Theme Of Change In Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching

Zora Neal Hurston Once said “ Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it can’t hide it.” In context of change, if someone can not change then there is nothing to do about it but if someone can, it is their responsibility show the world that change. Change is an idea also brought up by Zora Neal Hurston in her book Their Eyes Were Watching G-d. In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching G-d, Zora Neal Hurston shows us that if people truly want change, they must prove that to society and rebel against it. Hurston displays the harm of not rebelling as well as the positive impact of publicly rebelling. Hurston argues that men and women need to publicly reject gender roles in order to positively transform societal norms. If they mask

Men and women can positively transform societal norms through showing society that they can be broken. Tea Cake is teaching Janie how to shoot a gun. The town becomes intrigued by a woman shooting a gun and watches. “Tea Cake made her shoot at little things just to give her good aim. Pistol and shotgun and rifle. It got so the others stood around and watched them. … She got to be a better shot than Tea Cake.” When Hurston writes “It got so the others stood around and watched them” she exemplifies the start of a positive impact being made. It is a positive impact because Janie and Tea Cake are setting an example of rejecting gender roles for others to follow. Janie and Tea Cake go to shoot in public and society reacts by taking in their societal differences. Shooting or more commonly known hunting is typically a male gender role. By Janie taking on this gender role she shows society that her and Tea Cake in their relationship do not follow their societal expectations. “Tea Cake made her shoot at little things” is symbolic in this quote and in Hurston’s argument. Little

Tea Cake and Janie get into a fight at home and solve it by Tea Cake avoiding his violent, angry gender role but romantically loving his wife and avoiding a fight. “They wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations;till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.” From Hurston writing “fell asleep in sweet exhaustion” we can infer that Tea Cake did not beat Janie at all but loved her and proved that to her to end their fight. Tea Cake does not act in violence or aggression but is loving and rebels against his societal norm. The word “wrestled” although may sometimes connote anger and fighting, in context actually shows loving, play fighting. Hurston writes this, using a non traditional use of the word to further argue that Tea Cake did not indeed fit his societal role of aggressive and violent but avoided it. Instead of Tea Cake possibly beating Janie while they fight he uses his love for her to ignore the fight. Although he does avoid his societal norm, he does not do this in front of society. By not doing it in front of society he doesn’t lead by example to