Both Zora Neale Hurston?s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Sherwood Anderson?s Winesburg, Ohio provide great examples of community, although there are stark differences in the way the two respective authors present them.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie moves to the town of Eatonville, Florida with her second husband Jody Starks. The move was to flee her arranged first marriage to a man that she did not love, and also gain some stature in a community.

The ?All-Negro town? of Eatonville is Jody?s dream. It turns out to be a big disappointment to him though, and he takes on the responsibility of building and leading the town. This preoccupation causes Joe to slowly but surely lose interest in his wife and become overbearing towards her. Janie finds that Jody is no more interested in letting her speak than Logan Killicks:

?...mah wife don?t know nothin? ?bout no speech-makin?. Ah never married her for nothin? lak dat. She?s uh woman and her place is in de home? (41).

Sherwood Anderson presents his fictional middle-America town of Winesburg through inter-connected short stories. The character of Winesburg Eagle journalist George Wi

Through trial and error Janie does find love in her third husband Tea Cake, but ironically is forced to kill him in self-defense after a rabid dog bites him. Despite the tragic turn of events towards the end of Hurston?s novel, when Janie is finished telling her life story to the residents of Eatonville, the reader senses that she feels fulfilled and has a sense of calm. In other words, she knows where she belongs.

After Janie starts her life with Jody in Eatonville, she begins to grow tired of always having to act as if she was above everybody in the town. She would have preferred to be a normal towns person - joining in on the great talks and laughs on the store porch with the rest of the people, but this was forbade by Jody. Jody also prohibited her from wearing her long, beautiful hair down in public, feeling that it called attention from the other men.

In Anderson?s ?Loneliness,? Enoch Robinson moves to New York and meets plenty of friends, but grows tired of them quickly. Eventually, after a failed marriage he is totally surrounded by his imaginary friends - who he needs to be happy. As the story is told to the reader and George Willard, Robinson is lonely back in Winesburg and all his friends h

Some topics in this essay:
George Willard, Tea Cake, Jody Janie, Alice Hindman, Enoch Robinson, Departure Willard, Logan Killicks, Jody Eatonville, Eatonville Jodys, Winesburg Willard, winesburg ohio, eyes watching, george willard, eyes watching god, watching god, town eatonville, town winesburg,