Their Eyes Were Watching God Rhetoric

Emotional, controversial, and dramatic are three words that describe the book Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God was written to talk about controversial topics and to show the audience how Hurston felt about those topics. The book is based around six main characters, one who is extremely important named Janie. Janie is a woman who married three different men and was in different types of abusive relationships with each one. She was told that everything that was happening is “okay” because how would she, a woman, change anything? She was continuously judged by everyone for every little thing she did. Whatever she did was never good enough, she always had “room for improvement”. Many were …show more content…
During this instance in 1997, the book was put into the advanced reading list which made it be censored, instead of banned. Even though these are the reasons that were said, there are plenty more that make the book harmful. The fact that the main character is continuously in abusive relationships where she is “happy” until something “bad” happens. For example, at one point she was in an mentally abusive relationship and when she was threatened to be killed, she realized she had to leave because it wasn’t “healthy”. This shows that she was okay with being mentally brought down until she was threatened. It desensitizes the fact that being abused mentally is also a harmful thing and brings about terrible effects to the victim. It makes the viewpoint of abusive relationships being able to make a woman or man happy, even though it is harmful. It evens brings in the idea of being abusive because it portrays the victim as someone that will stay until they find out that they don't really “love” the person. Overall, the book contains harmful and controversial content. Therefore, Their Eyes Were Watching God should continue to be censored due to the glorification of inappropriate content and actions, which will lead to a harmful influence on younger …show more content…
Explicit language for some parents is a big no-no. They do not want their child to listen to, hear, or read explicit language. Many do not want their child to be “tainted” by the language because along with the idea of cursing or explicit language is the idea of rebelling. This book’s explicit language is way beyond words. Everyone is insulting and judging everyone, it gives off the vibe of bullying, which is not a good idea to give to young adults and pre-teens. Janie is continuously called names by her first husband and later on by her second husband. Not only did her husband's call her names though, the community members and even strangers gossiped and called her names. But back to the topic at hand, the explicit language found within the book could be considered bullying now-a-days. For instance, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, it states “uh bunch un dumb ni**ers so…” This quote proves that there was explicit language used frequently throughout the book. It also proves that with the explicit language was name calling, which could affect the minds reading this book if they are not mature enough. This is according to “Research demonstrates how the use of bad language can alter our behavior” by Louise Tickle, which states that “young children may note their parents’ reactions…” This quote shows that children don’t know what the words