Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
Their Eyes Were Watching God
De white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out… de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world as fur as Ah can see (14).
The white man is on the top of the social and economic hierarchy. He holds the power, and due to this power has a privilege commanding respect and performed labors. The people who comply are the African–American men. However, there is a second hierarchy for the black men under the white man's privileges. To assume some sort of position of power they use whatever influence they have,...show more content...
She completes her tasks as a mule would, thoughtlessly and trained. She passes on her passive attitude onto her granddaughter Janie.
Janie works for her first husband, doing what he demands of her. Like a mule she sits when told, stands where she is told, and does exactly what she is told to do. She does not think for herself, pondering "maybe if somebody was to tell me how" (23). When a charming young man convinces her she needs a better life she follows, as a mule would. She slowly holds a better title, Mrs. Mayor, but still follows her husband. She spends endless days in her new husbands store, thankless days, following Jody's specific direction.
Janie and her grandmother represent a culture of women that were stereotyped into a specific gender role, putting them as the last class in society. They received no compensation or respect for their services. Their work specifically benefited only those they worked for, and supported. Through compromising themselves in this way these women were subjected to even more maltreatment.
African–American women, like mules, are property of men. They are treated without the proper human rights that should be placed on a woman doing so much for their men to survive. Janie represents black women's struggles, as her own struggle progresses in Jody's store. He buys her, through and similar to, his purchases of "new clothes of silk and wool" (33). When the two
Their Eyes Were Watching God Reflection Essay
Zora Neale Hurston is often credited for her ability to step outside of the box despite societal norms around her. Her book Their Eyes Were Watching God was nothing short of unexpected, especially during the time period it was released. The novel was released in 1937 when both the rights of women and African Americans were limited; because Hurston and her main character were both, many people were shocked. This astonishment was reflected in the reviews her novel received; male readers(both white and black) generally dismissed her book because she failed to address social injustices like other writers of color did during this time and because only African Americans lived in Eatonville (Washinton). These reviews were the motive behind Their...show more content...
This creates a visible contrast between Janie's past and present. This strategy helps to contribute to the purpose because throughout the novel, Janie reminisces about her past longingly and in a wistful way; it is as if she wants to relive her past because she is so unhappy with her present. As each of her husbands become more and more restrictive over her life, she begins to find the strength within herself to make her present situations as beautiful as her past ones.
Hurston's usage of denotative diction illustrates how Janie was forced to succumb to Jody and the male dominated society as a whole while the two were married. An example of this is when she describes how his restrictions and regulations "squeezed de life" out of her. This is effective because squeezed can be easily associated with suffocating or choking which are both very extreme. If Hurston had just said Jody controlled Janie's life, his control wouldn't seem as extreme. Squeezed helps to contribute to the purpose because Jody exercised complete control over Janie's life; he controlled how she wore her hair, kept her from enjoying town activities, and made her stay in the store. Once she meets Tea Cake, the experiences that she was forced to miss because Jody deemed them "common" became things she enjoyed which showed Jody put his status above Janie's well being. Women during the 1930s experienced the same thing as Janie and could easily relate to her struggles
Essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God
Janie's entire life is one of a journey. She lives through a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout is all, she grows closer and closer to her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Zora Neale Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie changes a lot from the beginning to the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader.
Janie's life begins under the watchful eye of her grandmother. Her grandmother has given up her own happiness to raise Janie and her mother. Right away, it is obvious that Janie's life is going to be different than her grandmother's. For starters, Janie has...show more content...
As a result, she is frightened by Janie's refusal to follow the mold, her refusal to marry for convenience instead of love. Janie's grandmother describes herself as "a cracked plate" [19], showing that not even she has confidence in her own ability to be strong and weather adversity. Janie learns a very important lesson from her grandmother. Not a lesson to emulate, but one to avoid. She does not want to be a cracked plate, she is tall and blossoming and can see what she wants in her life.
