Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Given all of the struggle and oppression that they are put through in love and marriage, why do some women jump right back into the water only to find themselves catching another piranha? In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the reader is taken through the development of Janie from her early life to her later years. You can read as she struggles with love and finding her own voice in a time of racism and inequality between both races and genders. We watch her struggle to find her “pear tree image” of love through several marriages. Although some may argue that she never found this in her life, further investigation shows us how Janie's relationship with Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake throughout the text leads her to self fulfillment …show more content…
He teaches her checkers, shows strong masculinity, and financially supports Janie. One night, “He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place,” (Hurston, 128). Tea Cake has won over Janie’s heart by showing her every single quality of a man that she wants. Her soul is able to show itself after having to be hidden for so many years of oppression from Jody and Logan. Janie has a perfectly healthy relationship with Tea Cake through their time together. He shows her new things and even offers for her to work with him other than ordering. Everyone around them long for relationships like theirs and idolize the two of them together. Even when Tea cake is gone, “He could never be dead until she herself finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace,” (Hurston 193). Janie and Tea Cake are connected by soul, meaning that they will be together always. Tea Cake may be dead, but Janie still feels this love that puts her over the …show more content…
Some may say that she never found a place of self fulfillment or her pear tree image of love, however, her relationship with Tea Cake brought her this love that she so desperately sought through her life. Janie went through oppression and major abuse through her first two marriages with men who objectified and used her for work. Tea Cake showed Janie real love and gave her everything he could to make her happy for as long as they were together, and even after Tea Cake was gone. Sometimes hardship is needed in order to be able to reach a final stage of love and fulfillment in