The Continuous Injustice And Discrimination Have Served

At the same time, however, Janie begins to confuse this desire with romance. Despite the fact that nature’s “love embrace” leaves her feeling “limp and languid,” she pursues the first thing she sees that appears to satisfy her desire: a young man named Johnny Taylor (Hurston 11). Leaning over the gate’s threshold to kiss Johnny, Janie takes the first step toward her newfound horizon. Nanny sees this kiss and declares Janie’s womanhood. She wants Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a financially secure and well-respected farmer who can protect her from corruption. The marriage of convenience that Nanny suggests is “desecrating … [Janie’s] pear tree” because it contradicts her ideal vision of love (Hurston 14). Because she did not have the strength to fight people in her youth, Janie’s grandmother believes that Janie needs to rely on a husband in order to stay safe and reach liberation. Ironically, Janie’s adherence to Nanny’s last request suppresses her even more because it causes her to leave behind her own horizon.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed us to better understand the restraints that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Her marriage with Logan Killicks consisted of dull, daily routines.  Wedding herself to Joe Starks brought her closer to others, than to herself.  In her final marriage to Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake, she finally learned how to live her life on her own.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

The difference between Janie’s desire for freedom and her agreement to her transition from marriage to marriage shows a contrast in her attempt to balance multiple identities. The entirety of Their Eyes Were Watching God emphasizes Janie’s struggle to become both a woman and black person in a society that does not allow either to exist at the same time. Janie went through several marriages before she found her ultimate happiness. In her attempt to reject her Nanny’s pairing of herself and Logan Killicks, her Nanny explains that “de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out”

The novel "Their eyes were watching God," shows the progression of Janie as she finds her identity and independence as a woman through complex challenges between the fulfillment her marriages bring her. In the novel's opening paragraphs, Hurston alerts the readers that struggles for women come from the harsh realities of societal pressures, which favor male dominance over equality between the genders. The first two paragraphs symbolize the inevitable truths Janie will undergo as she fulfills her desires for love and self-identity. These truths foreshadow the societal norms for women, putting a blockade in her path towards defying these norms and becoming self-sufficient. Eatonville, a town of tradition, upholds the societal roles of women

“Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shape it meets, and it’s different with every shore”(Hurston 191). This quote demonstrates the self awareness by the protagonist, Janie, as she reflects on her past lovers at the end of the book. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, we learn of the struggles that Janie goes through to find true love. Janie has three different marriages thought out the story, explaining her struggles with love and death. Logan Killicks was the first man Janie married when she was 16 years old. However, as time moved on Janie meets other men that would change her views on love and what she wanted from a man. These struggles and experiences will deeply impact who

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she sets the protagonist, Janie Mae Crawford as a woman who wants to find true love and who is struggling to find her identity. To find her identity and true love it takes her three marriages to go through. While being married to three different men who each have different philosophies, Janie comes to understand that she is developed into a strong woman. Hurston makes each idea through each man’s view of Janie, and their relationship with the society. The lifestyle with little hope of or reason to hope for improvement. He holds a sizeable amount of land, but the couple's life involves little interaction with anyone else.

“Ah could throw ten acres over de fence every day and never look back to see where it fell. Ah feel the same way ‘bout Mr. Killicks too. Some folks never was meant to be loved and he’s one of ‘em” (Hurston 24). Janie dislikes Logan’s practical and non-romantic ways, he is not attractive to her, and all he does is chop wood, ridiculing her to do more. Constantly waiting for love to overcome her marriage she is disappointed, waiting it out to please Nanny. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). She soon comes to the realization marriage doesn’t bring love, and grows increasingly distant from

While Janie yearns for “idyllic union” and emotional fulfillment, Nanny maintains the “prevailing sexual and racial milieu” by arranging her marriage with wealthy landowner Logan Killicks (Meese 264). Hurston purposefully compares Janie’s progressive ideals to those of feminists who were coined as “New Women” who sought marriages based on equality. She directly relates this contrast in beliefs to feminist’s dreams of and efforts towards success and equality through female autonomy rather than material wealth and security under a man’s control. Furthermore, as Janie settles in her second marriage with Jody Starks, she becomes increasingly dissatisfied. Janie’s feelings of confinement and entrapment steadily rise as Jody orders her to remain introverted and shuttle between the general store and home (Moss and Wilson 3). He forces Janie to play the role of a beautiful and submissive wife and “does not allow her to articulate her feelings or ideas [although she] longs to participate in everyday town life” (Moss and Wilson 3). Accordingly, Hurston scorns Jody for believing “She’s uh woman and her place is in de home” (43) and utilizes his chauvinistic outlook to promote women to establish importance outside of homemaking and caregiving. Hurston’s proposal directly reflects and supports Catharine Beecher’s influential efforts to “reconcile women to the limitations of the domestic sphere” (Cott 40) and expand women’s ability to excel in a multitude of different

