Many concepts covered in Heidelberg University’s Women’s and Gender studies class, were either represented or reflected upon in the novel by Zora Neale Hurston titled, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. This novel, which was written in 1937, tells the story of a woman named Janie and her journey throughout the last part of her life until her return to her hometown. Throughout this journey she meets new people, gets married several times and goes through many hardships along the way but within the telling of the story there are many messages and differences that Hurston is trying to convey. In my opinion, Hurston’s novel is before her time because of how she conveys certain characters through their sense of privilege, oppression and how she conveys
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Oppression is something that comes up almost always in today’s news and in everyday life, as well as back when Hurston’s novel was written. People are struggling everyday with this and have been for years. Oppression is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power”. This is shown throughout Hurston’s novel and also, brought up in almost every discussion from class. African-Americans are oppressed, Latinos are oppressed, women are oppressed and many more people and groups of people that are considered the minorities are oppressed in some way, shape or form. “Oppression can take cultural and symbolic forms, such as images of beauty and success, and material forms, such as structured forms of failure that disproportionately impact some groups more than others.”(Launius and Hassel, 74). In, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, the main character Janie is lighter skinned because of her mixed ancestry and also has very beautiful straight hair, which is uncommon for African-American women. Straight hair back then and even today is considered a white quality and is very prominent with white women. This ties back into how Janie is considered beautiful, mostly because of her hair, and how today the media tries to tell us what they consider beautiful and that consists of mostly white features and qualities. Hurston goes into this topic because Janie is looked down upon by the African-American people of Eatonville, FL for looking so “white”. When in actuality, Janie had no control over how she looked because it was her genetics that made her look like how she did. Hurston is a writer before her time in the fact that she addressed how people felt about others expressing their individualities and loving what makes them beautiful instead of trying to cover it up, like the media today tries telling us to
Oppression is something that comes up almost always in today’s news and in everyday life, as well as back when Hurston’s novel was written. People are struggling everyday with this and have been for years. Oppression is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power”. This is shown throughout Hurston’s novel and also, brought up in almost every discussion from class. African-Americans are oppressed, Latinos are oppressed, women are oppressed and many more people and groups of people that are considered the minorities are oppressed in some way, shape or form. “Oppression can take cultural and symbolic forms, such as images of beauty and success, and material forms, such as structured forms of failure that disproportionately impact some groups more than others.”(Launius and Hassel, 74). In, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, the main character Janie is lighter skinned because of her mixed ancestry and also has very beautiful straight hair, which is uncommon for African-American women. Straight hair back then and even today is considered a white quality and is very prominent with white women. This ties back into how Janie is considered beautiful, mostly because of her hair, and how today the media tries to tell us what they consider beautiful and that consists of mostly white features and qualities. Hurston goes into this topic because Janie is looked down upon by the African-American people of Eatonville, FL for looking so “white”. When in actuality, Janie had no control over how she looked because it was her genetics that made her look like how she did. Hurston is a writer before her time in the fact that she addressed how people felt about others expressing their individualities and loving what makes them beautiful instead of trying to cover it up, like the media today tries telling us to