She does not get what she wants with Logan Killicks, her first husband. Janie married Logan because her grandmother wanted her to. Her grandmother could not understand why she did not love him, as he had sixty acres of land. Janie did not love him, and describes him as ". . . some ole skullhead in de grave yard" [13] and his house as "a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods . . . absent of flavor" [20]. Janie's eyes are still full of pollen dust, and she cannot get her perfect vision of love out of her mind. Logan makes her do menial chores around the house, and treats her like a beast of burden. She prays for the day when she will be delivered from the life of tedium that she lives.
She thinks that her prayers are answered when she first sees Joe Starks. In fact, she first sees him through a veil of her hair, and it is her long, luxurious hair that he is first attracted to. She thinks that he is "a
Essay On Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston's life consists of a devotion to novelizing, recording, preserving, and analyzing patterns of speech and thought of rural black south and related cultures. Hurston's research on rural black folklore heavily influenced her writing and lead to the creation of one of her most famous work Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the novel, Hurston displays the Black culture in the South as "a representation of distinct cultural tradition and a place for spiritual revitalization" (O'Banner 35). Such depiction of the South in the novel is particularly seen in the journey of the character Janie Mae Crawford and the influences of the community on her choices, thoughts, and individuality. Hurston demonstrates in Their Eyes Were Watching God...show more content...
Tea Cake proves to Janie's true love. He is not the ideal man for Janie in the view of Janie's society as he is twelve years younger than Janie, lacks the land and respectability that Logan provides for Janie, and the entitlement stability that Jody provides for Janie. In fact, her relationship with Tea Cake brought upon malicious gossip and a negative view upon Janie. However, Tea Cake replicates the love that Janie expresses for him, which brings forth a two–sided relationship, rather than a one–sided relationship that Janie experiences in the past. Janie's ability to fall and stay in love is rare in the novel because in Black fiction it is common that love is one sided in order for one of the partners to achieve success (O'Banner 46). Moreover, "Tea Cake neglects the form of the material relationship of marriage ordained by Nanny and realized by Logan Killicks and Joe Starks" (Gates 83). In addition, he adds on this youthfulness and adventurous side of Janie that she is incapable of seeing due to the restraints placed on Black woman (Gates 88). Unlike her previous marriages, Janie is not confined and is able to find herself. Tea Cake makes a vital contribution in finding her own values and search for
Zora Neale Hurston, in keeping with themes dealing with personal relationships and the female search for self–awareness in Their Eyes Were Watching God , has created a heroine in Janie Crawford. In fact, the female perspective is introduced immediately. "Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly" (Their Eyes 1).
On the very first page of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the contrast is made between men and women, thus initiating Janie's search for her own dreams and foreshadowing the "female quest" theme of the rest of the novel. "Detailing her quest for self–discovery and...show more content...
This excerpt establishes the existence of the inferior status of women in this society, a status which Janie must somehow overcome in order to emerge a heroine. This societal constraint does not deter Janie from attaining her dream. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Their Eyes 24).
Janie is not afraid to defy the expectations that her grandmother has for her life, because she realizes that her grandmother's antiquated views of women as weaklings in need of male protection even at the expense of a loving relationship, constitute limitations to her personal potential. "She hated her grandmother . . . .Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon " (Their Eyes 85–86).
Nevertheless, Janie is not afraid to follow her instincts, even when this means leaving her first husband to marry her second – without a divorce. "Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good" (Their Eyes 31). The gossip that spreads throughout her small town when she leaves with a younger man – after the death of her second husband leaves her a widow – does not slow her down in the least.
Finally, she finds happiness with Tea Cake, and it means so much more, because she has decided to go through with it on her own. Discovering the "two things everybody's got to do fuh theyselves," is
Essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie battles to find Individualism within herself. Janie, all her life, had been pushed around and told what to do and how to live her life. She searched and searched high and low to find a peace that makes her whole and makes her feel like a complete person. To make her feel like she is in fact an individual and that she's not like everyone else around her. During the time of 'Their Eyes', the correct way to treat women was to show them who was in charge and who was inferior. Men were looked to as the superior being, the one who women were supposed to look up to and serve. Especially in the fact that Janie was an African American women during these oppressed...show more content...