     The plan for Janie’s future begins with her lack of having real parents. Hurston builds up a foundation for Janie that is bound to fall like a Roman Empire. Janie’s grandmother, whom she refers to as “Nanny” takes the position as Janie’s guardian. The problem begins here for Janie because her Nanny not only spoils her, but also makes life choices for her. Nanny is old, and she only wants the best for her grandchild, for she knows that the world is a cruel place. Nanny makes the mistake of not allowing Janie to learn anything on her own. When Janie was sixteen years old, Nanny wanted to see her get married. Although Janie argued at first, Nanny insisted that Janie get married. “’Yeah, Janie, youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh… Ah wants to see you married right away.’” (Page 12). Janie was not given a choice in this decision. Her Nanny even had a suitor picked out for her. Janie told herself that she would try to make the best of the situation and attempt to find love in her marriage to Logan Killicks. But, as time went by, Janie realized that she still did not have any feelings of what she had considered to be love in her husband.

Janie Crawford is surrounded by outward influences that contradict her independence and personal development. These outward influences from society, her grandma, and even significant others contribute to her curiosity. Tension builds between outward conformity and inward questioning, allowing Zora Neal Hurston to illustrate the challenge of choice and accountability that Janie faces throughout the novel.

Janie, as she is sitting under a blossoming pear tree, realizes that the entire natural world is marrying and giving itself in marriage. To Janie, marriage is synonymous with love. The incredibly extended metaphor of marriage and the natural world is the metaphor that the whole book is focused upon. As Janie is the main character, it shows that this love, this marriage, will also play deeply into Janie’s life. Through Hurston’s figurative language, Janie’s character is developed quite rapidly. The reader begins to realize that to Janie, nothing but marriage, and therefore love, matters to her. Through the extended metaphor that Janie speaks and is describing clues the reader into the fact that, while Janie has many, many other characteristics about her, her deep desire to love and be loved is really what makes Janie such a real character. Hurston doesn’t contain her use of figurative language to just one character, though. Both Janie’s second husband, Joe, and her third husband, Tea Cake, have an impressive amount of figurative language used to make them come alive. While Hurston doesn’t employ the same type of

Feminism and gender equality is one of the most important issues of society today, and the debate dates back much farther than Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. To analyze Janie’s existence as a feminist or anti-feminist character requires a potential critic to look at her relationships and her reactions to those relationships throughout the novel. Trudier Harris claims that Janie is “questing after a kind of worship.” This statement is accurate only up until a certain point in her life, until Janie’s “quest” becomes her seeking equality with her partner. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s main goal pertaining to her romantic relationships undergoes multiple changes from her original goal of a type of worship to a goal to maintain an equal relationship with her husband.

Hurston’s main way of inspiring a sense of feminism in her novel, is through the relationships of Janie including her Nanny, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. She addresses Janie’s role differently in each of these relationships using motifs and stereotypes. Janie begins her journey of self-discovery following the dreams of her Nanny to becoming a strong, independent woman who makes her own decisions. All of the roles that Janie obtains stem from the distinct

During the time period, women were expected to marry once, with the goal of wealth in mind. Janie was, however, not content with being wealthy and unhappy. Hurston challenges the ideas of a relationship with god and mankind with the use of characters questioning their interaction with the world. In chapter six, two characters have a heated conversation about nature and god. Hurston exposes this to show that she challenges the ideas of nature and god with her novel.

Janie is a black woman who asserts herself beyond expectation.  She has a persistence that characterizes her search for the love that she dreamed of since she was a girl.  Janie understands the societal status that her life has handed her, yet she is determined to overcome this, and she is resentful toward anyone or anything that interferes with her quest for happiness. "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see, "(Page 14)  laments Janie's grandmother as she tried to justify the marriage that she has arranged for her granddaughter with Logan Killicks. This paragraph establishes the existence of the inferior status of women in Janie's society, a status which Janie must somehow overcome in order to emerge a heroine in the end of the novel.