Allison E. Koehle Mrs. Horgas AP Literature 06 February 2023 The Female Identity Women are constantly told who they are supposed to be, today and even more in the past. As a woman in the 21st century, I am still suffocated by old-fashioned societal expectations, especially inferiority to and dependence on men. The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s when women had far less independence than they do now. In this novel, the main character, Janie, fights back against the external forces trying to control her, as many women do today. Throughout the story, Janie gains wisdom from her persistence in self-reliance and self-reflection, despite the efforts of other people to determine her identity. Through …show more content…
During an unhappy time in her marriage, she daydreams while working in the shop: “Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods–come and gone with the sun” (Hurston 76). In this quote, we see Janie struggle with wishing and imagining her life was different than it was. However, she fights this struggle by learning to live in the present. Hurston describes her as “living between her hat and her heels”, emphasizing mindfulness. She also describes her problems as “come and gone with the sun” which represents her learning to live in the moment. Janie learns to take her life one day at a time to get through a time in her life when she is faced with lots of …show more content…
When talking to Phoebe, she says “Yo papa and yo mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody got tuh do it fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (Hurston 192). Through this reflection, Janie explains that she hasn’t learned how to define her identity from her parents, or anybody else. Janie hasn’t allowed her grandmother or any of her husbands to decide who she is. She figured out how to live for herself because of the wisdom she has gained, allowing her to hold the belief that defining your life is something that everyone must do, despite external