Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neal Hurston

In the story, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, there is a struggle between social status, class, race, gender, and wealth. Since the author, Zora Neale Hurston, is a female, it kind of presents the idea that the entirety of the story is to make the protagonist, Janie, seem to be a feminist hero like character. One of the most important struggles within the story is equality between the story’s “protagonist” and the other male secondary characters. While Janie would not necessarily be the most typical conception of a strong feminist character, I believe that within the context of the southern African American society of the 1920´s, Janie has made some decisive actions that would constitute her as a feminist character. The …show more content…
Basically, the roles of women in the text were simply just taking care of the family as the men go off and do labor such as farming. At points in the story, Janie does show some independence and reaches equality and in others she is purely dominated by her husbands, the first two mostly. There is obvious feminism within the text of the story that is presented through the main hero or heroine, Janie. In the story the heroine, Janie, represents the aspect of feminism as she starts to take the initiative to express herself throughout her life, even from each of her three dominant, overriding relationships. Janie is first forced to be in her first marriage by her grandmother, Nanny, because Nanny values financial security over …show more content…
A young fellow, named Tea Cake comes along and not after, Janie once again gets married for the third time. This relationship is much better than the last two. Tea Cake is the factor that tries to help Janie with her dreams of equality and finding love. Before Tea Cake comes along, Janie was in the process of finder herself which is slightly seen once she tells Jody off prior to his death. Janie doesn’t have to depend on Tea Cake as she did in her other relationships. Even though Janie doesn’t solely depend on Tea Cake, he is still an important secondary character in the furthering of Janie’s life. With Tea Cake, Janie is respected and loved except for when he hits her, however in her other relationships Logan treats her like a “thing” as Jody completely cuts her off from society. With Tea Cake, Janie becomes even more independent and finds more equality as she and her husband share the work and are both equal in power in their marriage. Janie’s ultimate expression of her individuality and freedom is when she takes Tea Cake’s life instead of giving in to him ending