Their Eyes Were Watching God Women

Did women of the 1920s deserve to have rights or were they merely hopeless beings who needed the help of men to guide them in life? In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God she touches on the subject of how women of the 1920s were expected to act. Women of the time period were regarded as their husband’s wife and not as individual people. Women weren’t allowed to speak freely for themselves either. The book is a representation of the ways in which the typical American Dream has profoundly failed the women of the time period. Through her significant use of symbolism, Zora Neale Hurston utilises the main character to demonstrate a woman’s expected obligation to the home and her husband and the disrespect that was received in turn.
This idea of women as mindless beings is dealt with in many of Zora’s novels.(Southerland).
This statement by Ellease Southerland validates that in this era women were not regarded as equals to men but rather as “mindless beings” who were not expected to be able to do anything for themselves.In the book, it is mentioned how women were’nt allowed to participate in activies as simple as checkers,which the main character wasn’t allowed to take part in,. Men, no matter what race, were the dominant gender in every aspect and Hurston wanted to point out that women had the right to obtain the same freedoms as men. The use of symbolism is very significant throughout the novel. Hurston uses Janie’s hair as a symbol of her strength and distinctiveness. During her marriage she had to keep her hair wrapped up and away from the eyes of the public which represented her vulnerable relationship with her husband. “She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there.” (Hurston 83).“...she burnt up every one of her head rags…” (Hurston 85).When Jody Starks dies she lets her hair down, which illustrates her freedom of burden in her marriage. She liked the fact that she had a sense of freedom. Janie, herself, was a symbol to women
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