Symbols In Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, she utilizes an array of symbolism such as color, the store, and her husbands to solidify the overall theme of independence and individuality. Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered by many a classic American Feminist piece that emphasizes how life was for African Americans post slave era in the early 1900s. One source summarizes the story as, 1 ”a woman's quest for fulfillment and liberation in a society where women are objects to be used for physical work and pleasure.” Which is why the overall theme is concurrent to independence and self.

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.

Hurston’s use of personification and simile creates a comparison between the powerfulness of the storm and the powerlessness

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)

Linh Nelson APEX ACS Ms. Angell/Dr. Nasser 1 March 2024 Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Search For Identity Can a person’s physical features tell a story? The world Zora Neale Hurston creates in Their Eyes Were Watching God explores how Janie’s hair, more than just strands, became a vivid symbol of feminism, challenging societal norms of the 1920s. The symbolism of Janie’s hair is intricate and carefully woven into the storyline, often missed in the novel's complexity. Janie’s development throughout the book is shown in how she wears her hair and the restrictions she puts on her emotionally and physically.

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.

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God recounts the life and loves of a bi-racial woman in the racially charged South during the 1900s. After the death of her third husband, Janie returns to Eatonville amid judgment and gossip, prompting her to share her life’s lessons with dear friend Phoeby. As Hurston’s protagonist relives her turbulent loves, she embarks of a journey of self-discovery, her voice transforming from suppressed to empowered over the course of her marriages.

The book opens with, “ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail on the horizon, never out of sight…” (1) the horizon represents the distant future and dreams that the main character, Janie has for her life, while the ship represents a man’s dream. Not only does the horizon represent the possibility of change, but it always represents hope itself. The quote also describes how some people try to achieve their dreams and others fail to do so.

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.

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.

“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.

Zora Neale Hurston had an intriguing life, from surviving a hurricane in the Bahamas to having an affair with a man twenty years her junior. She used these experiences to write a bildungsroman novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, about the colorful life of Janie Mae Crawford. Though the book is guised as a quest for love, the dialogues between the characters demonstrate that it is actually about Janie’s journey to learn how to not adhere to societal expectation.

Zora Neale Hurston effectively used the symbol of the gate to display to the readers the beginning of a new outlook or change in Janie’s life. This symbol helped develop the character of Janie and clarifies the meaning of the story of Their Eyes Were Watching God which is about the self-discovery of women in the 1920s and