Racism In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Although I agree with Wright’s and Locke’s assertion that Hurston oversimplifies racism, I take issue with Wright claiming that there is no theme in Their Eyes Were Watching God. I agree with Wright’s and Locke’s assertion that Hurston oversimplifies racism because there isn’t much about racism since the story takes place in an all black town. Tea Cake talks back to two white men that stopped him and Janie from going back to the Everglades. One of the white man says, “Git on down de road dere, suh! Don’t look out somebody’ll be buryin’ you! G’wan in front uh me, suh!”(Hurston 170). This shows racism being oversimplified in Their Eyes Were Watching God because white people despised people of color during that time, but they didn’t do anything

In the beginning of the book,men’s dreams and women’s dreams are being compared. Hurston claims, “Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing, [...] his dreams mocked to death by Time. [...] Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. They then act and do things accordingly”(1). This means that men wish for things they don’t have, but some of them gets what they wish for, while others have their goals in sight, but they never become within reach of their goals. Women on the other hand establish their goals and chase after them. This is true throughout the novel because Janie has been looking for her true love since the beginning of the book. For example, she left Logan for Joe because Joe was an upgrade from Logan and when she finally meets Tea Cake, she knew that he was the one she has been looking for. This also shows the different perspective of men and women because men will give up and never try to achieve their goals and women will do everything in their power to try to achieve their