless like a starving mule. With a starving heart and belly, they both work to the days end, not seeing much fun. Hurston write in the book, “see the devil plowing Matt Bonner all day long in a hell-hot sun and laying the rawhide to his back.” According to this quote, the reader could infer that the mule was work in a similar way and that this way caused the mule pain and suffering. Janie was also not allowed to leave the shop. Jody never let her go to outside the town, give speeches, join conversations on the porch, or let down her hair. Even when the mule, died and the whole town went to have a funeral. Jody told Janie to stay at the store. They shared a similar oppression by a man that was given power over them by the world. Out of all the resemblances between Janie and the yellow mule, the way the mule died was the most significant. The mules end was just like Janie’s beginning. The mule died under a tree, lying on its back as it to look up at the tree or the sky. Janie laid on her back under a tree in the beginning of the book as well. Hurston describes Janie’s feeling under the tree as “a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again”. Janie comes to a realization when under the tree in the beginning, just how the mule realizes his death under the tree. The mule turned on his back because he knew death was coming, otherwise he would have been on his side as one of the characters described it. In the same way,
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, constantly faces the inner conflicts she has against herself. Throughout a lot of her life, Janie is controlled, whether it be by her Nanny or by her husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Her outspoken attitude is quickly silenced and soon she becomes nothing more than a trophy, only meant to help her second husband, Joe Starks, achieve power. With time, she no longer attempts to stand up to Joe and make her own decisions. Janie changes a lot from the young girl laying underneath a cotton tree at the beginning of her story. Not only is she not herself, she finds herself aging and unhappy with her life. Joe’s death become the turning point it takes to lead to the resolution of her story which illustrates that others cannot determine who you are, it takes finding your own voice and gaining independence to become yourself and find those who accept you.
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.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, struggles to find herself and her identity. Throughout the course of the novel she has many different people tell her who she should be and how she should behave, but none of these ideas quite fit Janie. The main people telling Janie who she should be is her grandmother and Janie’s 3 husbands. The people in Janie's life influence her search for identity by teaching her about marriage, hard work, class, society, love and happiness. Janie's outlook on life stems from the system of beliefs that her grandmother, Nanny, instils in her during her life.
Through her use of southern black language Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how to live and learn from life’s experiences. Janie, the main character in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a woman who defies what people expect of her and lives her life searching to become a better person. Not easily satisfied with material gain, Janie quickly jumps into a search to find true happiness and love in life. She finally achieves what she has searched for with her third marriage.
Matt Bonner’s yellow mule was the talk of the town, Eatonville. Janie enjoyed the conversations and wished to participate but, “Joe had forbidden her to indulge.” (Hurston 53) Here Jody is try to silence Janie. She had no say in the conversation. This shows she wasn’t allowed to do the things men were allowed to do. He found alternative ways to keep her busy. . As Karla Holloway states, “He [Jody] sets out to curb what he sees as the “wildness” in Janie’s spirit. (Holloway 65) The mule talk turned into “mule-baiting.” Janie expressed her disapproval, “They oughta be shamed uh theyselves! Teasin’ dat poor brute beast lak they is! Done been worked tuh death; done had his disposition ruint wid mistreatment, and now they got tuh finish devilin’ ‘im tuh death.” (Hurston 56) Here Janie is sympathizing with the mule because she identifies with it. Janie feels like objectified by society, especially in her marriage. Though Jody buys the mule from Bonner, it was just another way to declare his power. He “buys the animal and pastures him just outside his store, as a gesture of largesse, but we realize this ironically creates more of a display of power. (Lowe 170-171) Jody has the power to free the mule and he could have freed Janie but instead enslaved his wife. Add concluding
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.
herself. Janie, all her life, had been pushed around and told what to do and how to live her life. She searched and searched high and low to find a peace that makes her whole and makes her feel like a complete person. To make her feel like she is in fact an individual and that she’s not like everyone else around her. During the time of ‘Their Eyes’, the correct way to treat women was to show them who was in charge and who was inferior. Men were looked to as the superior being, the one who women were supposed to look up to and serve. Especially in the fact that Janie was an African American women during these oppressed times. Throughout this book, it looks as though Janie makes many mistakes in trying to find who she really is, and achieving the respect that she deserves.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the journey of Janie Crawford as an African American woman who grows and matures through the hardships and struggles of three different marriages. Although Janie is an African American, the main themes of the novel discusses the oppression of women by men, disregarding race. Janie gets married to three different men, aging from a young and naive girl to a mature and hardened women near the age of 40. Throughout the novel, Janie suffers through these relationships and learns to cope with life by blaming others and escaping her past by running away from it. These relationships are a result of Janie chasing her dreams of finding and experiencing true love, which she ultimately does in the end. Even through the suffering and happiness, Janie’s journey is a mixture of ups and downs, and at the end, she is ultimately content. Zora Neale Hurston utilizes Janie’s metaphorical thoughts and responses of blame and escape, as well as her actions towards success and fulfillment with her relationship with Tea Cake, to suggest that her journey
In a 2012 study 92% of women reported experiencing some form of sexual violence in public spaces in their lifetime. 88% reported experiencing some form of verbal sexual harassment.
The beginning of Janie’s journey is with her marriage to Logan Killicks, a man with tons acres of land to his name, but to Janie’s knowledge, is just an ugly old bag that has a huge lack of any love or companionship for her. For example, when Janie talks to Logan one night about their relationship he only says “Considerin’ youse born in a carriage ‘thout no top to it, and yo’ mama and you bein’ born and raised in de white folks back-yard” (30). Logan is emotionally destitute towards Janie in the beginning of the marriage. She cannot relate to him in any way what so ever and they both know it as well. In addition, at a point later on in the marriage Logan asks Janie to help him with chores outside, she replies “you don’t need mah help out dere, Logan. Youse in yo’ place and ah’m in mine,” (31). Not only does Logan have an absence of emotion, he also has an absence of love and he expresses the exact opposite of it through his bitterness and anger for Janie. She can now understand that Logan sees himself as supposedly “higher” than her and she loathes it even more. The marriage between Logan and Janie isn’t equal...
Different social classes come with different perspectives and challenges, usually the belief is that higher society is much happier than those in the lower rank, but not including race into the education does not give all sides of that story. By evaluating parts in Cane by Jean Toomer, Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston story of class and race is being told. Color and classism have gone hand in hand for many years and evaluating the lives of characters that are considered the lowest of the low and yet made it up the totem pole brings up an important discussion. The conflicting ideas of race and class actually encourage racism and ruin the lives of characters in the black bourgeoisie.