Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God

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The second portion of the book accommodates the incidents occurring throughout chapters seven to sixteen. Women as a whole in the book are not represented as much as the individual character in Janie, therefore we assume that Janie’s struggles with gender equality applies generally to most women in the book. Women within the setting of Their Eyes Were Watching God are seen as mere workers, sex toys and in some cases, trophies for men used to impress others around them. Women are oppressed by men in three aspects: freedom of image, freedom of action and freedom of speech. Examples for Janie’s voice being oppressed, after Jody starts the store business in Eatonville, Janie is expected to work at the store every day, only interacting with the townspeople if they are customers in the store.…show more content…
This form of oppression is most evident in the part where Janie thrusts herself into a conversation for the first time, and she speaks about the state of womanhood and her struggle with her spouse, Jody responds by saying: "You getting’ too moufy, Janie," Starks told her. "Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers" (Hurston 6.75), as well as a second instant where the author describes the man’s violent urge to have the women submissive towards him, as Janie situation is being described: “He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush” (6.54). In the first quote, the male figure instantly removes Janie from the conversation unjustly to go follow the order of the

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