In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, we follow our protagonist, Janie Crawford, through a journey of self-discovery. We watch Janie from when she was a child to her adulthood, slowly seeing her ideas change while other dreams of hers unfortunately die. This is illustrated by the quote: “She knew that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” This realization made by Janie supports one of the biggest themes in this novel, which is that innocence and womanhood can’t exist at the same time. The theme is also prevalent in Hurston’s story Sweat. The idea of lost innocence is one of the reasons why Delia Jones, the protagonist ends up leaving her abusive husband for good. An example
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In one of her most famous quotes, de Beauvoir says “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This is similar to the theme because de Beauvoir is basically saying that nobody is born with the mindset and strength of a woman, but through experience they earn it. For example, Delia and Janie spend most of their stories as meek, quiet women. They sit in the background and let their spouses walk all over them until something pushes them over the edge. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, after Janie leaves Logan and leaves with Joe, she knows that love doesn’t just appear in a marriage. She learns even with her last spouse, Tea Cake saying that “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore." Janie now sees that not every relationship should be like her fantasy; love is something that changes and evolves with everyone you meet. In Sweat, Delia becomes a woman when she begins to stand up for herself and stops treating Sykes like her responsibility. Like de Beauvoir said, neither of the women was born headstrong and independent, they had to learn how to be in order to become a
In one of her most famous quotes, de Beauvoir says “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This is similar to the theme because de Beauvoir is basically saying that nobody is born with the mindset and strength of a woman, but through experience they earn it. For example, Delia and Janie spend most of their stories as meek, quiet women. They sit in the background and let their spouses walk all over them until something pushes them over the edge. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, after Janie leaves Logan and leaves with Joe, she knows that love doesn’t just appear in a marriage. She learns even with her last spouse, Tea Cake saying that “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore." Janie now sees that not every relationship should be like her fantasy; love is something that changes and evolves with everyone you meet. In Sweat, Delia becomes a woman when she begins to stand up for herself and stops treating Sykes like her responsibility. Like de Beauvoir said, neither of the women was born headstrong and independent, they had to learn how to be in order to become a