Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Comparing The Awakening and Their Eyes Were Watching God, download (6),…
Comparing
The Awakening
and
Their Eyes Were Watching God
EDNA AND JANIE
JANIE
Expectations of Patriarchy
The culture Janie is raised in expects her to sacrafice any hope or ambition for the safety marriage and subservience. This is exemplified in her first two marriagies with Killicks and Jody. A symbol of this expectation to forfeit dreams is her granmother who repeatedly supresses Janie.
Quotation 1: "Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her." (Hurston, 89)
Breaking Free of Conformity
Quotation 1: "Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance. Still she hung back. The memory of Nanny was still powerful and strong. "(Hurston, 27)
The main conformity that Janie faces is that of mariage and lack of individual expression of love. This is mainly expressed in her relationship with Jody in which Janie is forced to be subsevient to his demands until eventually breaking free.
Quotation 2: "Humph! Talkin’ ’bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” (Hurston, 79)
Love and Marriage
Janie has a traditional, abusive, and ideal form of love in the men Killicks, Jody, and Tea Cake. The image of the blossoming tree pervades throughout the novel and indicates how Janie expresses her love.
Quotation 1: She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. [...] So this was Marriage! (Hurston, 11)
EDNA
Expectations of Patriarchy
Quotation: “Edna began to feel uneasy. She was seized with vague dread. [. . .] With an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture.” (Chopin, 111)
Edna must fulfill many roles in her upper middle class society. These roles mainly entail motherhood, wifehood, and appearances. Edna must also sacrafice her hopes to achieve "womanhood", much like Janie.
Breaking Free of Conformity
Quotation 1: “‘[. . .] I have got into the habit of expressing myself. It doesn’t matter to me, and you may think me unwomanly if you like.’” (Chopin, 107)
The main conformity that Edna faces is that of society and being a woman as opposed to a person. Becoming an individual and escaping ownership form her husband and children, along with genral society, is vital for Edna in becoming herself.
Love and Marriage
Edna's love life is separated into physical, spiritual, and traditional love. This is represented by the characters Arobin, Robert, and Leonce respectively. Edna seeks out her ideal spiritual lover in Robert but is disappointed, leading to her demise.
Quotation 1: “‘Now you are here we shall love each other, my Robert. We shall be everything to each other. Nothing else in the world is of any consequence.’” (Chopin, 109)
ZORA NEAL HURST AND KATE CHOPIN
HURST
The aim and intent of this story was to show how a black woman in particular must experiment and live life to the fullest in order to become oneself and experience love.
Quotation: "There is no agony like bearing an untold story" (Hurston, xi)
CHOPIN
Quotation: [The Awakening] Rejected the idea of the family as the automatic equivalent to self-fulfillment and raised the question of what a woman was to do with her freedom. (Kolaski, 316)
The aim and intent of Chopin in her story was to show that becoming an individual in the late 19th century was nearly impossible, and detailed this through the themes offailed love and ownership
NARRATIVE STYLE
THE AWAKENING
LANGUAGE
What makes the language of Chopin unique is the cultural strata it comes from. Being upper middle class creole, much french is added and sophisticated diologue is included
Quote 1: "Par Exemple! I never had to ask."(Chopin, 13)
INTENT
Quote 1: "She was not thinking of these things when she walked down to the beach" (Chopin, 115)
The free indirect discourse of the narration helps the reader examine Edna's thoughts and know more about her motivations and passions
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
INTENT
Quote: "She looked him over and got thrills from every one of his good points" (Hurston, 96)
The free indirect discourse makes it clear that the intent of the narration is to reveal Janies feelings and focuses on her character and role in society.
LANGUAGE
The language used in the novel is very elegant during the narration but very colloquial during dialogue. The dialogue is a key element of the uniqueness of the story
Quotation 1: "Aw naw honey. I laks it. Clerkin in the store wuz hard." (Hurston, 133)
:
