How Inhumane In Their Eyes Were Watching God

“A deck of cards is built like the purest of hierarchies, with every card master to those below it, a lackey to those above it” (Ely Culbertson). Although harmless in the context of a card game, when applied to groups of people this system leads to large scale damage and trauma. America has a long history with this system, and one of many times where it is particularly relevant is in the context of the Harlem Renaissance. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow the life of a black woman living during the Harlem Renaissance. In it, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, reveals the tragedy of societal hierarchy by showing the inhumane choices people are willing to make in order to exert their power on people they deem lesser. She uses …show more content…
When visiting Janie, Mrs. Turners says, “Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid ‘em. Us oughta class off” (141). Instead of recognising the racism they are exposed to as an outside idea brought from white people, Mrs. Turner internalizes it within herself and directs her hurt towards the black community as a whole. She has the option of coming together with the people who understand the challenges she faces and how they make her feel, creating something beautiful in an otherwise horrid situation; instead, she makes a desperate attempt to feel better than the people around her, perpetuating racist ideals and hurting everyone around her, including herself. The harm she relays with this mindset is shown when the narrator reveals, “Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more n*****d than herself in direct ratio to their n*******s. Like the pecking-order in a chicken yard” (144). Zora Neale Hurston adds the motif of the animal kingdom onto the characterization of Mrs. Turner in order to strengthen the symbolic value of them