Chapter 6 of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Hurston starts out by describing how Janie detests running the store, but also how she finds some joy in listening to the bright stories the townsfolk have on the porch. The guys there like to tease Matt Bonner- a man with an overworked good-for-nothing mule. Jody, regardless of Janie's wonderment in the stories, forbids her from hanginging out with the trashy people out on the porch. Because of the men who constantly are entranced by Janie’s hair, Jody commands her to wear a head-rag around her head due to his overgrown jealousy. One day Matt Bonner’s mule runs away and ends up outside of the store, where some townsmen are torturing it for their own amusement. Janie does not like this and mutters her disapproval, Jody hears her and decides to buy the mule for five dollars so it can finally be at peace. After the mule finally dies, Jody has a mock funeral which turns into a town wide gathering, none of which Janie is allowed to attend to. Later on at the store, Janie and Jody get into an argument where she tells him that he is no fun, and he tells her that he is just trying to be responsible. As time goes on the indignation that Janie holds for Jody only grows stronger. One day, Jody slaps Janie-after seven years of having met each other after a treacherous dinner. Later that same day, Mrs. Robbins begs Jody for a little meat for her family-which Jody spares. The men on the porch talk crudely about the woman,
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.
In chapter three of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie was married to Logan Killicks and began to live with him on his isolated area of land. Janie was under the impression that her love for Logan would begin almost immediately after the two were married. Janie believed this due to the fact that her Nanny had told her so beforehand. When Janie arrive at Logan’s house she went inside and began to wait for her love for him to begun. After three months had passed and she still felt nothing for Logan she began to worry and went to visit her Nanny for advice. When she arrived at her Nanny’s house she began to tell her of her issues and as usual Nanny became irritated. She told her to do what she was told by Logan and that eventually her love for him would begin to show. I feel that Janie would never truly be able to feel any type
Plot: Within the first 6 chapters of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we are introduced to the main character Janie Crawford, who is returning to her hometown after many years of being absent. As she is talking with Pheoby Watson, she begins to talk about her life while she was away and is very descriptive about it. She talks about her struggles in life and her marriage with Logan Killicks and how she didn’t love him at all. She then speaks of her marriage with Joe Starks and how they find a town where they can happily live together. She speaks of how Joe made her a lot happier than Logan and she was more content where she was living.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the audience is able to evaluate that there were specific gender roles back in the day. The author in “Chapter 3” explains how girls transform into women, once they have been through the hardship of their first heartbreak. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman,” the narrator states. It is shown that women are raised to marry a wealthy man, cook, clean, and take care of them. During “Chapter 2”, Janie is caught kissing a boy from a poor family, and is scolded by her Nanny for choosing the “wrong” man. Nanny decides to marry Janie to a wealthy farmer, named Logan Kilicks. This is when Janie is first taught how to be the “proper” wife, aiding to her husband whenever he calls her.
The story dates back in time to reveal a story written by the famous author zora neal hurston, their eyes were watching god. The dialect of this novel allows you to feel like the characters are actually real and have more of a purpose of impact. Janie the main character is introduced in the story where she appears to have muddy clothes and trudging along the dirt path as the local porch sitters gaze and bad mouth her. Her best friend Phoebe sticks up for her and decided to ask her where she was the whole time and that's initially where she began telling her story throughout the book. Janie had grew up with her grandma in the times where schools were still segregated and blacks were discriminated against, Like many of us, janie was teased just
In the beginning of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the narrator speaks of the women that would often gossip. Janie was the subject at the time. Janie, not interested converses to her friend phoeby about her privileged upbringing, having been raised in northern Florida by her grandmother, a former slave. The grandmother, nanny she was called by Janie worked in the house of a wealthy white family alongside the mother, Mrs. Washburn. Janie hinted more at the way she was raised by stating that she didn’t know she was colored for many years in her life. In her late childhood her first kiss that prompted Nanny to marry her off. Since the marriage between Janie and Logan Killicks was arranged, Janie eventually ran off to lower Florida to marry a
Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on a beautiful mulatto woman named Janie Crawford. This piece of literature carves a tale of what was once an awful time to be an African American. It begins with a brief section of what was the end of the story, and the flash-forward quickly ends after the first chapter. Chapter 2 picks up at the story's true beginning.
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, 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.
Zora Neale Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God explains the journey of Janie Crawford’s life. Janie experiences abuse, sacrifice, and true love throughout different situations in the book. As she goes through each circumstance of life, Janie gains confidence and courage that she does not have in the beginning of the story. Janie’s chief accomplishments in the book are finding freedom and independence despite the situations in which she has to overcome loss and disaster, has to prove her worth to a man, and has to learn to value and accept herself.
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.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is written with a narrative frame. The story begins and ends with two people, Janie and Pheoby, sitting on the porch of Janie's house. Janie is telling her story to Pheoby during the course of an evening, that evening becoming the entire novel. The point of view changes from a first person narrative to a third person omniscient within the first chapter so the reader can experience the story through Janie's eyes while also understanding the other characters and their perspectives.
The topic of racism is a very intriguing one for me. Other authors criticized Zora Neal Hurtson that she, being a black woman during the black liberation movement in the 1910’s, should be writing about black people being set free and how they are being suppressed by the world around them. Instead, Zora mainly deals with the issues of the women being suppressed and not allowed to be free. This idea itself mirrors that of freeing black people, but yet authors of the time were not able to see that, they called her book artificial and did not help them in their quest for freedom.
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