*Their Eyes Were Watching God*

Discuss some of the ways women are treated in the text, and what Hurston's trying to say about the treatment of women.

The treatment of women throughout the text was my biggest complaint of the book – it was so angering to read. Women were completely taken advantage of or abused, regarded as property and beaten; and yet they allowed it to happen. I realize it was a reflection of the time and assume that it was Hurston's goal to bring the problem and its absurdities to light.

The very beginning of Janie’s story when she describes her family gives the reader a clear picture of women’s place at that time; they were treated more like property than humans. Janie’s Nanny (her grandmother) was born a slave and was forced to have Janie’s mother with her slave owner. Janie’s mother too was raped, but by her school teacher and then abandoned to have her baby. Janie too was treated like property which could be seen in her first marriage to Logan Killicks; she seemed to be traded from her grandmother to him.

Janie, unhappy with Logan, ran away with Joe Starks to be free and happy. However, though she felt free at the beginning, slowly that faded. I got the feeling as I read, that Joe’s constant ordering her around, was a lot like the beating her Nanny described in chapter 2. As a slave Nanny didn’t fight back against her master’s wife hitting her because if she had it would have been worse. Instead Nanny had tried to pacify her to stop the beating. Janie acted the same way with Joe: “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did she said nothing. She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels.” (Ch. 7, p. 76) In this way Hurston showed that though free, when a man is allowed ultimate dominance marriage could be a type of slavery for a woman both physically and emotionally.

Tea Cake, who Janie truly loved and was free with, was still a flawed man. He too beat Janie once, and disturbingly, it wasn’t because of her. It was his jealousy over Mrs. Turners brother and need to show his dominance to others that he hit her. However, despite this he made Janie happy and was the first man that allowed her to be herself.