Their Eyes Were Watching God Character Analysis

In Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford, the main character of the novel embarks on a journey of self discovery, independence and self understanding. She enters several marriages and her universal expectations for each grow as she learns from the last. Though she has three serious relationships, Janie does not ever have her desires fully met, even with the one she loved most, Tea Cake. Janie spends much of her life in search of her happiness to find in the end that, she must first find herself before she can derive short cuts from others. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford goes through life as a young child to a woman with true character and understanding of the world over the course of the three marriages and relationships. She experiences …show more content…
Jody takes Janie to the town of Eatonville, the first black town of it’s time to help along the townspeople in it’s growth. Jody was an educated man and wanted to lead the people of Eatonville as the mayor of the town. He had an uncanny need for power that sometimes rivaled himself with his own god. He made Janie feel somewhat submissive, at first in her ignorance Janie enjoyed this man and wife relationship that Jody put before her. But as time went on Jodie got more and more controlling demanding with Janie. As he grew older his insecurities also grew and he compensated for these by insulting Janie in any way that he could, sometimes even in public among their peers. He went to such lengths as to make janie tie her hair in a scarf, representing the complete and total resignation of her freedom as a woman. When he died they exchanged insults and he passed on while on bad terms with one another, so she almost celebrated the freedom she gained with the death of her husband and