Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis Essay

     As two different people, Janie and Tea Cake are allowed to live their lives as equals. When living with Joe, Janie is never allowed to do things such as speaking her mind, playing games, or doing anything which is not completely ladylike. Tea Cake encourages her to do things which were previously not open to her, such as playing chess, speaking openly about her feelings, and hunting. He teaches Janie to shoot and hunt wild game.

Janie’s first husband, Logan Killicks, is a wealthy old man. In the beginning of their marriage, he treated her alright, but then he called her spoiled and expected her to work like a slave in the fields. Janie’s second husband, Joe Starks, started out poor and treated Janie with

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.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, many critics have argued over whether or not the main character, Janie, finds her voice by the end of the novel. Yet many seem to be confused as to what her "voice" is. Her voice is her ability to express her thoughts and display her emotions verbally. Many relate the question of Janie’s voice to her amount of emotional strength (her ability to confront her problems or run away from the current situation rather than be isolated in it), yet these things are a completely different matter entirely. While Janie’s emotional strength varies throughout the novel, her voice is always there.

Their Eyes Were Watching God was written in 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston. This story follows a young girl by the name of Janie Crawford. Janie Crawford lived with her grandmother in Eatonville, Florida. Janie was 16 Years old when her grandmother caught her kissing a boy out in the yard. After seeing this her grandmother told her she was old enough to get married, and tells her she has found her a husband by the name of Logan. Logan was a much, much older man. This book later follows Janie through two more marriages to Jody Starks, and Tea Cake. All three marriages extremely different from one another, along with Janie’s role in each marriage. Janie always had her own individual personality, her true self, but she also had an outer personality, the person she would pretend to be for each of her husbands. The Book took us through a journey of each of these marriages and through the journey of Janie finding herself.

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

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their eyes were watching God the main character Janie is on a quest for self-fulfillment. Of Janie’s three marriages, Logan and Joe provide her with a sense of security and status. However, only her union with Teacake flourishes into true love.

Compare and contrast the presentation of self-fulfilment in these two texts (Their Eyes Were Watching God and She stoops to conquer)

Often in stories of self-realization and self-love, there is an incident that is often overlooked. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, such is the case. While many people tend to believe that Janie’s relationship with Teacake was the central time when she realized who she was, Her marriage with Joe Starks is often ignored in the big picture. Janie realized what she didn’t want and not to settle and that helped her accept Teacake later on in the book. Jody’s ideals did not mesh with a Janie and caused a lot of conflict. Throughout their twenty-year marriage, three events symbolized the rift between Jody and Janie; The first was his refusing to allow Janie to speak at the towns opening ceremony,

The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard

Hurston illustrated that how blacks provided American culture with “its only genuine folk tradition”. She was “the only key writer of the Harlem literary movement to carry out a organized study of Afro-American folklore”. In Their Eyes Were Watching God (first published in 1937), she describes her black identity as a consequent from African heritage. Since her early life in Eatonville, Hurston was nurtured by colorful, figurative storytelling. Hurston’s folk pride is very well documented in her portrayal of Eatonville in almost all her novels. She observed this little black hamlet as a haven in the race biased US. Her characters experience tranquility and prosperity only at

At first, Janie thought that loving someone meant you were married to them. Janie believed that she would love Logan because they were married as that was what Nanny had told her. In the few days before she would be with Killicks, Janie thought “Yes, she would love Logan after they were married… Husbands and wives always loved each other” (Hurston 21). Since Nanny had always told her that a marriage would make her happy, that’s what Janie thought. She had no feelings towards Logan, yet she held on to the hope that they appear once they were husband and wife.

In Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, which is in the third person narrative, one can experience what it is like to be a “privileged” mixed girl after slavery the main character known as Janie Crawford who was raised by her grandmother whom lived in the backyard of a white family. Growing up Janie did not know that she was not like the other white kids that she grew up with. She was always picked on and ridiculed for dressing like the white folks that she grew up with. As Janie gets older she starts to build up her own morals and values and starts to figure out the world. Furthermore, this story is the freedom of expression during the first few chapters Janie does things to show and express that she won’t live up to the standards that are “expected” of her in ways that she doesn’t always do what’s asked of her yet instead she steps out of the gender stereotypical ways and now has her destiny in the so called palm of her hand forming and shaping it into what she feels she deserves.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a Southern black love novel about a woman’s marriage experiences. Janie Crawford who is forced by her grandmother, into a marriage with a guy named Logan. Janie is forced to love Logan, but her love never is there for him so she leaves. She meets a wicked man named Joe, soon after they are married. Joe was sweet at first, then his real feelings about her come out and Janie loses her love for him. After their separation, he shortly dies. Janie then falls in love with a man named Tea Cake. Tea Cake is the one person Janie truthly loves and feels comfortable around. First impressions can be deceiving.

Janie had many marriages and not one of them went how she pictured in the future. Then came tea cake, the one that she thought would be the one. To her he was just a stranger at first but little did she know that he would be another lose to Janie. Towards the end of the novel things change, event that make Janie optimistic. The author described how love was like the sea it moves from shore to shore with a different view. Janie faced a hardship of love, seeking one man to another to only find herself back to square one.