A Galentine’s Day Review: Samantha Ellis’ “How to Be a Heroine”

Samantha Ellis’ How to Be a Heroine begins with a friendly debate: would you rather be Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw? I’ve certainly had similar debates with friends, although ours were more likely to be about heroines from Jane Austen’s work than from the Bronte sisters. For Ellis, however, this friendly debate sets her off on a quest to revisit all of her favorite heroines, and question why they resonated with her at different points in her life. Each chapter focuses on a different heroine or book, but will often include brief tangents or references to other books she was reading at that point in her life. And the best part of it all just might be the bibliography at the end, listing all the works mentioned in the book. If you’re looking to buy yourself a Galentine’s Day treat, I highly recommend looking for a copy of How to Be a Heroine, newly released in the US this month by Knopf.

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“Their Eyes Were Watching God” Revisited

I first read Their Eyes Were Watching God in my 10^th grade English class, and didn’t have very strong feelings about it. I remember struggling with the use of dialect, and giggling during discussions of the “pear tree” metaphor of Janie’s awakening sexuality, and not much else. But in recent years, both in classes in college and while reading feminist blogs online, I became curious about this book that had seemed so inconsequential to me. As a kid, stories like Their Eyes had not stood out to me because I had plenty of other heroines to choose from and look up to (Tamora Pierce’s Alanna was probably one of my most formative). Many Black feminists, however, have cited Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as a key formative text in their identity and early understandings of feminism. The more Their Eyes kept popping up, the more I wanted to reread Janie’s story.

Taken from Janet Mock’s Facebook page