A Journey Through Life By Zora Neale Hurston Essay

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God uses figurative language to demonstrate that love is not always how it seams. Janie Crawford is a young woman trying to find her voice or the first time but counters many obstacles growing up as a child to an adult. Zora Neale Hurston through a world of mss leading of love as well as sadness. The author uses different types of figurative language to describe Janies fairy tail love is not what it really seems to be.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote the “Spunk” and published it in Harlem Renaissance journal in 1925. “Spunk” revolves around two main characters: Spunk Banks and Joe Kanty, who develop hatred between themselves due to a quarrel over a woman named Lena Kanty. Lena Kanty is Joe’s legitimate wife, later to be lured by Spunk Banks to abandon her legitimate husband. Spunk Banks successfully wins the love of Lena Kanty due to his heavy corporeal stature and military training. Spunk owns a .45 military hand gun, therefore, complicating attempts made by Kanty to fight for his wife. Kanty loses his life in the hands of Banks, when fighting for his wife and in the presence of his wife. Banks survives a court trial but a huge, black bob-cat in Joe’s ghost follows him afterwards in quest for vengeance for justice. Bank eventually finds his fate with a sawmill machine and succumbs to wounds sustained in this accident. Notably, both men die in the fight for a wife, where Kanty’s ghost kills Banks who previously takes the former’s life away (Hurston 105-111).

Zora Neale Hurston, known as one of the most symbolic African American women during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930’s. Hurston was known as a non fiction writer, anthropologist and folklorist. Hurston’s literature has served as a big eye opener during the Harlem Renaissance, celebrating black dialect and their traditions. Most of her published stories “depict relationships among black residents in her native southern Florida, was largely unconcerned with racial injustices” (Bomarito 89). Hurston was unique when it came to her racial point of views, promoting white racism instead of black racism. Even though her works had been forgotten by the time of her death, now her literature has left a bigger impact to future literature

     Zora Neale Hurston was a phenomenal woman. At the height of her success she was known as the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance.” She came to overcome obstacles that were placed in front of her. Hurston rose from poverty to fame and lost it all at the time of her death. Zora had an unusual life; she was a child that was forced to grow up to fast. But despite Zora Neale Hurston’s unsettled life, she managed to surmount every obstacle to become one of the most profound authors of the century.

Zora Neale Hurston is unequivocally open about her race and identity in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” As Hurston shares her life story, the reader is exposed to Hurston’s self-realization journey about how she “became colored.” Hurston utilizes her autobiographical short story as a vehicle to describe the “very day she became colored.” Race is particularly vital in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” as she deals with the social construct of race, racism, and sustaining one’s cultural identity.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the heroine Janie, a beautiful mixed white and black woman, is on a journey to find someone who will make her feel love to find her own identity and freedom, away from her spouses. Janie’s marriages and quest for love impede her individual search for freedom, but in doing this she has discovered what exactly she wants for herself. Janie’s search for her identity and freedom is very much evident. Being abused and controlled during her marriages has made it clear how she wants to be treated and how she wants to live her life; as an individual who does not have to listen to anyone. The story opens with Janie’s return to town. Janie tells Phoebe Watson the story of her

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.

“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.” In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford struggles to find true love. Throughout the novel, she marries and estranges from three different husbands. The first husband, Logan Killicks, seems to be Janie's first true love, but he turns out to be weak and lazy. Janie’s second “love” Joe- Jody- Starks beats Janie both physically and mentally, and Jody overrules her with his obsessive need for power. Lastly, she marries and moves away with Tea Cake after Jody dies. Tea Cake was Janie's final and only genuine love. Throughout the novel, the author validates the critical lens of

The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, a young teenager Janie is lectured by her grandmother, whom she calls Nanny. Nanny teaches Janie to be the best girl she can possibly be. Nanny tells Janie stories about her own personal experiences with men as well as Janie’s mother Leafy’s: “Dat school teacher had done hid her [Leafy] in de woods all night long, and he had done raped mah [Nanny’s] baby and run on off just before day” (Hurston 19). This leaves Janie with the overall message that men can be cruel and that a relationship with them that consists of both love and happiness as well as respect is unrealistic. Despite Nanny’s advice on men, Janie becomes involved with boys very early on- around her mid-teens, which upsets Nanny: “Nanny’s head and face looked like the standing roots of some old tree that had been torn away by storm” (Hurston 12). This ultimately results in Nanny putting Janie into an arranged marriage. While Janie is unhappy with her because of the arrangement, Nanny’s true intentions demonstrate her love and hopes for Janie. Her true intentions for Janie is that she will end up in a relationship with someone who can provide for her, keep her safe and that love, if even possible, will be just a bonus.

Throughout a fair part of Zora Neal Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s low class create problems when it comes to men. She lives with men she does not love because they give her the financial stability she cannot have yet on her own. Janie marries Logan Killicks at a young age even though she does not want to

Zora Neale Hurston was born January 7, 1891 in a small town known as Notasulga, Alabama. She was born the fifth child of eight children to John and Lucy. Lucy, her mother, was an old schoolteacher and John, her father, was a Baptist preacher. Zora’s family relocated to Eatonville, Florida when she was just a young girl. When she was thirteen, her mother died in 1904. That same year, her father took her out of school to raise her brothers. At the age of sixteen, Zora was eager to escape the responsibility of looking after her brothers and became a member of a traveling theater. Afterward, she started doing labor work in a Caucasian household.

Zora Neale Hurston begins Their Eyes Were Watching God with Janie as a naive sixteen year old who dreams of falling in love. Over the course of her life, Janie has three different experiences of marriage, that shape her sense of self. She begins a dull marriage with Logan Killicks that she only agrees to as a way to appease her grandmother, Nanny. Leaving him, Janie marries an ambitious man named Jody Starks who she thinks will bring her happiness and love, unexpectedly he marginalizes and oppresses her. After Jody’s death, she meets her third husband and her first real love. Janie’s controversial relationship with Tea Cake, against all odds, gives her power,

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a realistic fiction novel that explores how patriarchal values in the public world that Hurston depicts through the setting of the early 19th century central and southern Florida impact women’s identity while seeking for a deeper understanding of love. The novel’s protagonist, Janie Crawford, was brought up under the care of her grandmother, Nanny, who represents the prevailing views of society and value of women in central Florida. In the quote “Me, married? Naw, Nanny, no ma’am ! Whut Ah know ‘bout uh husband?” (Hurston, p.g. the usage of rhetorical questions displays Janie’s defiance at marrying to a man she did not know in fear of losing her freedom and youth before being able to identify herself. However, Janie was coerced into a marriage with Logan Killicks, a prosperous farmer with 60 acres of land, who reflects the ideal that he could provide financial and physical shelter for Janie. This appealed to Nanny, who

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Alabama. She is known to be one of the most influential novelist of the twentieth century in African America literature. Hurston is described to be a very opinionated woman that stood for what she believed in; which reflected in some of her works. In addition to her many titles such as, being an anthropologist and short story writer, she was closely related and heavily focused on the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston and her political opinions placed her at odds with important figures during that time which I wholeheartedly believe played a part in the undeniable attraction that most people have towards her works. Being that Hurston was such a unique writer, to understand the ethics and themes of her and how she contributed to African American literature comes with an understanding of the background and childhood she had.