Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God By Hurston

None of the characters in the novel are trying to hurt Janie. From their point of view, they believe that they are helping her, even though their actions lead her to feel isolated, unhappy, and miserable. In the second chapter of Zora Hurston’s Novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s grandmother forces Janie to marry a man she does not love and is the exact opposite of what she wants in a future husband. In the heat of Janie’s protests, Granny slaps Janie as hard as she can manage to silence her (Hurston 14). Granny justifies this action by telling herself that the only way to get her point across is too slap her and the pain will go away in a minute. Granny is also convinced that her abrupt decision to marry her granddaughter to a respectable man, Logan Killicks, is the only course of action, because of Janie’s need for protection. Another reason Granny arranges the marriage is due to the fact that Janie’s mother and her did not have the opportunity to marry a respectable man and raise a proper family. ‘“Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. . . Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. . . Ah even hated de way you was born”’ (Hurston 15-16). …show more content…
In the following years, Janie is forbidden to join her friends and acquaintances on the porch to gossip and laugh (Hurston 53-54). Since Janie has not had the opportunity to find out who she really is, she wants more than anything else to have fun and join everyone on the porch. Joe Starks never truly sees this. He prevents her from joining them in the first place, because he does not want her to socialize with the lower class citizens. He wants her to stand atop everyone else in refinement, beauty, and deed since she is the mayor’s wife. He goes in depth about explaining his purposes on page