Gender Roles In The Scarlet Letter And Their Eyes Were Watching God

Currently, this generation lies in a time of unprecedented growth and change. The last few decades have endured years of transformation to evolve the human mind. The evolution of the human mind and thought process all lies within cultural beliefs being that beliefs affect attitudes and attitudes invertedly affect behavior. These behaviors reflect the thought process and may implement a form of prejudice and discrimination upon a certain group of individuals. Perhaps the most concurred concept revolving around attitudes and behaviors rests upon gender roles. This flawed concept created by man himself has indoctrinated society to acquire a negative perception of women. Women carry a stigma that they are both unitelligent and have a subordinate

Although The Scarlet Letter and Their Eyes Were Watching God take place in distinct eras, both introduce female protagonists who defy these truths while carrying the burden of judgment from society on their backs. In 16th century Puritan society, Hester Prynne commits an agonizing crime that forever scars her name in the letter A, for the wrongdoing of adultery. She bears a child in which the father is unknown to everyone except herself. This causes an uproar in the Puritan community, as many begin to suggest that she face death for her sins. The setting in which this plot unravels upon is the most fundamental aspect of the novel. The traditional Puritan culture holds restrains on Hester in terms of punishment for her crime. Hawthorne connects himself to Hester being that he is a descendant of a Puritan generation and had been ridiculed himself. “A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life,—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation,—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!” (Hawthorne 10). His descendance from Puritan heritage has created bonds of restraint on him as well. Puritan society calls him out on being of no service to mankind and he had

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne’s setting in a Puritan society dominated by white men allows for him to present a woman to break this streak by not only committing a sin but by accepting it and the consequences. She seeks to break the rules set by the community and even returns to assist the needy. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston’s setting in the 18th century allows for her to unravel a dynamic in which women were starting to create a respectable status for themselves. Janie’s race in this time period is already weighing down upon her status, so for her to go out and to strive through the world wide stigma depicts an ambitious women. Janie dreams for a perfect life. Full of passion and regardance of each other's status. Although in the early 1900s it was perceived that Women tend to over fantasize their dreams and fantasies, living life to that script. The dream is what they perceive as truth and they strive to make it that way, specifically Janie. She found love with Tea Cake but quickly acquired the power to end it allowing for her to acquire a leadership status that women were not likely to stand upon. Both Janie and Hester commit a crime but each embraced it and allowed it to give them that status that was widely frowned upon, to quickly alter it into power for their gender. Each discovered themselves and neither