Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Character Analysis

To begin, Zora Neale Hurston uses sunset motifs to foreshadow events that are negative. In chapter four of the novel, the motif is used to symbolize the marriage of Joe Starks and Janie Crawford. “So they were married there before sundown, just like Joe had said. With new clothes of silk and wool” (Hurston 33). Janie thinks she has found love within the marriage and it creates a build up to the climax. “They sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged” (Hurston 33). The relationship between Joe and Janie becomes abusive and untrustworthy. After Joe’s death, a weight of pain and sorrow is lifted from her shoulders and is free.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the character Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods is a Christ figure for a multitude of reasons. Some of these include him being approximately in his thirties, having lowly forms of transportation, and most importantly, sacrificing himself for the good of someone else. Janie was approximately in her early 40’s as evidenced by “Ah been wid Jody twenty yeahs” (82). She was also significantly older than Tea Cake as shown by “You know how dese young men is wid older women” when Pheoby was warning Janie on the dangers of Tea Cake which puts him at least eight years younger than Janie (113). Tea Cake also has lowly modes of transport as evidenced by “Tea Cake in a borrowed car teaching Janie to drive” as he doesn’t

When they first meet they play games together and talking like lovers would. They play checker together which her other husband forced her to do. This shows that this new man accepts her independence and doesn't perceive her as a mule. She is seen as an equal. The symbol of the horizon is repeated throughout the novel; to Janie, the horizon symbolizes her of the possibilities, that which she can dream about. During her arranged marriage with Logan Killicks, he claims to be a great partner to her but in reality, he only showed glimpses of the horizon to her. The only meaning that he provides a temporary her with a vision of what her life could be like. Though after Jody, too, turns out to treat Janie poorly and stifle her voice, it is Tea Cake who ultimately provides Janie with access to the horizon. In her marriage with Tea Cake, Janie is able to find love, sexual satisfaction, independence, and self-expression all at once, that which she has always dreamed of. For that reason, even after Tea Cakes death, Janie feels that she still has and always will have access to the metaphorical horizon. Her pursuit of happiness is fulfilled and she is able to live

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.

The horizon is also used to show the things in Janie’s life that are hard to reach, untouchable and unattainable ‘… but he spoke for a far horizon’ (29). For instance, in the book Janie’s idea of a perfect relationship and her yearning for a perfect marriage is unattainable, and that is why she gets married three times to get this fulfilment. The horizon represents her wishes as Hurston quotes in Page 1 thus: ‘Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board…For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight … until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation…”

Tea Cake loved Janie so much that he would rather himself get hurt than her, which is something Janie had never experienced: true love. Without Tea Cake’s role in Janie’s life she would have never experienced true love and actual happiness. Tea Cake is a mysterious man from the

"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.

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

She had finally found the one who she loved and not long after, he died. When Tea Cake died she was devastated. “Commenced to sing,commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the windows and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace” (Hurston 192). From that time on the when she saw the sun it reminded her of Tea Cake. Janie knew that he would always be with her. She has found the peace she has desired her entire

Watching this interaction, Janie felt deep within her that she, too, was a part of this connection, “It connected itself with vaguely felt matters that struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh” (Hurston 10-11). The interaction between the pollinator and the flower weaved into Janie’s mind, enticing her. The “love embrace” (Hurston 11) of the two lead Janie to change her view of marriage and what it meant to be in love. She realized that love is natural and should be felt with one’s whole being. Janie, now consumed by her new belief made a decision to be lead by love. This caused a series of events that entangled her in a loveless marriage, to Logan Killicks, a man she neither felt attraction to, or loved. While she felt trapped, her new belief still burned bright inside

The fourth and final section of the novel focuses on Janie's marriage to Tea Cake. Finally, Janie met someone who provided the love she longed for her whole life. Janie experiences true happiness for the first time. The framework of the novel ends as Janie's story is complete and Pheoby returns home to her husband. The reader understands the story through Janie's eyes while a narrator tells the story in third person to allow the reader to know more about the other characters and their perspectives.

According to the NASW Code of Ethics for licensed Social Workers, Social Work is clarified as the attention to environmental forces, which creates, contributes, and addresses problems in living, among individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities, with a goal of reducing discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice (NASW, 2008).

The general defence of necessity has long been disputed. The South African and English legal systems are intrinsically opposite, and neither seem to escape controversy. These systems differ greatly on the legal subject of defence of necessity in the context of killing an innocent third party. The legal aspects of this defence, as well as accompanying problems which may arise, will be briefly discussed in terms of the South African as well as the English law. Utilitarianism and Kantianism will be used to analyse specific case law that made an enormous contribution to the legal dispute regarding necessity.

The Middle Ages is filled with a variety of different authors. Whether it be poets, novelists, or short story writers, these authors focused on certain topics in their works. The theme of religion is very prominent in the stories of Middle Age writers. One Middle Age writer, Chaucer, creates stories that have a heavy influence of religion and are like the parables of Jesus. A collection of some of Chaucer’s works are called The Canterbury Tales.