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Taneisha Dove
Professor Johnson
English 101A
11 April 2021
Draft Position Paper
Why does our name mean so much to us? As a person the name that we are given at birth
is what determines the person we become as we grow older it also determines how others treat us
because when you are younger kids will tease you because of the name that you have. In Sigrid
Kings article “Naming and Power in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God” her
argues that your name is connected to how you live your life, and it also determines the person
that you become. We see that this is true in Hurston’s novel because Janie was treated differently
before she got married and even when she got married each time, she was treated a certain way.
If you were an African American back in the 30s then you would know that your name is how
you earn work, it dictated the status of your family and your living condition and it also tells
everyone around you how to treat you.
In Hurston’s novel the main character Janie went through a period where she was treated
differently not just because of her skin tone but also because her name did not hold and sort of
power to it and it was not meaningful. When Janie married Logan Killicks that is when she
became more respected in the black community because her husband owned his own land, and
he was well of financially and in saying that she was not respected until she met him. Hurston
wrote “If you don’t want him, you sho oughta. Heah you is wid de onliest organ in town,
amongst colored folks, in yo’ parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land
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Taneisha Dove
Professor Johnson
English 101A
11 April 2021
right on de big road and … Lawd have mussy!” (Hurston 23.) because she wanted to show that
when Janie went to Nanny and told her that she did not love Logan Nanny got upset and told her
that she should love him because he has things that all black women want.
When you have a title to your name then that means that you have a status of importance
and you are to be well respected in you community no matter the title it could be Mayor,
President, or you could be a business owner it would still garner you a lot of respect. This can be
proven because when Janie and Jody arrived in Eatonville and Jody declared himself the mayor,
he became the most well known and respected man in town and Janie being his wife she was
held on a pedestal with the other towns people looking up to her. “Janie soon began to feel the
impact of awe and envy against her sensibilities. The wife of the mayor was not just another
women as she had supposed. She slept with authority and so she was part of it in the town mind.”
(Hurston 46.) This passage says a lot because Janie is just coming to terms with the amount of
power her name holds now that she is married to the mayor and how many people look up to
because of who she is now just because of who she is, which she is not used to.
Everyone can say that you do not have to be a mayor of a town or being rich just for you
name to mean something or to be well respected but, you could just be a hardworking individual
and your name could still matter. But being a woman in the 30s that would not be possible
because for you to be an important figure you would have to be connected to a well-respected
man because at that time the men were the only people that could obtain high positions in
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Taneisha Dove
Professor Johnson
English 101A
11 April 2021
society. Towards then end of her second marriage Janie began to see the power of her name and
she did not like the way people treated her as though she was better than them when she just
wanted to be herself and not care about what others thought about her.
To sum up everything that has been stated so far, I think that the name that you have or
any name that you take on is going to define you for either that time period or for the rest of your
life or for however long you have that name attached to you. Janie realized that after the death of
her last husband Tea Cake that she did not care what others said about her and that she did not
care if the people that sat on the porch talked about her behind her back and called her names.
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Taneisha Dove
Professor Johnson
English 101A
11 April 2021
Work Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Lippincott, 1998
King, Sigrid. “Naming and Power in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Wyes Were Watching God”
Women Writers, special issue of Black American Literature Form, vol. 24. No.4. Winter 1990.
pp. 683-96. JSTOR. Doi:10.2307/3041796