This is exactly what Janie did in her marriage to Logan. She did as she was told, or rather, expected to do. Janie didn't want to marry Logan, but if it made her grandmother happy, then by all means, why not give it a shot. If it meant that she'd be secure. In her marriage to Logan, she found out that that's not what she wanted. Janie wanted love, happieness, comfort and enjoyment. She didn't want her first marriage to be like a prison sentence. "Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated, did it compel love like the sun the day?" This is asking if marriage made love for Janie as the sun makes the day for the world. Is the basis of love marriage...just as the basis for day is the sun. To Janie, this was not true. She did not feel as though she loved Logan, and that's all she really wanted. She didn't want to be treated as the rest of the world was treated. She wanted to be treated as an individual and not as a slave. She was a slave to marriage. She didn't want to be there, where there was no warmth.
Joe Starks stole Janie away from Logan. He saved her from the boringness of their dull marriage. He woed her with his words of kindness. He promised her happieness. "De day you puts yo' hand in mine, Ah wouldn't let de sun go down on us single. You ain't never knowed what it was to be treated lak a lady and Ah wants to be de one tuh show
Their Eyes Were Watching God Narrative Essay
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is written with a narrative frame. The story begins and ends with two people, Janie and Pheoby, sitting on the porch of Janie's house. Janie is telling her story to Pheoby during the course of an evening, that evening becoming the entire novel. The point of view changes from a first person narrative to a third person omniscient within the first chapter so the reader can experience the story through Janie's eyes while also understanding the other characters and their perspectives. Janie, the main character of Their Eyes Were Watching God, reveals the story throughout the novel with a flashback. "Pheoby's hungry listening helped Janie to tell her story. So she went on thinking back to her young years and explaining them...show more content...
These chapters show Janie's initial happiness with Joe, followed by her dissatisfaction with Joe as he starts to treat her like his property, because of her gender. Janie feels defeated by her search for love as she is trapped in a loveless relationship. Joe's control over Janie actually makes her a stronger and more independent woman.
The fourth and final section of the novel focuses on Janie's marriage to Tea Cake. Finally, Janie met someone who provided the love she longed for her whole life. Janie experiences true happiness for the first time. The framework of the novel ends as Janie's story is complete and Pheoby returns home to her husband. The reader understands the story through Janie's eyes while a narrator tells the story in third person to allow the reader to know more about the other characters and their perspectives.
Hurston chose to tell the story within a framework to give Janie a voice in the novel while she used an omniscient narrator to establish a voice outside of Janie, while continuing in the style of Janie's voice, to cease the need to stay in the vernacular dialogue full
Essay
Essay – Their Eyes Were Watching God Author Zora Neale Hurston weaves many powerful symbols into her acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston's use of symbols enhances the reader's understanding of the trials and tribulations along the road of self discovery for the story's main character, Janie. Of the many symbols used throughout the novel, one in particular – Janie's hair – is subtle yet striking as it gives us insight into Janie's perceived social status, oppression, self identity, and her eventual independence through her self identity as a woman despite the social norms of the time period.
From the very beginning of the book, Janie's long, straight, flowing black hair causes a stir among the "porch talkers" of the...show more content...
Janie) in a sexual manner. It also shows how jealous Joe was of Janie and her youthfulness, as Jody was 10 years her senior. The head rag "irked her endlessly" (55), however she submits to Jody's control. With Joe Janie must hide her real self, being what her husband wishes her to be, presenting a façade to the outside world of whom they think she should be, not who she really wants to be.
Janie's outward appearance and her inward thoughts contrast following Joe's death. She finally frees herself from his control only after he dies as she, "...tore off the kerchief...and let down her plentiful hair" (87). In freeing her hair, Janie begins to free herself from others' control and social norms. However, she chooses to keep it tied up until after Jody's funeral in order to keep appearances that she is grieving his passing in front of the townspeople. However, on the inside, Janie doesn't really feel any sorrow and "sent her face to Joe's funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world" (88). It is only after Joe's elaborate funeral that Janie shows her first act of freedom by burning "every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist" (89). She chose to let her hair be free from his domination, thus freeing herself from him overall and allowing herself to move onto the next journey in her life.
