Comparison Of Freedom In Their Eyes Were Watching God And Hills Like White Elephants

What would the perfect world be like? Ask, and many will describe a scene of ease, happiness, and freedom. But in reality, there is no place so ideal, especially in the aspect of freedom. What is true freedom, and how can one attain it? Is it even possible? These questions are addressed in both Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God and Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants.” But while both works explore the subject of freedom, Hurston discusses the influence of society on one’s personal freedom while Hemingway sheds light on people’s various interpretations of freedom.
Set in an early-20th century Florida, Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie Crawford, a woman who defies the archetype of

Manipulative and

Janie grows up shaped by the rules of the people and society. Never in her life is she free of expectations, opinions, and rumors. As a child, she is governed by her protective, often overbearing grandmother, Nanny, who did her best to give Janie her idea of the best future. When Janie angrily questioned her, Nanny defended her choices for Janie’s future, saying that she “‘can’t always be guidin’ yo’ feet from harm and danger… Don’t you set dere poutin’ wid me after all Ah done went through for you!’” (Hurston 13-14). But when Janie becomes an adult, she realizes how she actually despises her grandmother, suddenly realizing that “Nanny had taken the biggest thing God had ever made, the horizon - for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you - and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (Hurston 89). Nanny had taken Janie’s wide, bright future - her horizon - and hammered it into the future she wanted. Nanny tells Janie that she just wants Janie to be free and have a stable, pleasant life, especially now that the slaves are freed, but in constructing this life, she is keeping Janie from living her own way. No matter where Janie goes, she is always followed by people that stop her from living completely