Race in TWWEG

Since the founding of the United States of States of America, race as played an incredibly important role in society. This idea is true in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston uses race to play important parts of Janie’s life, starting in her youth and ending during middle aged life, when the book ends. As a child Janie is raised with a white family, and only realizes she is black when she sees a picture of herself. Additionally, Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, was raped by her white master and got pregnant; this causes her to make some hasty decisions with Janie’s life. As a young adult, Janie is married off to a wealthy black man, even though she is not remotely in love with him. This is done because Nanny believes black woman have no power and need someone with power and wealth to protect them. As a middle-aged adult, Janie meets Mrs. Turner, a black woman, who is obsessed with white people and believes they are superior to black people. This shows that not only white people are racist towards black people. Additionally, when Janie goes to trial for Tea Cakes murder, she is proven innocent based on the fact that Tea Cake is black, showing the lack of caring for those in the black community. The fact that Janie’s race plays such an important role in her life shows that, despite people’s effort, race still plays an important role in the lives of black people in America.
As a child Janie’s race is something she realizes later, but is still an important part of her life. As a child Janie grew up with a white family, named the Washburns, for whom Nanny worked as a nanny for. It is not until Janie sees herself in a picture with the Washburns children that she realizes she is black, Janie recounts her realization t...

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...ntical, except Tea Cake had been white, Janie would have been doing jail time for killing in self-defense, which is not a crime. This illuminates the idea that race plays a huge part in the lives of black people.
Throughout Janie’s life, events occur and choices are made for her because of her skin color. These race based situations start before Janie was even born and progress to the end of the book, in which the reader sees a middle aged Janie. The fact that race can effect someone’s life to the extent it does to Janie is ridiculous. The fact is skin color should not matter, just because someone is black does not mean they are more or less important, they are equal. However, this problem still occurs today, black people are ostracized due to their skin color, this is problem that still has ways to go before it is fix, but should be fixed as quickly as possible.