Janie's eventual third husband, Tea
Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD ESSAY
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Janie Crawford is surrounded by outward influences that contradict her independence and personal development. These outward influences from society, her grandma, and even significant others contribute to her curiosity. Tension builds between outward conformity and inward questioning, allowing Zora Neal Hurston to illustrate the challenge of choice and accountability that Janie faces throughout the novel. Janie's Grandma plays an important outward influence from the very beginning. Her perspective on life was based off of her experience as a slave. "Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do." (16) She felt that financial security,...show more content...
Kind of portly like rich white folks."(35) He became less like a Husband, and more like a respected authority. It was discovered that Joe's intentions with Janie had been wrongly accused. He began to treat her more like an object rather than his loving wife as their marriage deteriorated. His priorities were clear and Janie was not one of them. Joe's charming personality convinced Janie to conform outwardly, yet in the end she was left questioning inwardly once again. Even before Joe's death, Janie "was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them."(75) Joe's influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. "Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance."(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society's disapproval. "Janie looked down on him and felt a self–crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place."(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society's opinions and acted upon her own desires. Throughout the novel Janie makes
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" had Janie face several conflicts throughout the book, conflicts that relate to the real world and real world human rights issues. "Their Eyes Were Watching God" covers human rights issues such as gender inequality, the right to marry the person you love, the right to be an equal within a marriage, and racism. The novel's ending, where Janie returns back to Eatonville after having to kill Tea Cake, is surprising, to say the least, and creates a sense of shock and slight confusion within the reader. The resolution of the novel shows that the author intended to show each of the aforementioned human rights issues, and how none of the issues are guaranteed to have a happy ending. Zora Neale Hurston also seems to imply,...show more content...
The author uses negative diction when describing circumstances relating to gender inequality, racism, or the right to marry the person you love, indicating that the author believes these are important issues that need to be fixed. This negative diction is evident in lines such as, "But Joe kept saying that she could do it if she wanted to and he wanted her to use her privileges. That was the rock she was battered against. The business of the headrag irked her endlessly. [...] but he didn't want Janie to notice it because he saw that she was sullen and resented that. She had no right to be, the way he thought thing out. [...] He ought to box her jaws!" and "You better sense her intuh things then 'cause Tea Cake can't do nothin' but help her spend whut she got. Ah reckon dat's whut he's after. Throwin' away whut Joe Starks worked hard tuh git tuhgether." However, when Janie talks about Tea Cake and their love, Zora Hurston switches to positive diction, showing that she supports a happy, equal, and loving marriage. This switch in the diction is clearly shown in the lines, "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." and "Anyway Tea Cake wouldn't hurt
"Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons." In Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," the main protagonist, Janie, lives a heck of a life. She comes in contact with a slew of characters that add, take away, and foreshadow something about her life. In the end, it was the people in her life who took her to the horizon and back. The folklore present in this book often traces the sun and the moon in an unending dance, as the folk stories of Zora's time often did. Not only did Hurston use the cycles of the sun and moon, she takes it a step further and cycles the characters too, like the new day, with new things to offer. In this essay, I will be examining how Nanny and Logan...show more content...
What is less recognized is the fact that Logan Killicks is also a foil to Joe Starks, and through that foreshadowing the character of Joe Starks. Logan does what he calls "spoiling" her for the better part of the year, by chopping wood for the fire and not forcing her to work, but then he grows tired of it, or as Nanny says, "He kissin' yo' foot and 'tain't in uh man tuh kiss foot long." In fact, it really starts with this line, "Mah fust wife... she'd grab dat ax and sling chips like uh man." The word man is essential to the understanding Logan and Janie's marriage, and what it foreshadows in Joe and Janie's marriage. This is where Logan stops seeing Janie as his wife, and more as a potential worker who has to share everything with him equally. His actions reveal what he truly desires in his wives, and it's not the stereotypical demure housewife that was popular at the time. What Logan is looking for is a man with a woman's temperament. Women were taught to follow their husband's every command, every wish, and he want's a worker with that kind of loyalty. Now, Janie tells him she doesn't mean to chop the first chip, that her place was in the kitchen, and she finds a man shares those values, and gives her exactly that in Joe Starks. Joe Starks could never fathom the idea of putting woman to what he consider work for the "menfolks." In Eatonville "menfolks," and "womenfolks" are frequently used to further separate men and women, the foil to Logan, who wanted to combine the traits of men and women at the
Essay on Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God
Positive Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God
In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the life of Janie is presented as a journey. Janie survives a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout this journey, she moves towards her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie undergoes many changes throughout her journey, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader.
