4. The exact connotation of the title is up for discussion, although it touches upon many of the book’s important themes. There are two primary points in the novel that reference the title. Firstly, "The time was past for asking the white folks what to look for through that door. Six eyes were questioning God" (150). Shortly thereafter, a second significant sentence appears: "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God" (151).
These two quotes hint that the title relates to the theme of race. In the first quote, Hurston in many ways blames African Americans of looking to Caucasians to learn what their future holds. The black community queries God only after they understands that white people cannot give them the answer. This seems to be a bad move; by following what the white people have been doing – hanging around the Everglades when a hurricane is coming – the African Americans have
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In the first quote, the African Americans have realized that looking to the past slave masters, the white people, won’t do. So they look to the "Ole Massa" (18.29) or God. This has several implications. Firstly, that God is the master of everyone – black and white – which is a rather equalizing notion. The second implies that God is the master and humans are slaves. As slaves, free will is irrelevant or non-existent. It seems that peoples’ futures are determined by fate or God. This point is further driven home by nature and agricultural imagery found throughout the novel. Tea Cake, Janie, and their Everglades friends are all agricultural workers – essentially people that manipulate nature to do their bidding. By looking at agriculture, man seems to have much control over nature and fate. However, God shows up and can manipulate nature to a much larger degree – He comes with a hurricane and flood waters. God makes it clear who the boss really is, and who can actually control nature and
In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship.
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.
Topic 2: Compare/contrast Janie in Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God & Edna in Chopin 's The Awakening in terms of conformity within a male-dominated society. (four page minimum)
Love can be perceived as the feeling one feels under the sweetness of a blossoming pear tree, but through an unexpected path, such loving feelings are demolished.When an individual wants the perfect relationship such desires are forsaken by their way of life.Many individuals want to reach the "Horizon" where is not completely seen by the human eye but exists.In the novel "Their eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston", protagonist Janie Crawford seeks for that "horizon" through her relationship with logan, Joe and tea cake.Just like the "horizon" love wasn 't attained during her relationship with logan and joe but that love existed in her relationship with Tea cake.
Many people believe in marrying for love and they spend most of their life searching for it. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Nora Zeal Hurston, Janie Crawford goes through three marriages, and as a result, she learns who she wants to be and how to become that woman. Janie has her idealized view of marriage that depicts that you marry for love, and everything is like a fairytale. Through Janie’s three marriages, she learns what she truly desires in life and finds herself along the way. As each marriage comes to a close, Janie becomes stronger and surer of herself.
Wright argues that Their Eyes Were Watching God has no central theme or significance, which is interesting considering it is now looked at as one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. The greatest, most revolutionary artists throughout history, think Van Gogh, have always been deemed lazy or untalented due primarily to social conventions of their time refusing to budge. However, what is truly unintelligent and lazy is Wright’s unwillingness to admit the abundance of important, ground breaking them throughout this novel. Their Eyes Were Watching God combats issues of racism, sexism, classism, and
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus
In Catholic doctrine, the seven cardinal sins are the basis from which all the “sins” of humanity stem. In this system, any moral infraction a person may commit would be categorized under one of these seven sins (also known colloquially as the “seven deadly sins”). This system has been widely adapted throughout culture over the centuries, and is a common tool utilized to examine the actions of humans. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, enters into three marriages, two of which fail based on the failings of her husbands, and the third of which succeeds in spite of the failings of her husband. Each of these husbands, in fact, displays traits which fall under the cardinal sins, and the sin of pride in particular; even the third husband, Tea Cake, displays the very same sin, leading to the downfall of their marriage.
In both Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the focus is on women who want better lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. The difficulties involving men which Janie and Delia incur result from or are exacerbated by the intersection of their class, race, and gender, which restrict each woman for a large part of her life from gaining her independence.
Hurston prides herself on who she is because of her background. Her identity of being a black woman in a world
“Their eyes were watching god” a novel that looked how societies view on women, written by Zora Neale Hurston, portrays a society where “nigger women” are considered a “mule”. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, strives to find her own voice but struggle to find it because of the expectation in the African American community. Each one of her husbands play a big role in her life long search for independence and her own voice.
Society has always thought of racism as a war given to the lowly African American from the supposedly high class white man, but no one thought there would be prejudice within a hierarchical class system inside the black community. However within that class system, history has shown that darker colored women are at the deep trenches of the totem pole. In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” African American women are put under harm and control exposing the racism and sexism with their community. Through the life of Janie Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the concept of a woman finding her independence in a black, hierarchical, and racist society.
In a modern society, race is no longer the determining factor of one’s place in the social hierarchy. Instead, the wealth and fame a person possesses captivates the world’s attention. However, race is still a controversial topic in the United States. Thus racial tensions continue to exist in certain sections of the country. The literal and metaphoric foundation of this currently powerhouse of a nation is built on slavery, the backs of immigrants and people of color who received little to no recognition for their efforts and contributions. The barbarous treatment of African slaves, especially in the South with its large cotton plantations further embedded hatred and hostility between colored people and white people. It took over a decade and a Civil War between the North and the South before the slavery was abolished. However, slavery was merely replaced by Jim Crow laws and segregations that continued to divide the colored from the white. Finally, the Civil Rights movement urged citizens to evolve from racist views. Yet even still racism plays a big part in our culture and is still heavily discussed; our current political climate only fuels the discussion. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, both racism and colorism are touched on both a symbolical level as well as a literal one through the trials and tribulations of the protagonist, Janie. Despite not having a theme centered around racial issues in the novel, Hurston highlights them throughout the
Purpose- Hurston’s purpose is to demonstrate that she is proud of her color. She does not need the bragging rights of having Native American ancestry, nor does she ‘belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.’
“She was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers. A personal answer for all other creations except herself. She felt an answer seeking her, but where? When? How?” (Hurston 11). This quote exemplifies Janie’s desire for answers throughout her three relationships, displaying what she is longingly seeking for in life. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows the life of protagonist Janie Crawford, a confident, middle-aged black woman who goes throughout life discovering her quest for spiritual enlightenment and self-discovery. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston explains the hardships as ideas of maturity, sexism, and social class.