Literary Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a 1937 novel which follows the life of a woman named Janie who, on her journey of finding her identity, marries three men in hopes of discovering her purpose. This novel is about a woman on her expedition to self-realization and fulfilment or perhaps it’s about the importance of the rabies vaccine. For the sake of simplicity, I will argue the former. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a deeply feminist text. Hurston provides us with a plethora of themes that can be viewed through feminist perspective such as Voice, Identity and Divergence from the Norm.

“Ships at distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail farever on the horizon…” (Hurston 1). The opening sentence of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, translates into that people are always viewing their dreams from far. Some are able to their goals and others are left only thinking about them. The protagonist of the novel, Janie, spends the expanse of her life searching to find her true self. Along her journey, Janie meets Tea Cake, a man whose love guides her to her voice. The complexity of their relationship is shown through their passionate, yet doubting love.

Love can appear out of nowhere.In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, She introduces us to Janie a mixed woman who struggles with finding her vision of love. When she meets her later husband Teacake we see that her vision of love is slowly coming true. Hurston uses the relationship Janie has with Teacake to show that Janie found the love she envisioned when she was a child.

Zora Neale Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God demonstrates many of the writing techniques described in How to Read Literature like a Professor by Tomas C. Foster. In Foster’s book, he describes multiple reading and writing techniques that are often used in literature and allow the reader to better understand the deeper meaning of a text. These of which are very prevalent in Hurston’s novel. Her book follows the story of an African American woman named Janie as she grows in her search for love. Hurston is able to tell Janie’s great quest for love with the use of a vampiric character, detailed geography, and sexual symbolism; all of which are described in Foster’s book.

In the novel "Their Eyes were Watching God," the main character, Janie, faces an inner battle in her three marriages, to speak or not to speak, which manifests itself differently with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie has her idea of what a marriage should look like shattered, as she failed to fall into the romantic idea of love that she held dear (Myth and Violence in Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). In her second marriage, to Joe “Jody” Starks, Janie buried her fight and spirit within herself, as she attempted to fit into the mold of the “perfect wife” Joe imagined (In Search Of Janie). Finally, in her marriage to Tea Cake, she feels the love she has longed for, and is accepted as the strong, independent woman she is (Janie Crawford Character Analysis). In every marriage, Janie feels the various effects of each man, as they either encourage or diminish her voice and inner spark.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Janie is constantly seeking approval from her grandmother which caused her unhappiness. Since a young age, Janie has been concerned about making her grandmother proud. Janie kissed a boy she really liked named Johnny Taylor, but Nanny did not agree with the kiss, “Nanny’s words made Janie’s kiss across the gatepost seem like a manure after a rain” (Hurston 13). A kiss with someone may not always feel like butterflies.

Every woman is looking for a good husband to make her feel special and loved in the marriage, but for many it may take a few tries. Zora Neale Hurston proves this point in her novel when Janie marries three different men before finding out what true love was. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Janie is forced into marriage, by her grandmother, at sixteen to an man she doesn't even love and who wants her to work. Meeting a man new to town, he promises to love her and keep her high on a pedestal so she won’t have to work, Janie thinks she would find true love with Joe runs away with him in search of true love. However Joe never let Janie do the things she wanted and never treated her as an equal. Then along came Tea Cake who

The aspiration for love can take people in many directions, but if it's truly wanted, eventually it will be found. In the fiction novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has a realization under a pear tree about what she wants in her life. Janie then has multiple relationships as she tries to get her desires. Since the revelation she experiences under the pear tree, Janie is aware of what she wants in a relationship, and as she grows as a woman through her three marriages, she finally attains her dream vision of love and happiness. Janie’s experience under the pear tree helps her understand the passion she wants in life.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, written in 1937, is about a African american girl named Janie Crawford who grew up in a white household. Through her transition to womanhood she wanted to experience true love, which set her on a quest to do so. Her grandmother arranged a marriage for her, which Janie wasn't so happy about. The story follows her growing as a person and her many experiences with her marriages. Each impacting her emotionally and making her the woman she becomes at the end of the book. Towards the ending of her book, after being harmed emotionally, and sometimes physically by her past husbands she meets a man named Tea Cake, much younger than her. She fell in love with him and

In both the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, young girls are lectured on who they should be in life and how they should act.

One of the reasons Richard Wright discounts Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is because it is a “kind of minstrel show” that is there to put smiles on the “superior race.” Wright also describes the novel no having any message, thought, or theme besides being a source of entertainment for the white community. However, as the story progresses, Hurston’s novel begins illustrating comparisons of culture between the black and white communities (i.e. violence, patriarchy, femininity, masculinity, and class), in addition to a sense of awareness within the community.

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 are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston deviates from the conventions of harlem renaissance by adding personality to the novel, utilizing factual accounts to tell the fictional events of a story, and compiling a story about suffrage rather than race.

Throughout history, the aspiration to accomplish one’s dreams and gain self-fulfillment has been and continues to be prevalent. Consequently, one’s reactions to the obstacles propelled at them may define how they will move forward in search of achieving their goals. Reaching one’s full potential is certainly not an easy conquest. Zora Neale Hurston, an especially noteworthy African American author, uses her astounding piece of literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God, to illuminate the path to discovering what is truly valuable in life. She uses the character, Janie Woods, who endures some of the greatest hardship imagined to elucidate the ways in which hindrance, although discouraging, only makes one stronger. Accordingly, Hurston argues

When reading this book, I couldn’t help but compare it to others with similar themes that I’ve read during my high school career. One book in particular that I remember would be the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurst. I read this senior year and both books had very similar themes and strong female characters. The main character Janie, thoroughly develops throughout the entire book through the different men and life experiences she goes through. This is just like Maya as she goes through her life!