Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, tells the story of a woman named Janie Crawford as she lives and grows throughout her life and marriages in Florida. Janie is a young woman around 16 who is being raised by her grandmother, Nanny, who is a former slave. Because of this fact, Nanny values financial security and respectability over anything else, and so she sees fit to marry Janie to a much older, ugly man named Logan Killicks. This newfound leap into womanhood at such a young age begins the real development of Janie’s character in the novel.…
Many consider mules to be substandard animals, only useful for labor-intensive tasks. Yet, in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, mules represent more than just a poor, defenseless animal. The way men treat them in Eatonville reflects the condition of the black female, as it serves as a symbol of Janie’s struggle in her relationship with Joe. In fact, the mule and its subsequent mistreatment represents how African-American females are comparative to these second-rate workhorses, thus justifying their oppressors’ abuse over his possession, whether that possession is his wife, or his mule. To begin, Matt Bonner mistreats his mule by not feeding him enough food.…
Studying Janie Crawford Their Eyes Were Watching God is the compelling tale of Janie Crawford, a remarkably unique woman for her time. Intelligent and strong, Janie refuses to fall into societal traps set for young women regarding marriage, duty, and contentment. In appearance, she is described as extraordinarily beautiful, with long hair in braids and an attractive figure, and has no problem catching the attention of men. Janie is habitually adventurous and curious, and not pleased by doing the same thing for too long.…
Throughout the story, Janie’s development as a woman gets stronger. Janie was a curious and innocent young woman, but…
All around the world there have been many cases of sexual and physical abuse against women. Such is the case in “Bluest eye” by Toni Morrison and the movie “Their Eyes were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. Likewise, in Natacha Clerge contemporary review that shares a similar perspective. In all three works there is a horrible turn of events that leads to desperate measures.…
Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Namesake - Compare and Contrast Essay Experiences and overcoming conflicts can either help one achieve self realization or hinder their view of himself. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, both Janie and Gogol Ganguli struggle to find their true identity due to a lack of support from their relationships, societal discrimination and negative experiences. Ultimately, both Janie and Gogol are able to overcome these obstacles through determination which helps them achieve self-realization.…
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God the author, Zora N. Hurston, focuses on Janie Starks journey for love. Growing up Janie's grandmother tried to obscure her views on love by forcing her into marriage with Logan Killicks. Even Though Nanny raised Janie on certain values for love, Janie met Tea Cakes and found the love she has been longing for. In the novel the horizon symbolized Janie life opportunities. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie's grandmother teaching on love coupled with the fulfillment Tea Cakes love for Janie revealed that the only thing Janie needed in life was to be loved with understanding.…
The novel I chose is Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this novel, Janie, the main character, conforms her external appearance while she questions internally. Janie marries a man named Logan Killicks because her grandmother believes that she will be secure with him. Logan takes away her sense of feminism when he expects her to do a man's work. Things change when Janie stumbles upon Joe Starks, she leaves Logan runs off with him hoping for a new life.…
Injustice of Women Women have suffered and dealt with the tragedies of what is American history. Inequality is the most important struggle that women have had to overcome. Gender inequality is the basis of which this novel lies around. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the women are portrayed as housewives who can only depend upon the power of their spouse.…
The traumatic events induce her to start making decisions on her own and pay more attention to the deeper reasons behind her life thus far. Nonetheless, this is a journey of self-discovery, and not reinvention. At the end of the story, Janie has a much more accurate perception of herself, and may begin the process of reinvention, but in terms of her as a person, she is right back where she began as a little girl under a pear tree. Janie has finally reclaimed the horizons, or futures, set by her husbands and grandmother, even “[pulling] in her horizon like a great fish-net” (184). Yet she is simply herself in her purest form, as exemplified by the repeated imagery of flowers and summer in nature that occurs at the very beginning and end of the story.…
As some women are silenced, others preserver to gain an independent and influential voice. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that shows the journey of Janie Crawford from a girl to a woman. In a time of patriarchy women are often silenced of their opinion and are controlled by a man’s fist. Janie Crawford attempts to break the precedent of society that men dominate. Throughout the novel the readers can see Janie’s progression in acquiring a voice and controlling it.…
A way to mark a new beginning in your life is to dive into a pond and watch god - at least that’s what Janie does in the film adaptation of Their Eyes Were Watching God. The central theme of the film centers around the main character, Janie, and her search for true love and happiness. We get to see Janie struggle through two painful relationships before she finds “the one”. The film follows Janie as she pushes through a failed arranged marriage to Logan Killicks, and an abusive relationship to Joe Starks. She eventually meets a much younger man named Tea Cake, who shows her a new way and meaning to life.…
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, struggles between two identities, her exterior life, a life drawn from the white world foisted upon her, and her interior life, a more vigorous free black woman, this being the one she tries to forge for herself throughout the novel. The relationship that Janie has with her Nanny ultimately set’s the stage for the conflict regarding her interior and exterior life. In addition to Nanny, her first two husbands Logan and Joe act as the sole cause that separates Janie’s interior and exterior lives while Janie’s third and final husband, Tea Cake, is what causes her to begin the reconciliation of the conflict regarding these two lives. As the novel begins we come…
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a woman maturing through the difficulties of finding and more importantly keeping love. Through these experiences, she discovers the identity she has been harboring in herself. Janie is a mixed African American that has flowing hair and a beautiful face which charms most men around her. At a young age, her nanny made a decision for her to be married to an older man so that she will be able to have a stable future. She hated her nanny for the decisions because she could not bring herself to love the aging man.…
This novel is the story of Janie’s journey to find herself, which is--in this case--synonymous with finding God. This journey is a complex one, spanning over much of Janie’s life. It is such a lengthy road due to the corruption Janie has suffered from those she has been surrounded by--in fact, consumed by. It is not a singular experience which Hurston relates through the character of Janie, it is a universal one.…