Home > Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary & Study Guide > Essays and Criticism > Sex, Race, and Criticism: Thoughts of a White Feminist on Kate Chopin and Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God | Sex, Race, and Criticism: Thoughts of a White Feminist on Kate Chopin and Zora Neale Hurston

Cantarow, a white feminist on a panel with a black feminist, speaks out on sex, race, and criticism, comparing Kate Chopin's The Awakening to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

I'd like to begin with a memory that came to my mind as I was re-reading the two books we're to discuss this morning. Two years ago, when I was teaching at SUNY/Old Westbury, my car broke down on my way to class. I found myself in one of those high-class, desolate neighborhoods. You know. Plush desolation. No stores. Beautifully manicured streets but not a soul in sight. Hundred thousand dollar houses surrounded by fences and exquisitely tended shrubbery. A woman let me in at one of these houses. She looked to be in her late fifties. It was noon, but she was still dressed in a robe. She...

[The entire page is 2610 words long]

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