The Role Of Marriage In Zora Neale Hurston's A Raisin In The Sun

It is undeniable that being in a relationship with a man changes a woman’s life dramatically. Whether the relationship is one of marriage, or simply one of dating with the prospect of marriage, most women are shaped by the men in their lives in one way or another. Therefore, one might imagine that a woman loses her independence and sense of self when she enters a relationship or a marriage with a man, for our society has long been a patriarchal one. However, according to Zora Neale Hurston and Lorraine Hansberry, this is not the case. In her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston debunks this belief by portraying the main character, Janie as a woman who only becomes progressively stronger and more independent after each of her three marriages. Beneatha, a protagonist in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, experiences a similar change while moving from one relationship to another as she searches for her identity and looks for support to …show more content…
Janie’s first marriage, a marriage arranged by her grandmother, Nanny, was to Logan Killicks, a wealthy man who treated Janie like a servant. Understandably, Janie was miserable in this marriage, but her Nanny told her, “if you don’t want him, you sho oughta…Got a house built and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road” (Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 23). Therefore, it was not until after Nanny died that Janie felt she could make her own decisions about love and marriage, so she escaped and left Logan for another man. Through the marriage, Janie learns the importance of having a voice in a relationship, and her choice to leave a marriage that offered money and stability because she was mistreated shows her growth in independence and the fact that she valued her self-worth over having