Janie's life begins under the watchful eye of her grandmother. Her grandmother has given up her own happiness to raise Janie and her mother. Right away, it is obvious that Janie's life...show more content...
Janie learns a very important lesson from her grandmother. Not a lesson to emulate, but one to avoid. She does not want to be a cracked plate, she is tall and blossoming and can see what she wants in her life.
She does not get what she wants with Logan Killicks, her first husband. Janie married Logan because her grandmother wanted her to. Her grandmother could not understand why she did not love him, as he had sixty acres of land. Janie did not love him, and describes him as ". . . some ole skullhead in de grave yard" [13] and his house as "a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods . . . absent of flavor" [20]. Janie's eyes are still full of pollen dust, and she cannot get her perfect vision of love out of her mind. Logan makes her do menial chores around the house, and treats her like a beast of burden. She prays for the day when she will be delivered from the life of tedium that she lives.
She thinks that her prayers are answered when she first sees Joe Starks. In fact, she first sees him through a veil of her hair, and it is her long, luxurious hair that he is first attracted to. She thinks that he is "a bee for her blossom" [31]. The initial description of him, ". . . a cityfied, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn't belong in [those] parts" [26] immediately sets a firm image in the reader's mind, so no one is
Their Eyes Were Watching God
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a novel where Janie tells her whole story from childhood up to the death of Tea Cake. Some important details that show feminism are when Janie refused to work in the field with her first husband and also how Joe was very dominant and sometimes abusive in her marriage. I believe "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a feminist novel because Janie did not follow the stereotypical of a woman during her time. Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks was arranged, meaning she was not able to choose the person that she wanted to spend the rest of life with. Nanny only wanted what was best for Janie, but the right to choose is a large part of feminists movements. At one point in "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie's grandmother slaps her because she does not want to marry Logan Killicks. Also Janie did not want to work in the fields with Logan which led to arguments. This also removed the dominance that Logan may have had over Janie since she just did not do what he asked....show more content...
Women during this time did not necessarily have the amount of freedom that Janie was able to have due to stereotypes and their husbands sometimes. Janie did not truly gain freedom until her second husband Joe passed away. Janie took care of herself after he died which was the opposite of what was going on in this time period because usually the husband in the household is the provider. Janie has a sense of freedom and independence because she is taking care of herself and she was able to uncover her hair from the rags after Joe
Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
Love and Marriage
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a novel about a Southern black woman and her experiences through life. Janie, the main character, is forced at a young age by her grandmother, into an arranged marriage with a man named Logan. Janie is told to learn to love Logan, but the love never comes for
Logan in Janie's heart so she leaves him. She meets a man named Joe. Soon after they are married. Joe was sweet at first, then his true feelings about women come out and Janie looses her love she thought she had for him. He soon dies after their separation. Janie then falls in love with a man named Tea Cake. He is the man with whom she has a wonderful, loving, happy marriage....show more content...
Nanny lets Janie believe that you need a man to take care of you and provide for you. According to Nanny, you have to marry a man who has money because too much trouble comes with marrying a poor man.
Joe marries Janie strictly for social appearance.
Joe wants to have empowerment and he thinks a woman, like Janie, would help his image. He wants to run a town and the only way he feels he can look good is to have a pretty woman by his side. In the beginning of their marriage Joe treats he like a queen. He tells her that his woman needs to relax in the shade sipping on molasses water and fanning herself from the hot sun.
Janie fell in love with the idea. Joe's words, however, were deceiving. He actually means that woman need to stay home to cook and clean while the man goes out to make the money. Joe often puts Janie down in public saying things like, 'Thank yuh fuh yo compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin bout no speech makin. Ah married her for nothin lak that. She's a woman and her place is in de home.';(pg. 40–41). Joe publicly humiliates Janie constantly saying she is as low as mules. Joe feels that his marriage is a part of his image, a part of his job. He does not marry her for love. Joe marries Janie to look good in front of the people who look up to him.
