Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story that follows protagonist Janie Crawford, through many hardships, relationships, and adventures. As Janie Returns to her hometown in Florida after a long absence the novel is a recollection of her experiences and adventures to her friend Pheoby Watson. Janie struggles throughout the entirety of the novel to find freedom and peace with herself. She experiences relationships with a few different kinds of people all of which help her to eventually find that

In her relationship with Tea Cake, she understands her voice and her emotions. Speech in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God provides context into Janie’s thoughts and emotions throughout major moments in her life and her journey to find her voice.

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 romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the heroine Janie, a beautiful mixed white and black woman, is on a journey to find someone who will make her feel love to find her own identity and freedom, away from her spouses. Janie’s marriages and quest for love impede her individual search for freedom, but in doing this she has discovered what exactly she wants for herself. Janie’s search for her identity and freedom is very much evident. Being abused and controlled during her marriages has made it clear how she wants to be treated and how she wants to live her life; as an individual who does not have to listen to anyone. The story opens with Janie’s return to town. Janie tells Phoebe Watson the story of her

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the life of a beautiful female named Janie Crawford. Throughout the story, Janie demonstrates the struggle to escape being shaped into becoming a submissive woman. She encounters three men who each attempt to make her a submissive wife. In each of her relationships with these men, she is either obliged or pressured to follow their orders. Although Janie struggles to hold on to her independence, she manages to persevere every time. Janie is a strong independent woman who does not allow herself to be suppressed.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston explores the life of a southern black woman, Janie Crawford, whose three marriages of domineering control of men make her acknowledge her independence and self-satisfaction as an African-American woman. Set in the early 1900s, Hurston reveals the dominant role of men in southern society and one woman’s journey toward finding herself and God.

Over the course of the novel, Janie is married three times to three drastically different people. First is Logan Killicks, whom she has no choice but to marry; soon Janie discovers that she could never have loved Logan because he treats her as less than him. She leaves Logan for Joe “Jody” Starks because initially, she believes that she loves him. However, after he gains power in their community and his true opinion of Janie as less valuable than any man is revealed, Janie begins to hate him and she isn’t affected much when he eventually dies. After Jody’s death, Janie falls in love with Tea Cake, who treats her better than either of her previous husbands. He makes Janie feel valued and practically equal to him and other men for almost the first time in her life. Each marriage brings Janie closer to realizing her role and identity in society. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston explores each of Janie’s three husbands’ different opinions on gender roles in society and relationships to construct the idea that, in life, it is absolutely necessary to find your role in the world -- especially as a woman.

The film and novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, shows the three kinds of romantic relationships Janie endures throughout her life. The cinematographers clearly had the goal of the film concluding with a happy ending. To do this, they eliminated many of Tea Cake flaws in the relationship. Many details are lost in films based off novels because the time is limited to explain the story given. The author in of the novel can express their emotions

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story that is centered around sexuality, power, and gender discrimination. The main character, Janie Crawford¸ is a mulatto. She was raised by her grandmother, a former slave, since the day she was born, “Ah was born back due in slavery…” (Hurston 16). She and her grandmother, Nanny, lived in West Florida on where they lived in the house in the Washburns’—the family that Nanny worked for--back-yard. Nanny scraped together and bought a house that had a pear tree in the back-yard. It was there under the pear tree in her grandmother’s back yard that Janie saw herself as sexual being that began her journey, “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the

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

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, love plays a pivotal role in the life of the protagonist, Janie. Janie is exposed early in life to all the facets of love. From an early point in the novel until the very end, Janie searches for a man to fulfill her childhood concept of love. It is through this search for love that Janie finds the confidence and security in herself to become independent. Therefore, Janie’s quest to find love is not only a fulfillment of a childhood dream, but also a journey to find who she really is.

Chapter 6 of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Hurston starts out by describing how Janie detests running the store, but also how she finds some joy in listening to the bright stories the townsfolk have on the porch. The guys there like to tease Matt Bonner- a man with an overworked good-for-nothing mule. Jody, regardless of Janie's wonderment in the stories, forbids her from hanginging out with the trashy people out on the porch. Because of the men who constantly are entranced by Janie’s hair, Jody commands her to wear a head-rag around her head due to his overgrown jealousy. One day Matt Bonner’s mule runs away and ends up outside of the store, where some townsmen are torturing it for their own amusement. Janie does not like this and mutters her disapproval, Jody hears her and decides to buy the mule for five dollars so it can finally be at peace. After the mule finally dies, Jody has a mock funeral which turns into a town wide gathering, none of which Janie is allowed to attend to. Later on at the store, Janie and Jody get into an argument where she tells him that he is no fun, and he tells her that he is just trying to be responsible. As time goes on the indignation that Janie holds for Jody only grows stronger. One day, Jody slaps Janie-after seven years of having met each other after a treacherous dinner. Later that same day, Mrs. Robbins begs Jody for a little meat for her family-which Jody spares. The men on the porch talk crudely about the woman,

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, a young teenager Janie is lectured by her grandmother, whom she calls Nanny. Nanny teaches Janie to be the best girl she can possibly be. Nanny tells Janie stories about her own personal experiences with men as well as Janie’s mother Leafy’s: “Dat school teacher had done hid her [Leafy] in de woods all night long, and he had done raped mah [Nanny’s] baby and run on off just before day” (Hurston 19). This leaves Janie with the overall message that men can be cruel and that a relationship with them that consists of both love and happiness as well as respect is unrealistic. Despite Nanny’s advice on men, Janie becomes involved with boys very early on- around her mid-teens, which upsets Nanny: “Nanny’s head and face looked like the standing roots of some old tree that had been torn away by storm” (Hurston 12). This ultimately results in Nanny putting Janie into an arranged marriage. While Janie is unhappy with her because of the arrangement, Nanny’s true intentions demonstrate her love and hopes for Janie. Her true intentions for Janie is that she will end up in a relationship with someone who can provide for her, keep her safe and that love, if even possible, will be just a bonus.

Anyone who’s ever read Their Eyes Were Watching God can partake in this argument- did Janie need Tea Cake, or was she better off alone and in no relationship? I’ve come to the conclusion that Janie is better off in a relationship with Tea Cake because in the book, he teaches her to appreciate herself, he is responsible and tells the truth, and he allows her to have fun.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, emotions such as love and hatred are showcased through the multiple marriages of Janie Crawford and her three husbands, impacting her life with bitterness, torture and ultimately peace due to Janie’s naive ideals of lust and desire. Nanny arranges Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks, a responsible and financially stable man, after she catches Janie kissing the handsome Johnny Taylor. Although Nanny’s intentions are for the well-being of her only granddaughter, Janie finds herself losing interest in Killicks as the marriage turns bitter. Expecting love to save her lifeless marriage with Killicks is a false ideal leading Janie to leave the relationship and fall into the arms of Jody Starks. As jealousy captures the suave and idyllic Starks, he turns into a demanding monster, dictating the miniscule movements of Janie, torturing her mind and soul. Although Janie’s innocent desire for passion revives during her marriage with Tea Cake, several misunderstandings lead to a devastating end but eventually brings peace to her heart. Hoping her granddaughter will find happiness, Nanny arranges the marriage of Janie to Logan Killicks, a respected and monetarily secure man. After a year, Janie realizes her marriage to Killicks is a loveless union causing bitter disputes.