E(Race)ing gender: Stratified identities

Abstract

In the discussion that follows, I will examine, on the broadest level, Hurston's complex negotiation of identity, as manifested in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Central to this investigation is an understanding of the strategies that women, specifically African American women, have adopted, under the auspices of marriage and the patronage system, to seek an equal place within a hegemonic culture. Most importantly, I want to address the cultural and social price exacted for accepting (as seen in the appropriation of white standards, and rejecting (as seen in Janie's trial for her husband's death) those institutions as the basis of one's identity. The cultural and social price that Janie pays, furthermore, challenges her adaptive capacity to stratify her racial and gender identity. Finally, it exacts a toll on the community as a whole, a fact Hurston repeatedly suggests by illustrating the extent to which the community has absorbed hegemonic standards of value and beauty with little or no inspection of or reflection on the effects to itself or to its individual members.