Literary Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

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.

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.

While reading the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, I examined the motif of love and free will in which intertwines with the motif of gender roles. As the book prolongs, Janie is seen continuously searching to fulfill her pursuit of finding the true love she once fanaticized of. Janie first crafted her own representation of love while “stretched on her back beneath the pear tree in the alto chant of the visiting bees” (11). Her young innocence is connected to the intimacy of nature in which the “bee [sank] into the sanctum of a bloom” (11). Janie’s belief on marriage is represented through the usage of a bee and its balanced relationship to the blossom on the pear tree. The scent of the pear blossoms and the “chant”

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston utilizes the image of the horizon to represent the prospect of improvement, and to develop the relationships between Logan Killicks and Janie Crawford, Joe Starks and Janie, and Tea Cake and Janie.

Janie strives to live the life of her imagination by attempting to achieve the dreams of her own. Their Eyes Were Watching God reveals Janie Crawford as a sixteen year old girl who aims to discover new adventures and find love within her marriages. Janie’s grandmother demands she settles down with a decent man that could bring her a bright future. As a matter of fact, Janie originally marries Logan Killicks in order to fulfill her grandmother’s demands. With their marriage progressing without love, Janie runs off with Joe Starks. It was not until she meets Tea Cake, a younger man with a poor background, does she experience true love and adventurous journeys. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston uses the symbols of the horizon

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.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God symbolism, diction, and narration, guide through 1900’s America’s rustic south and helps to understand Janie’s journey from being a sheltered, naive, hopeful but unhappy bride to an independent, grown, experienced, and mature woman by facing a life of poverty, trials and cruelty as she searches for the one thing that gives her life meaning, love. She experienced different kinds of love throughout her life with the men in her life, but it was not the unconditional, true, and fulfilling love she kept searching for. Janie gains her own independence and personal freedom as a result of her quest for this love, which she finally finds in Tea Cake. Janie strives for her own independence and daring

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. 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." These dream quotes came from the one and only "Their eyes were watching God," book by Zora Neale Hurston. Mrs. Zora Neale Hurston was an expert in writing in dialect. This unique literary form creates differences between other novels or storybooks. In this book, various events (to be specific, a death) seem to illuminate the meaning of life as a whole.

In a marriage, the two people involved are supposed to trust each other and each bring something equal to the table. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, a southern black woman living in the early 20th century and protagonist of the story, has trouble finding her perfect person throughout her life and her whopping three marriages for her time. Janie was first forced into marrying Logan Killicks by her grandmother. Soon after marrying Logan, she ran away with a stranger titled Joe Starks, her marriage to Joe being the longest of the three. After Joe died, an older Janie started to see, and eventually married, a younger man, Vergible Woods who was most commonly referred to as Tea Cake.

Janie struggles with her marriages with Logan Killicks and Joe Starks throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, but finds a good man and husband in Tea Cake. Logan goes to marry Janie because Janie’s grandmother forces her to marry him because Nanny wants her to have a good marriage and thinks Logan can give it to her. While Joe comes in and shows Janie he has authority and is loving, but later tries to control her and what she does. Tea Cake on the other hand show Janie love and is willing to let Janie be herself and do the things she likes to do. Janie doesn’t love Logan or Joe because they try to change and control her, while Tea Cake loves her for who she really is.

“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.

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

Janie finds her way out when Joe Starks appears. The first thing Joe does after asking for a drink of water is to name himself: "Joe Starks was the name, yeah Joe Starks from in and through Georgy" (47). Hurston's naming of Starks is ironic for several reasons. The word stark is often used as a synonym for barren, and Joe Starks and Janie never have any children. Hurston hints at sexual problems that develop between the pair because of their separate beds and Janie's eventual verbal "castration" of Joe in the store. Starks's name is also ironic because of his focus on capitalistic pursuits. Starks's wealth gives him a false sense of power because the townspeople resent him and the things he does to gain his wealth. Starks's name could also

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