Zora Neale Hurston Women's Role In Society

Superior Essays
On a dusty road in Eatonville lies a general store with a porch. Sitting, black, wisecracking men banter over each other’s shortcomings, play checkers, and enjoy food. Behind the open door, in the muggy shade of summer, sits a lone woman, sitting, wishing, waiting. Waiting for something more, something to change in this relationship of a “love” lost long ago. This woman, Janie, stands and glides to the melting light of a golden sunset, bringing food and drinks to the men outside. Her sullen look could burn logs, if only it had dry flint to observe. Janie quietly realizes she chose the wrong life and man.Through her explorations of a black woman’s role in society in the early 1900s via Janie’s relationships, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, …show more content…
Her decision to move directly from Logan to Joe with no time in between illustrates how women perceived themselves in the era as needing men by their side. Again, Hurston emphasises a new segment of Janie’s life through the metaphor of a gatepost. Hurston’s writing that Janie “hung over the gate,” (25) demonstrates the unwell state that her marriage with Logan left her in. Because she decides that she would be happier with sweet talking Jody than with Logan and because she knew her actions would receive little to zero societal brushback, she leaves Logan and the safety of his 60 acres. Again, she hoped love would follow them to Eatonville as Joe created a whole new world in which they could live. The naiveté that Nanny feared reappears as Janie 's hopes to live with Joe until death with “flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie quickly realizes her gaffe to have married Joe as he denies her a voice, yet her respect for society and what Joe is and what he has created is too much for her to overcome and break the painful, suffocating bonds of the marriage. As with the opening image, her voice is all but removed entirely as she lives and breaths as not only a trophy, but also as a …show more content…
She has no expectations. When love lands in her lap she is hesitant to grab it, afraid it will take her on familiar loveless paths.. In one of his first few interactions with Janie, Tea Cake jokes about Janie’s use of her lips, yet her response of “Ah make use of ‘em whenever it’s necessary, but nothin’ special to me,” (103) - possibly seen as simple flirtatious banter - reveals how she forgot the significance of real love. In her past relationships, Janie kissed her men out of tradition, expectation, obligation, but here she doesn’t know what she’s feeling and she’s hesitant because of its peculiarity. This feeling, though, is genuine attraction. That she “thought resisting thoughts about Tea Cake,” (106) and “ridiculed” (106) him illustrates not only how she cannot get him off of her mind, but also her attempts to make herself avoid this new feeling. Moreover, as she knows “love” following her relationship with Joe, it was not a pleasurable experience. As the relationship progresses, Janie realizes for herself the significance of that feeling, but she cannot fully buy into Tea Cake as she is still battered from her relationship with

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    At first, Janie believed that Tea Cake was the “kind of man who lived with various women but never married” and he is far too young for her (100). However, the age does not stop Janie from being with Tea Cake. From their first meeting in the store, Janie and Tea Cake talk and joke as if they have been friends their whole lives. Tea Cake is a kind man, staying around and offering to help close the store after everyone has left. Janie finds Tea Cake attractive because of his energetic and carefree personality.…

    • 1373 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Janie Christ Figure

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There was difficulties thrown at Janie throughout her life that kept her from achieving her true goal to be loved for who she is. We see that Janie finds herself unhappy when with Jody because he keeps her from things in her everyday life that she wants to be a part of and makes her something she is not. During this time we see Janie desperate to be let free from the restraints Jody has on her. She does not get this freedom until the death of Jody, now she feels unimpeded of any obstructions from her dreams. Then she meets Tea Cake with him she can be the person she wants to be and feels a true love for him.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As Janie arrives in Eatonville after Tea Cake’s death and her trial, she seems to not notice or mind the lewd stares or hateful remarks – because she now understands that their expectations of her do not matter. Tea Cake was not the source of her newfound free spirit, just who brought it out of her the most. Thanks to his nurturing of this part of Janie, she was able to retain it after his death. The expectations of the society she was born into were keeping her from becoming who she was truly meant to be, and once she let go of her fear of being seen as abnormal, she was ready to step into a new chapter of her…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through imagery, Hurston reveals Janie’s freedom that she is granted after Joe dies in order to display doors that open or close after every decision a person makes. Hurston does this to emphasize the image Joe wanted of him, and Janie and how he accomplished it only to lose it in the end. Janie started to receive attention from the men around town, sometimes contemplating about what potential some of them had when it come to marriage, but in the end she would bask in the freedom of the choice in and of itself. “‘Tain’t dat Ah worries over Joe’s death, Pheoby. Ah jus’ loves dis freedom.…

