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Christiana Potts
Professor Melissa Sipin
English 110
18 September 2014
The Same Single Story About Two Different Women
The saying never judge a book by its cover is passed around freely when dealing with
situations or people that cannot be understood or are just different. Most people however, ignore
this saying and skip to conclusions based on gender, race, or just outside appearance overall.
Zora Neele Hurstons character Janie, from Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Sandra
Cisneros character from Never Marry a Mexican both suffered under the single story category
dealing with their races and family origin, and being a woman who does not follow the norm set
in both of their societies time period.
Both stories start with the strong female character doing an event that would be almost
frowned upon in their societies in order to show that single story and set the character apart from
other characters. Hurston starts her character Janie returning to her hometown, with a new
apparel, and confident attitude. Giving an insight on what scene is being set up, elder women on
a porch notice this uncivil change and gossip:
What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Cant she find no dress to put on?...What dat ole forty year ole oman doin wid her hair swingin down her back lak some
young gal? Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid? Thought she
was going to marry? Where he left her? (2).
By having the elder women describe Janie, they also describe Janies past giving the reader some
knowledge about who she is and what caused her to become this independent, changed woman.
They also paint her as a woman who had been cheated on or cheated on someone herself, this is
the audiences single story of Janie. The older woman only saw the outside of the new Janie, and

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never got the full story of how and why she came back to her hometown dressed as she did.
Cisneros does almost the same with her character. Starting off her character as an independent
woman:
I'll never marry. Not any man. I've known men too intimatelyUnzipped and unhooked
and agreed to clandestine maneuvers. I've been accomplice, committed premeditated
crimes. I'm guilty of having caused deliberate pain to other women. I'm vindictive and
cruel, and I'm capable of anything. (51).
The reader already knows the character is Hispanic, so an inference is made based on the first
paragraph about her mother. Cisneros makes the character seem like the Hispanic stereotype is
the real deal by adding how she was guilty of having caused pain to others. By doing this the
reader only gets one side of the story Cisneros is about to tell. Both stories convey the characters
characteristics in the opening in order to give the reader that single story and fool the readers to
think based on what the characters race and gender that they fit that stereotype given to them
by the author.
The characters in the novels are both different in ways of becoming who they are so they
differentiate from the gender norm and their races. Cisneros character was shaped through her
mothers words and the death of her father, both events very influential on her judgment of men.
For Janie her character development was through trials of her love life, the constant downfall of
every love she had and the hope of having a true love. A big repetition through Cisneros story is
the phrase Never Marry a Mexican. The story starts with the characters mother saying these
words and then the character explaining her love life and how none of her lovers would be
Mexican. Mexican men, forget it, (52) the character only wants to marry because of romance
not because she has to. She wanted someone who would be by her side and faithful and never
forget the reason why they would have gotten married. Cisneros character, though Hispanic,
was born American and had American ideas on her own cultures stereotypes and from family

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experience. Hurstons character, does not get this helpful advice from her parental figure. Janie
was not raised by her birthmother, but instead by her grandmother who was a former slave.
Janies grandmother wants her to be comfortable and well looked after so an arranged marriage
is set up with a wealthy middle aged farmer giving Janie no hope for any true love experience.
The character of Nanny being a former slave and quickly marrying off her granddaughter to a
wealthy man is due to the time period, cultural, and society the characters in Hurstons novel live
in. Through love the character development, but they developed into their independent woman
selves in their own different ways.
Never Marry a Mexican and Their Eyes Were Watching God are the stories that tell the
one sided story and then develop over the course of the novel to reveal the true character and
their motives, the reasons for their actions in love. Janie and Cisneross character both came
from non-wealthy, different race families with different ideologies because of the time periods.