Her marriage to Tea Cake is opposite
Research Paper On Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in the late nineteen hundreds and early twentieth century, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the life of a black woman trapped by patriarchal society, to make known the oppression and sexism imposed on Janie. During this time a women gained power through their outer beauty. The duties of women shown as submission to aggressive, manipulative, and power seeking men. Janie, however, had no power and is viewed as a memento and for sexual purposes. Through the substantiation of women, the men take away their power. Dominated by the rich white males, the black men have their power taken away by a racist society. The white man empowers all population and black women were force to bottom
Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
Their Eyes are Watching God is globally viewed from many different angles, such as feminist consciousness; the racial suppression; and the Black accrete of this novel. It contains love, murder, hate, gossip, politics, and death. The novel itself contains positive messages, but the overriding inappropriate language and sexism negates that. Mrs. Tasharofi explain that "Under racism, black women have been programed to believe in white standards of beauty and this later is called internalized racism". Mrs. Crawford, Janie's mother, portrayed this to Janie, a light skinned black women (Main Character). It reflects and occupies a specific historical moments that in our current life time's still occur. The novel Their Eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston shouldn't be in the curriculum because it shows a great deal of racism,...show more content...
Janie is in search for satisfaction but she is repeatedly struggling against overpowering male figures who strive to restrict her. "Thus race and gender converge on this issue of evaluating beauty and this purports to the belief of Black feminists that women are oppressed not only because they are women but also because they are black women." Janie craved to find a relationship that included the couple being equal to each other but the perspective of the time in the great depression denied her from entirely accomplishing her dream. Throughout the novel Janie's actions try to demonstrate the reader the erroneous claims that women were by nature inferior to men and thus deserved to be subservient to them. It was evident that Janie will stop at nothing to accomplish what she set her mind to. But the reality was that in the 1900s, women, specifically black women had legally no voice "the author discussed the vivid picture of the black community." If a woman was abused by her husband, the courts would not even acknowledge it even if it did
Their Eyes Were Watching God An Analysis So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation–– they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston's famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character's natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.
As the novel begins, Janie...show more content...
Hurston says it best: She knew things that nobody had ever told her... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun–up... She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman (24).
Janie remains relatively demure in her relationship with Killicks until Jody Starks appears. A wealthy, well–dressed man on his way to a small black town he heard about, a little of Janie's previous naïveté emerges again because of him. She mistakes his spending and kindness for the love she had been seeking, but eventually realizes that he loves her as a reflection of his wealth. Of Janie's three husbands, he is the one with the most negative effect on her. He defines all the boundaries of her life and expects her to submit to everything he commands. When she defies him and insults him in public, he reacts by shunning her and attempting to hurt her, and because of this she was not free of his "rules" even after his death. "She lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods–– come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn't value"(72).
At this time, Janie begins to
Eyes Were Watching God Essay
Their Eyes Were Watching God provides an enlightening look at the journey of a "complete, complex, undiminished human being", Janie Crawford. Her story, based on self–exploration, self–empowerment, and self–liberation, details her loss and attainment of her innocence and freedom as she constantly learns and grows from her experiences with gender issues, racism, and life. The story centers around an important theme; that personal discoveries and life experiences help a person find themselves.
Nanny was determined that Janie would break the cycle of oppression of black women, who were "mules for the world". (Both of Janie's first two husbands owned mules and the way they treated their mules paralleled to the way...show more content...
Janie had a difficult time discovering her identity and it took her many years. Once she broke down the confining walls she held a tight grip on her identity. Janie looked whiter than other women. Her fair complexion attracted Starks and also contributed to his objectification of her. Janie's husband Joe humiliated the citizen's of Eatonville in similar ways as the white man and forced her into slavish servitude reflected in the identity–confining head rag he made her wear. She fought his tyranny by telling him off just before he died and reclaiming her identity by burning up "everyone of her head rags". Similarly, she encountered Mrs. Turner who was a symbol of internalized racism. Again, Janie remains true to herself and continued to form her own identity by refusing to leave Tea Cake and class off as Mrs. Turner suggested.
