“Writers have always been interested in the kind of society in which they live and have highlighted problems of behavior, hypocrisies, and inequalities that have existed.” Discuss this assertion referring to at least two works you have studied.
“Writers have always been interested in the kind of society in which they live and have highlighted problems of behavior, hypocrisies, and inequalities that have existed.” Writers wrote about most social issues present in their time, highlighting the main issues, and trying to solve or present ways to solve them. This is evident by Alice Walker write of “The Color Purple” and Zora Hurston writer of “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Both writers showed many issues and presented them in their novels as main conflicts or struggles the protagonist had to overtake.
The color purple was written in the early 1900’s at a time when racism and masculinity was present. Whites were dominant over blacks, men were dominant over woman. The community had suffered from many issues, Alice Walker had some opposing ideas and attitudes to what was present. This was mostly shown using the language in the color purple. The book is written in the style of letters, mostly by Celie the main character, while there are also letters from Nettie. The problem with Celie is that her language is limited and colloquial language is used by her, thus the ideas presented through Celie are more simple ideas instead of complex ideas. Alice Walker through her main character Celie had opposed these ideas, Celie develops in the story and along with her development we see how Alice Walker aimed to solve masculinity vs. femininity, slavery and racism, colonization and hierarchy of whites over blacks. All these issues were problems at the tim e period of Alice Walker, as she suffered in her childhood, a black child in a white society. Alice Walker shows how inequality and hypocrisy is present in her society though Celie’s image, Celie is abused by her step-father, the whites are dominant in her town, and her being a women she has to listen to man, Celie takes all this without complain, as this presents how society expects the reaction of her to be.
However Alice Walker did not stand to all these ideas of society, she aimed to solve them as her interest in these issues have changed over time in the book, as Celie develops, we see Alice Walker solving those issues, such as Celie getting a voice and standing up to men, or blacks starting to have their freedom of speech. Alice Walker also presents other ideas that weren’t of society in her novel, such as the idea of God, how God is in everything, and she makes it through Celie seem normal to be homosexual.
Their Eyes Were Watching God was in 1937. During that time there were many issues present in the society such as racism and misogyny and slavery. Also during that time the American dream was well known as people go through spiritual and physical journeys to reach that dream. Society at that time had viewed women differently as they thought men were superior to women. The author Zora Hurston had portrayed all these issues in her well known novel Their eyes were watching god, which is a novel narrated in third person, and through the narration it revels the characters thoughts and motives. Zora Huston grew up in Eatonville, the first all black town and her father became the mayor. Huston’s background life is what influenced her to write her novel, as her novel the main character Janie, travels to Eatonville like Huston’s family, and then her husband (Huston’s father) becomes the mayor. The life of the author is the main influence on her writing her novel. However racism is present in the society at that time, in her novel, the protagonist did not struggle from