... woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see" (14). In their society the rank of people is determined first by their color, and then by their gender. Black women, being the lowest, must carry on the work that the black man doesn't want to do. Hurston also uses marriage to symbolize the black woman's oppression. Nanny sees Janie kissing Johnny Taylor ... like the way that Joe spoke out for her, as if he knows whether or not Janie wants to make a speech. By saying that, Joe takes away Janie's voice, and Janie does not like that at all. Another symbol used by Hurston is the head rags....

• Word Count: 843
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Rejection of Their Eyes Were Watching God In 1937, Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was published for the first time. It was over three decades later, in 1973, when the novel was "rediscovered" by Alice Walker, a novelist. Since the time when Walker wrote a magazine article about Hurston, the novel sold over one million copies. In 1937, the book "sold fewer than 5,000 copies"(Holmes, 2). What was it, in particular, that during Hurston's time ... made the novel such a bad seller? Reviews made the novel a fast-forgotten piece of fiction. Bad reviews were given to the book...

• Word Count: 1388
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Joe Starks Joe Starks, Janie's second husband in Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, had most of the common characteristics of a white individual during the late nineteen century. Joe, nicknamed Jody by Janie, proudly displays his wardrobe, which replicated that of the wealthy white bosses of the time, "[He] was a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that ... Joe with such individuals, such as his rounded belly, his cigar, as well as his stark white home in Eatonville, Florida, where he presides as the mayor of the town. Hurston allows for these com...

• Word Count: 264
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... idolization of whites is not the key to happiness or success. In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is enslaved by this emphasis on materialism and Nanny's unattainable aspirations. Through the racism that several blacks harbor against their own race and their consequent desire to achieve the unattainable physical and social characteristics of their white counterparts, the novel shows that post-slavery African Americans often perpetrated ... their own second class-ness. Janie ends her childhood with her marriage to Logan Killicks, who, by Nanny's standards, is a go...

• Word Count: 1653
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... to do also. Walker takes a particular fascination and has an extreme amount of respect for Zora Neale Hurston. Walker identifies with Hurston's knowledge of black heritage and the way she depicted a love story between a black couple who were not in constant fear of whites. Her tone when comparing Hurston's, Their Eyes Where Watching God and Richard Wright's Native Son, is one of some-what disappointment that other critics rank Wright ... schools focused more on a violent black panther than a renowned black writer. The reader picks up on this tone and is disappointed that schools argue t...

• Word Count: 1084
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School