Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an African-American Alabama native born in 1891, a daughter of two slaves (Biography.com). She lived when slavery was still prominent in colonial America, and she gathered many of her ideas from her own experiences growing up- who would later become a writer and anthropologist who fixtured her work on the Harlem Renaissance in the 1900s (Biography.com) Throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston there is a misconception amongst male and female characters that affect their everyday lives through the cult of domesticity.
At the beginning of the novel, there is a moment of insight into how the social hierarchy works, starting from the Anglo-Saxon male all the …show more content…
Dey needs aid and assistance. God never meant 'em tuh try tuh stand by theirselves. You ain't been used tuh knockin' round and doin' fuh yo'self, Mis' Starks. You been well taken keer of, you needs uh man." (Hurston 111). When she was told that, she would “laugh at these well-wishers” due to the fact that she knew plenty of women who were freed from formerly abusive relationships, such as her own, Janie now loved the feeling of freedom and didn’t want to give it up. (Hurston 111). Yet, Janie still wasn’t free. She was still constrained by the townspeople and the day-to-day social structure of the society. The quote is an example of how even the tiniest win for a woman, the tiniest bit of leisure and freedom changed their whole domineer. INSERT OUTSIDE SOURCE …show more content…
They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one." (Hurston 180-182). From this, you can see that Joe is comparing women to children and animals, conveying that they are on the same intellectual level as one another- which he then applies to Janie. Despite the fact, Janie does not speak out a sizeable amount of times throughout the novel since she knows it is not in her place to do so, the few times that she does Joe protests against her voice." It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans. Janie was a good cook, and Joe had looked forward to his dinner as a refuge from other things. So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store." (Hurston 185) Throughout the book, many men abuse their rights of power and beat their wives for little to no reason- most of the time simply because they can, and they do. Joe shows this in his actions towards Janie, where he takes out his frustrations physically on her. Every man in the novel that Janie was involved with, including Tea Cake, endorse a level of domestic violence and abuse onto her. This illustrates
At the beginning of the novel, there is a moment of insight into how the social hierarchy works, starting from the Anglo-Saxon male all the …show more content…
Dey needs aid and assistance. God never meant 'em tuh try tuh stand by theirselves. You ain't been used tuh knockin' round and doin' fuh yo'self, Mis' Starks. You been well taken keer of, you needs uh man." (Hurston 111). When she was told that, she would “laugh at these well-wishers” due to the fact that she knew plenty of women who were freed from formerly abusive relationships, such as her own, Janie now loved the feeling of freedom and didn’t want to give it up. (Hurston 111). Yet, Janie still wasn’t free. She was still constrained by the townspeople and the day-to-day social structure of the society. The quote is an example of how even the tiniest win for a woman, the tiniest bit of leisure and freedom changed their whole domineer. INSERT OUTSIDE SOURCE …show more content…
They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one." (Hurston 180-182). From this, you can see that Joe is comparing women to children and animals, conveying that they are on the same intellectual level as one another- which he then applies to Janie. Despite the fact, Janie does not speak out a sizeable amount of times throughout the novel since she knows it is not in her place to do so, the few times that she does Joe protests against her voice." It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans. Janie was a good cook, and Joe had looked forward to his dinner as a refuge from other things. So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store." (Hurston 185) Throughout the book, many men abuse their rights of power and beat their wives for little to no reason- most of the time simply because they can, and they do. Joe shows this in his actions towards Janie, where he takes out his frustrations physically on her. Every man in the novel that Janie was involved with, including Tea Cake, endorse a level of domestic violence and abuse onto her. This illustrates