Examples Of Gender Inequality In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Gender Inequality in Their Eyes Were Watching God In the novel, Their Eyes were watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston it is evident that her anthropological background influenced the way she chose to tell the story of Janie’s life. Having this knowledge really helped her gain a perspective on the issue of feminism and the way that women were treated. It also helped her case that Zora herself was an African American woman growing up around the same time period. Zora was able to draw on personal experiences to help make the novel more historically accurate. The article we read in class gives a perfect example of this Claire Crabtree says “ Since Hurston was a skilled folklorist, it seems likely that the use of her storytelling frame is part of

There are many clear examples of how Zora used her background to get her point across better and write a better more historically accurate novel. The three strongest examples of this come from the development of the relationships Jaine had, the symbolism that was skillfully incorporated throughout the book and the stories included for entertainment as well as cultural purposes. The story took place over about 20 years. In that time Janie had three serious relationships with three different men. As Claire Crabtree puts it “ The three marriages and the three communities in which Janie moves represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice”(Crabtree).The first relationship with Logan was the most significant because it was the one most different from the way Janie had lived her life up until she met Logan. Janie grew up in a white person’s backyard and she was sheltered from the real world. Janie never had to work for anything in her life. This lifestyle was very uncommon for people of color. They often didn’t get along too well with white people. Because of her sheltered lifestyle, Janie had a hard time adjusting to the way that Logan

But the way that he tried to get Janie to cooperate wasn’t exactly the same as his intentions. He tried to get her to listen to him by beating her and bossing her around. Through these actions Logan is portrayed as a bad guy who uses his wife to his advantage and uses her as a servant. Logan was trying to help Janie but because of the way that the society was at the time his actions made him seem like he didn’t care about women and that he saw them as nothing more than helpmates. During this time period women were mistreated a lot. Women of color got the worst treatment because they were once enslaved as helpmates. Logan had that idea in his head and even though he didn’t mean to hurt Janie his actions ended up hurting her because of way that society once viewed women Even Janie’s nanny expressed this thought about how women were treated badly. She tells Janie "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule ud de world so fur as Ah can see”(Hurston 14). Her second relationship with Jody was a lot different. Unlike Logan, who thought that women were servants ,Jody thinks the opposite. He was the type