The Courtroom

The four-page court scene in Their Eyes Were Watching God is in stark contrast to Bigger’s trial in Wright’s Native Son. While this particular scene seems almost insignificant to Hurston’s overall plot, it is arguably the most essential chapter of Wright’s work. In Wright’s critique of Hurston’s work, he argues that she does not address any social issues, and read at face value, there might be some truth to the statement. Janie lives in an all African American community and race does not play an important role at the start of the novel. Race is arguably not the main discussion point in the courtroom scene either, although there are quite a few instances where Hurston points out the discriminatory aspects of the court system, as “all of the colored people were standing up in the back of the courtroom,” unable to participate as “Mr. Prescott glared at the back of the house”. The trial by a jury of “peers” are all white men and Janie didn’t understand why “twelve strange men who didn’t know a thing about people like Tea Cake and her were going to sit on the thing”.

These “white men had stopped whatever they were doing to listen and pass on what happened between Janie and Tea Cake Woods, and as to whether things were done right or not”. This immense sense of entitlement they have is also obvious in their jurisdiction, as Janie’s actual peers would have determined a very different verdict. Janie notices the white women, who seem understanding, and wishes that they could lead the trial because the worst thing for her is to be misunderstood. In this sense, she is a minority in two ways. She is a Black woman who is shunned by her own race and not fully understood by the white men who think they know what’s best for her case. In a similar way, one of the reasons she does not stay in the Everglades is because she does not feel accepted or as part of the community without Tea Cake around.

Although Wright might have been correct in critiquing some aspects of the book, it is obvious that Hurston does address racial issues in her book. Even if she did not, the argument that all African Americans must write protest literature is extremely constraining and just enhancing discrimination, in a sense. The court scene, however, does show issues with race relations, and even following the scene there are various uncomfortable aspects to what passed as acceptable conversations of the time. “Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her,” said the man outside her boarding house. Not only is this extremely problematic language, but there is actually some despicable truth to the statement. Had Janie killed a white man in a similar fashion, her trial would certainly have ended very differently.