The most vivid motif: Janie's hair
African Americans, with their traditionally African features have always had an uneasy coexistence with the European (white) ideal of beauty. Angela Neal and Midge Wilson argues that "compared to black males, black females have been more profoundly affected by the prejudicial fallout surrounding issues of skin color, facial features, and hair. Such impact can be attributed in large part to the importance of physical attractiveness for all women" (328). Hair is the most easily controlled feature for black women. Contemporary black women sometimes opt for cosmetic surgery or colored contact lenses, hair alteration (e.g. hair extension, weaves, hair straightening, etc.). This remains the most popular way to approximate a white female standard of beauty. Neal and Wilson also argue that much of the black women's "obsession about skin color and features has to do with the black woman's attempting to attain a high desirability stemming from her physical similarity to the white standard of beauty" (328).The main question is, who do the females try to attract by attaining this "high desirability"? Is the choice of one's hairstyle a way to signify one's alliance or even opposition to white supremacy or is it that if a black person strai
In "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Hurston examines the black-female response to the white beauty ideal, but in a markedly different manner. One of the most powerful scenes was when Janie confronts Starks when he is on his dying bed. She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others"987). So he stopped and looked hard and then he asked her for a cool drink of water" (47). Hurston's alternative ideals of black-female beauty cover the spectrum of black female reader. Maybe he skeered some de rest of us mens might touch it round dat store. She offers not only the black females encounters with the white-female standard of beauty, but also the black females difficulties negotiating her black-male partner's conception of that standard. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again' (135). A lot of females chooses their hairstyle by the male's expectations and likes rather than their own likes. All of chapter 16 is about the relationship between Janie and Mrs. and opens up the window and cries 'Come heah people! Jody is dead. To her way of thinking, all theses things set her aside from Negroes" (208). In some of Zora Neale Hurston's works, she engages the black females struggle between her own hairstyle preferences and the female hairstyle preferences of the black male.
Common topics in this essay:
Tea Cake,
Neal Wilson,
Listen Jody,
Joe Janie,
Maybe Maybe,
Midge Wilson,
Janie Turner,
Hurston Janie's,
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Janie Joe,
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self esteem,
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white controlled society,
relationship janie turner,
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Acceptance Essays
