In the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" written by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie the protagonist is seen by critics as having no voice. For all women silence knows no boundaries of race or culture, and Janie is no exception. Hurston characterizes Janie with the same silence that women at that time & period were forced into, (complete submission.) "Women were to be seen and not heard." Janie spends forty years of her life, learning to achieve/find, her voice against the over-ruling and dominate men in her life. But in the end Janie comes out the victor, breaking the silence. In her essay "What do Feminist Critics Want"" Gilbert states, "Like Wagner's master singers....men had the power of speech,[but]....women like Emily Dickinson, knew that they had, or were supposed to have, the graceful obligation of silence."(34) To question the male voice in "Their...