Zora Neale Hurston’s acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has been analyzed, critiqued, and debated over for many years. The work, on a simple reading, is purely a story of a female African American’s journey and complex love life in early twentieth century America. The novel is written using the author’s own ideas and experiences: the emotions in the novel were based on the emotions Hurston felt in her own affair with a much younger man (Dubek 598). Throughout the book, the main character, Janie, experiences a self-realization where she finds her place in the world by expanding her horizon. Janie expresses Hurston’s beliefs of what life should entail (Hemenway, “Janie’s Quest” 37). She did not accept what others did for her; rather, she made her own life. Because of the metaphor of the blooming pear tree and her relationships and experiences with her grandmother, Johnny Taylor, and her three husbands—Logan Killicks, Joe Stark, and Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods, Janie grows from a girl who could not even recognize herself into a woman with such a strong sense-of-self that she overcomes the confining role of a black woman.
The story …show more content…
Logan was a man who fulfilled Nanny’s materialistic dreams but not Janie’s dreams of the pear tree (Litwin 25). In Janie’s eyes, “the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree” (Hurston 14). This marriage proves to be loveless and lonely for Janie and makes her realize that “marriage did not make love” (Hurston 25; Hemenway, “Crayon Enlargements” 89). The realization comes after Logan makes Janie work by cutting potatoes for planting and when Logan leaves town for a mule calm enough for a woman to handle—intending for Janie to plow the 60 acres he owns (Hurston 31). This sad and short marriage kills Janie’s dreams of what marriage was and forces her to grow quickly from a girl into a woman (Hemenway, “Crayon Enlargements”
The story …show more content…
Logan was a man who fulfilled Nanny’s materialistic dreams but not Janie’s dreams of the pear tree (Litwin 25). In Janie’s eyes, “the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree” (Hurston 14). This marriage proves to be loveless and lonely for Janie and makes her realize that “marriage did not make love” (Hurston 25; Hemenway, “Crayon Enlargements” 89). The realization comes after Logan makes Janie work by cutting potatoes for planting and when Logan leaves town for a mule calm enough for a woman to handle—intending for Janie to plow the 60 acres he owns (Hurston 31). This sad and short marriage kills Janie’s dreams of what marriage was and forces her to grow quickly from a girl into a woman (Hemenway, “Crayon Enlargements”