Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

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In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie as a character fails to meet the expectations that a hero should be able to be courageous, make independent decisions, and enlarge the lives of people around them. Throughout the novel, Janie makes little action in the setting and seems forced into a supporting role that seems irrelevant at some points. Even at the end of the story, she seems to rely on her male partner to make decisions, and often without her input. Through this, she fails to be a role model to women seeking independence, which in turn makes her fail to enlarge the lives not only in the novel, but in the real world as well; a woman who is ultimately defined by her man does not make for a true feminist icon. Janie is a …show more content…
Janie’s ability to take risks, her courage, is inconsistent, to say the least. She appears to be able to take the risk of starting a relationship with the risk of not truly knowing who she’s running off with, but otherwise, she seems like someone who doesn’t exactly taking risks with few exceptions. First off, a very significant sign of her meekness is her decadeslong marriage with Joe Starks. Through all of this time, Jody oppresses Janie’s voice, first and foremost by not even giving her the change to speak during his coronation as mayor of Eatonville, as he says his “wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’” (Their Eyes Were Watching God 43.) This is the point in time, which is early in the marriage, where Janie realizes her insignificant role in the marriage. Yet, even when Jody appears to be somewhat reasonable, Janie refuses to take him up on this cruel act. The marriage continues and it only gets worse, Janie begins to realize that Jody, in all this time, hasn’t seen her as a human companion, but as
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