In Their Eyes Were Watching God three men try to constrain and eventually destroy Janie through both their actions and t

In Hurston and Kingston's novels, men are portrayed as a more negative than positive force on the females they interact with, however, their treatment of the women and attitudes toward them nevertheless help the women define themselves. In the two works, this definition seems to come about in two ways-either through conforming to the male's views and thereby becoming a product of their opinions, or through the rebellion against a negative stereotype in which the woman can become the antithesis of the original male perspective. In Kingston's novel, the strong male forces at work on the different women through the episodes of the "No Name Woman", "Shaman", and even "White Tigers" and the narrator's own life serve primarily to cause the women to value themselves more as a servant to the men they encounter than as a valuable creature themselves. In Hurston's novel, Janie finds herself continually defying the preset standard for her life and gets closest to 'finding herself' when she is with a less-domineering, and hence less-traditional male figure. While the drastically differing cultural contexts contribute to the differences in the women's reactions, the role of the male as an extremely influential factor seems to typify the involvement of males in both books, as well as others by female writers.

While Tea Cake does not fit society's notion of a 'good man' or the mold set forth by earlier writers because he cannot provide for a woman as readily as Jody and Logan, he still remains the strongest of her three husbands. While he admits to Janie that he believes she is a woman wonderful enough to "make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die" (132), her disapproval of one thing or another does not cause him to break into tears or let his body succumb to a disease. Although while he is alive, Tea Cake appears to support her more than hinder her growth as a person, at least in the eyes of Janie, his attempt to kill her is another representation by Hurston of the destructive influence of even the seemingly best of men. Because Janie was able to protect herself, and unfortunately was forced to kill him as a result, the author showed once again that women are able to survive on their own, and should not need to sacrifice of themselves simply to appease their male counterpart. All throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, and all of her husbands seem to defy the traditional roles set for them-the men, strong yet inhibited by a wife who needs constant protection and support, and the woman, content with a faithful man who sees that all of her worldly needs are met. While this portrayal of men contrasts greatly with that in earlier books by male authors, it has unfortunately become the prototype of most males in positively female-centered works. Although representative of society at the time of the author, and even somewhat representative of the present day, men in female-written works appear to get as unfavorable depictions as most women in works written by men.

Through the portrayal of male characters in The Woman Warrior and Their Eyes Were Watching God the authors open a new perspective on the role of males in the lives of women. The typical characterization of men

Some common words found in the essay are:
Watching God, Jody Logan, Tea Cake, Hurston's Janie, White Tigers, Woman Warrior, Hong Kingston, God Janie, Hurston Kingston's, Instead Janie, tea cake, eyes watching god, eyes watching, watching god, woman warrior, female authors, male characters, male authors, books written, written male, jody logan, cake grants freedom, warrior eyes watching, tea cake grants, woman warrior eyes,
Approximate Word count = 2161
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)