Zora Neale Hurston's Transformation

Development of The Protagonist of a Bildungsroman
During the era of the Harlem Renaissance, avidly going after one’s dreams was frowned upon in the African American community. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, underwent a series of events that transformed her from an innocent teenager to an adult as she went after her dream of “ideal love”. In this coming-of-age novel, Janie inaugurates a quest for love leading her to develop into a mature woman. These new experiences with love and relationships impacts Janie in an immense way and provides a major theme that develops in company with her character growth. The meaning of the story is shaped through the adolescent events, causing psychological and moral developments, resulting in Janie’s transformation from youth to maturity. At an early point in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the reader discovers that Janie Crawford has the desire to undercover the meaning behind true love. A quote from chapter two shows this volition of hers. Janie states, “Oh to be a pear tree-any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the …show more content…
Before her pursuit of love, Janie has the mindset of a naive teenager. Janie then loses her sense of innocence after kissing Johnny Taylor under the pear tree. This display frightens her Nanny prompting her to conduct an arranged marriage for Janie with an elderly gentleman named Logan Killicks. Killicks is a very dull and ordinary man, shaping Janie into a mature and “obeying” woman: limiting her voice until it becomes almost non-existent. Through this failing marriage with Logan, Janie learns that love and marriage do not mean the same thing. When Janie meets Joe Starks however, she believes that she has felt the sensation of true love and runs off with him in order to escape the marriage which she was forced