TEWWG, Ch. 1-2

In no way is this book disgraceful or slandering to any population. If anything it’s truthful. It touches all the important and natural parts of society. TEWWG is nothing short of genius.

Go to any group of females no matter the ages, and you’ll be in the thick of gossip. I’m a victim to the madness as much as I am a perpetrator. It is true some individuals gossip more than others, but it is equally true even the most innocent people have something to say about someone else:

So long as they get a name to gnaw on they don’t care whose it is, and what about, ’specially if they can make it sound evil. (6)

Janie is absolutely right. People, especially women, love to talk. Maybe it’s satisfaction from hearing their own voices or maybe it’s innate insecurity that creates an impulse to gossip. The gossip isn’t sweet either. Gossip is harsh and cruel. It normally is everything you wouldn’t say in front of someone, but exposed behind their back. It really is as evil as the name it’s painting.

Does discussing human nature’s tendency to expose dirty laundry in turn make the discussion its own kind of dirty? I don’t think so. This isn’t a gossiping book or pointing fingers. It’s a contradiction to slander that taints all lives. It’s truth in the roughest form. The only way to dry laundry in the antebellum south is to air it. It was not Hurston’s fault that the laundry was dirty.