Their Eyes Were Watching God

Throughout the book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, the book sets place after the civil war in the south of the country. The main character Janie goes through a journey, where she discovers things about herself and the type of person she is. Janie is a very complex character as she is raised by her grandmother who has beliefs of staying quiet and listening to the male because she was raised as a slave to eventually changing the rules and becoming more independent as time…

Janie’s true desire In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie discovers that rebelling against society's expectations for women enables her to gain power and independence, conveying Hurston's purpose that all people are entitled to have their freedom. Her discovery is apparent through her not following traditional male expectations. Although she learned a lot from her two relationships with different men at the beginning of the book, Janie still feels lost because she followed the social belief…

In a world filled with constant reminders of Gender roles, Hurston uses them as one of the various themes throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God to add an underlying message to society. Female gender roles include not being as strong as men, never in charge, pretty to look at, and several more. While in contrast male gender roles are typically portrayed as having dominance and being the “hero” to a woman. Hurston expresses the gender roles given at this time in society by displaying Janie…

Hurston accomplishes this portrayal by using a hurricane. The hurricane in the “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was a super-storm. The winds are strong, the sky is dark, and the rain comes down hard. The storm floods the everglades and destroys everything.”The winds came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time… They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God...Water everywhere.”(151-152) Janie and Tea Cake try to physically stay together, but it was…

is a modern feminist writer and a part of the African-American community. She writes commentaries about the feminist messages, or lack thereof, in popular writings. In one such review, quoted above, she criticizes Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, a seminal work of 20th century literature. Harris especially disapproves of the relationships of Janie, the novel’s protagonist, with various men. Although Harris is correct in that Janie is often outwardly passive, Harris’ focus on…

the film, some people may answer yes; others, no. Zora Neale Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is no different. Her story regarding a young African American woman’s search for herself through different relationships struck Oprah Winfrey so much she decided to turn the classic novel into a movie. However, as always, the film seems to leave out some key points. In Winfrey’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the lack of importance regarding the pear tree, the sexualization of Janie’s…

who have individual personalities outside of their use to the plot. Zora Neale Hurston examines several of these roles through her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which follows a black woman, Janie, through her three marriages and her simultaneous personal self-discovery. While Janie begins her…

may strive for individuality as well as relationships, the constraints that come with the love may act as a fetter causing the other to lose themselves. The 1991 poem “A Woman is Not a Potted Plant” by Alice Walker and the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston both involve a woman wanting to be loved and free while struggling to find a balance between the two. Since autonomy and constraint conflict, Janie struggles to find herself under Nanny’s authority; her…

later moved to New York City and attended Columbia University where she received a degree in anthropology. She wrote African American folktales with inspiration from her hometown and having them set in her hometown as well. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows the story of a character named Janie, as she tells her friend Phoeby about three marriages that she went through with men named Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. Through her use of symbol, metaphor, and simile, Zora Neale Hurston is…

In Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie, a long-haired beauty, struggled with finding herself in marriages where constant society and personal pressures forced her into certain roles in life she never expected. Throughout the book Janie struggles with being herself versus pleasing the man she is with. When Janie marries Logan she is still an innocent young girl, this innocence is stripped away with the realization of what it means to be married and live under the control of…