Both Zora Neale Hurston?s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Sherwood Anderson?s Winesburg, Ohio provide great examples of community, although there are stark differences in the way the two respective authors present them.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie moves to the town of Eatonville, Florida with her second husband Jody Starks. The move was to flee her arranged first marriage to a man that she did not love, and also gain some stature in a community.

The ?All-Negro town? of Eatonville is Jody?s dream. It turns out to be a big disappointment to him though, and he takes on the responsibility of building and leading the town. This preoccupation causes Joe to slowly but surely lose interest in his wife and become overbearing towards her. Janie finds that Jody is no more interested in letting her speak than Logan Killicks:

?...mah wife don?t know nothin? ?bout no speech-makin?. Ah never married her for nothin? lak dat. She?s uh woman and her place is in de home? (41).

Sherwood Anderson presents his fictional middle-America town of Winesburg through inter-connected short stories. The character of Winesburg Eagle journalist George Wi

?(Hindman) began trying to force herself to face bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg? (102).

In ?Adventure,? Alice Hindman wished to travel (unmarried) to Cleveland with her lover, but at his request remains in Winesburg and never hears from him again. After over a decade of waiting, she has the realization that he will never come for her:

After Janie starts her life with Jody in Eatonville, she begins to grow tired of always having to act as if she was above everybody in the town. She would have preferred to be a normal towns person - joining in on the great talks and laughs on the store porch with the rest of the people, but this was forbade by Jody. Jody also prohibited her from wearing her long, beautiful hair down in public, feeling that it called attention from the other men.

On the surface, Winesburg is a functional town that could be perceived as an example of an American dream community. Anderson proves this idea wrong in presenting the characters as lonely - and feeling a part of nothing. Many envision life in the big cities (such as Chicago) as superior, and some have made plans to leave.

Another example of this theme in Winesburg, Ohio is the stor

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Approximate Word count = 819
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)