She experienced true happiness with Tea Cake while taking in new lessons of life. She had a sense of freedom and regained innocence with him. He made most of the decisions, but she was treated as a person so she went along gladly. They lived in the marshes, worked side by side, and danced at night. Eventually her innocence was again replaced with a harsh reality, death. Janie wore her overalls because "she was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief". She had come full circle in her life and learned that there are "two things everybody's
Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
I enjoyed Their Eyes Were Watching God's grasp on imagination, imagery and phrasing. Janie's dialogue and vernacular managed to carry me along, slipping pieces of wisdom to me in such a manner that I hardly realize they are ingesting something deep and true. Their Eyes Were Watching God recognizes that there are problems to the human condition, such as the need to possess, the fear of the unknown and resulting stagnation. The book does not leave us with the hopelessness of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, rather, it extends a recognition and understanding of humanity's need to escape emptiness. "Dem meatskins is got tuh rattle tuh make out they's alive (183)" Her solution is simple: "Yuh got tuh go there tuh know there." Janie...show more content...
"On the train the next day, Joe didn't make many speeches with rhymes to her, but he bought her the best things the butcher had..." The effect money had on Jody's life is already apparent. He bought her things because he was ownership–oriented. Throughout his life, he shows both the first flush of luxury and the futility and bypassing of what is truly important that upward mobility brings. All in all, wealth does not bring happiness, and Janie shares that sad realization with Fitzgerald's Dick Diver.
The suppression of Janie, both as a woman and a human, is Jody's most interesting facet. He sets a limit on her self– fulfillment, treating her more like an object than a woman. Of course, he lumps women in with mere things––"Somebody got to think for women and chilun and chickens and cows (67)." He's good to Janie, but he's good to his animals also. In fact, Joe's attitude towards Janie is echoed in his behavior towards the overworked mule he buys and sets free: he lets the mule loose to wander around town as evidence of his generosity and wealth.
As Janie so bitterly sees, "Freein' dat mule makes a mighty fine man outa you. Something like George Washington...you got uh town so you freed uh mule. You have tuh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king uh something (55)." Janie has begun to realize that she also,
Essay about Their Eyes Were Watching God
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the relationship between Janie and Nanny is one of great dispute over if it is healthy or not. The idea that the most influential person in Janie's life is also the one who triggered her struggles when she was becoming a woman is sadly ironic. Nanny's true influence on Janie is brought to light through symbolic, and decaying diction, Biblical, and Greek Mythological allusions, and natural metaphors, by describing Janie's journey to womanhood, through finding her own opinion, acquiring a stable life from Nanny, her maturation, and what she gained when becoming a woman.
Through the use of symbolic diction, decaying diction, and metaphors, Hurston illustrates Janie's inner struggle...show more content...
A new side of Nanny is implied through decaying diction when Nanny enters Janie's mind on her knees because moving on the knees both brings pain for the person being walked on, and is a submissive way to be walked towards. This shows that Nanny both wants to force Janie to take on her opinions and ask for forgiveness. What surfaces in this passage through positive unlikely characterization, and biblical allusions, is the plight of Nanny in that she knows she is going to die soon, and wants to make sure that Janie's life is stable before it happens. Through positive unlikely characterization Nanny attempts to explain the crossroads that she was at whilst raising Janie, "Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do" (24). Even though Janie and Nanny had just had a fight, Janie does not understand Nanny's viewpoints. However, all that matters to Nanny is that the "Lawd" (24) knows her position. The fact that Nanny is not Janie's biological mother creates tension between the two of them because the values and way Nanny would raise a child are out of date to Janie. When Nanny says, "De rest is left to you" (24) she is referring to the Christian God. This biblical allusion implies that Nanny believes that she has completed her mission of raising Janie, and the rest of Janie's life lies in God's hands. She realizes that if she were to continue raising Janie it would deteriorate their relationship further. Therefore, Nanny is explaining and justifying