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With their extreme age difference, those around them harshly criticize the relationship between Janie and Tea Cake, which causes them to move to a new city. Although Tea Cake is a charming, happy young man, he also has faults, especially concerning gambling. Even before moving on further with the relationship Tea Cake steals two hundred dollars from Janie, resulting in their first altercation (Hurston 142). Janie without a doubt is disappointed but continues the relationship despite the pivotal moment. From here, the two seem to live happily together having the occasional up and downs until Tea Cake is bit by a ravenous dog during a hurricane.…

    • 1322 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    True Love

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages

    However, as the story continues, she learns that she does not truly love to of them, while she does love her last marriage of Tea Cake. The novel explores Janie’s journey of love with the motif of the horizon as she goes from one marriage to another, figuring out true love is something that comes with both choice, and having a voice. The novel…

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The short story Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston takes place during the Spring season in Florida, where the main character Delia Jane is sorting piles of clothes that she has to wash on a late Sunday night. Unlike her husband, Sykes, Delia Jane is a hard working woman who has reversed their gender roles and taken Sykes stereotypical male role of being the main economic provider of their home that result with Sykes being abusive towards her. He feels emasculated by not being able to provide any economic aid to their house expenses and is constantly exaggerating his masculinity to overcompensate for his inability to control Delia Jane by always referring to their home as his property. He tries to discourage Delia Jane from working by calling her a…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    She sees Tea Cake as true love and falls deeply in love with him. Tea Cake gives her freedom and equality, he treats Janie well, and everything she has ever wanted including true love. Although Tea Cake does not have much wealth and their age difference is large, Janie…

    • 1940 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jodie oppresses Janie and restricts her from doings things she wants and making her own decisions. The only person she is free with is Tea Cake. Towards the end of the novel, Janie realizes that she truly loves Tea Cake. They have been through so much together, and they still have a great passion for one another. This love differs from her other love lives because she is able…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Consequently, she lives miserably for years without discovering her true self. Not only is Logan abusive, so is Tea Cake. Hurston proves male superiority when Teacake “just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (140). Although Janie is forced to live under this overbearing control, she eventually realizes she can live without men telling her how to live her life. When Joe, her second husband dies Janie is not as sad as expected because she “likes being lonesome for a change.…

    • 1938 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Later, Janie meets Tea Cake and quickly takes interest in when he arrives to the store to buy tobacco. Janie laughs a lot, and acts flirtatious around Tea Cake, and is shocked when he invites her to play a game of chess. “He set it up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play... She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points...”…

    • 2037 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Janie marries Logan, she describes his home, now her home, as “a lonesome place in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been.” She quickly became discontent with her marriage to Logan. She wanted a “marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think” (24) She wanted to love Logan in a way the resembled a pear tree, but she couldn’t force an emotion that was nonexistent. “Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”…

    • 1055 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Author Eckhart Tolle once said, “Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.” Emma in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston exemplified this quote in their actions.…

    • 1682 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As Charles Dickens once stated in Great Expectations “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but- I hope- into a better shape.” Gender stereotype was and still is an issue and people expect that the role of a woman should be based on what society perceive them to be. In life, every great expectation has an unexpected approach and “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston and “Only Daughter” by Sandra Cisneros both demonstrates this approach through gender roles/ stereotype.…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Logan Killicks Symbolism

    • 2090 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Logan Killicks and Janie’s marriage began the inevitable cracks within the confines of her quintessential love. Janie and Logan were the same side of different magnets— polarizing and repelling. Their marriage was not founded on love, it was a transaction. Logan desired the concept of Janie— a beautiful, attractive, and young woman that embodied femininity and womanhood—who he can parade around town as his. His idea of a marriage was founded under the assumption that his money and safety will be reciprocated with tacit subservience.…

    • 2090 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays