Their Eyes Were Watching God Gender Analysis

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel following a woman’s struggle to find true love. The woman - Janie - fails on her first two attempts, ending one marriage by her leaving her spouse (Logan) for the next (Joe) once she finds she cannot bring herself to love him, and leaving Joe upon his death, though she did not mourn for long. Janie’s third marriage, however, was successful, only to be cut short by the death of her spouse, Tea Cake, at the hands of a mad dog’s bite. However, this novel is not just the story of Janie, but also the author’s commentary on the concept of race, class, and gender and how they impact the social life of everyone - even if the person’s unaware. Zora Neale Hurston shows her belief that class, gender, and race shouldn’t rule people’s lives, despite the fact that society generally lets them do so. Race is a predominant theme in Their Eyes Were Watching God, and is shown to be an important part of the social structure in the novel’s setting; it is evident that the concept of race creates a massive divide between white Americans and non-white …show more content…
This idea of defying social norms connects directly to the period of time in which Their Eyes Were Watching God was written - the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans were fervently trying to promote, define, and otherwise show off their culture through various art forms - art (as in, paintings and the like), music, sculpture, and the one shown here: writing. Overall, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is a brilliant, expressive novel that shows the good that can come about by following your own path instead of the one constructed by the concepts of race, class, and