Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching

When Janie is about sixteen her grandmother finds her in the act of kissing a boy, and afraid for Janie, she arranges for Janie to be married to Logan Killicks, who is an older man with vast property to his name. Nanny, as Janie calls her, is unable to wrap her mind around the idea of marrying for love and mocks Janie saying, "So you don't want to marry off decent like, do yuh? You just wants to hug and kiss and feel around with first one man and then another, huh?" (Their Eyes Are Watching God, 13). Her grandmothers’ gift of life is different from the life that Janie wants to live. She tells Janie, “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.'” (Their Eyes Are Watching God, 11). Nanny doesn’t believe that trying to find love and make a better life for you will succeed, she tells Janie that marrying and older man with land to his name will bring security, and she shouldn’t want more than that. Because of this Janie agrees and goes along with the plan. She is depicted as very compliant and rarely speaks her mind, even saying “But Ah hates disagreement and confusion, so Ah better not talk. It makes it hard tuh git along” (Their Eyes Were Watching God, 90).

     As two different people, Janie and Tea Cake are allowed to live their lives as equals. When living with Joe, Janie is never allowed to do things such as speaking her mind, playing games, or doing anything which is not completely ladylike. Tea Cake encourages her to do things which were previously not open to her, such as playing chess, speaking openly about her feelings, and hunting. He teaches Janie to shoot and hunt wild game.

Though born into slavery, Nanny had "dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do." She wanted to "preach a great sermon about colored women sittin' on high, but they wasn't no pulpit for [her]." She tries to fulfill her dreams first through her daughter and then through Janie. But slavery and years of dependence on a white family have warped

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story about a black woman in the 1930s, Janie’s, quest for real and fulfilling love and freedom. The story begins when her grandmother, Nanny, catches her kissing a boy she doesn’t approve of. Nanny is a former slave who is raising Janie as her own daughter, Janie’s mother, was raped at seventeen, began drinking, and ran away. Countless hardships were faced by Nanny and she was denied opportunities, like marriage, in order to care for Janie and her mother. Therefore, she pressures Janie to marry Logan Killicks before she dies of old age. Despite not wanting to take part in it, Janie obeys, and learns that marriage doesn’t create love as she had thought.

After seeing Janie kiss Johnny Taylor under a romantic pear tree, Janie’s Nanny insists on her to wed an old man named Logan. This is where the battle begins. Should Janie be submissive to Nanny and marry Logan, or should she let her self-reliance win and stay away from marriage? She definitely shows signs of wanting her self-reliance to win by stating, “Naw, Nanny… Ah ain’t no real ‘oman yet” (Hurston 12). With all her might, Janie is trying to refuse Nanny’s offer by pleading that she is not matured enough yet, displaying how she desires to be self-reliant. However, Nanny counters this by replying, “T’aint Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (Hurston 15). As a child, Nanny instills this idea that Janie, without a doubt, needs a man by her side to give her safety and stability. In other words, Nanny wants Janie to be submissive to men because her time is almost up. Janie ends up following her dear Nanny and marries Logan, even though she was previously reluctant to do so. Submissiveness wins this first round of this battle. With Logan, Janie finds out that marriage does not necessarily equate to love. She tries her hardest bowing down to every command of Logan in hopes that doing so will make them love one another, but it simply is not possible; although it is true that Janie is granted a stable lifestyle with Logan, she is also

Those living in today’s world are constantly bombarded with the stereotypes and distorted images of a consumerist society. As a result, they often struggle with a loss of identity because mass media try to dictate what they should want to be and do. Zora Neale Hurston tackles this age-old search for self-discovery in her fictional frame story Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie Crawford tells her best friend, Pheoby, about her quest for her own voice, despite setbacks in the form of relatives, two husbands, and entire towns that attempt to silence her. From a young age, Janie yearns for enlightenment; however, the roles Nanny, Logan Killicks, and Joe Starks force upon her prevent her from reaching selfhood until she meets and falls in love

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.

Janie doesn't love Logan, but that doesn't matter to Nanny, as long as her grandchild is protected. When Janie comes to tell her grandmother that she still doesn't love Logan after three months of marriage, Nanny says, "you come heah wid yo' mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day. Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo' bawn days, and big protection, and everybody got tuh tip dey hat tuh you and call you Mis' Killicks, and you come worryin' me 'bout love" (Hurston 22) Nanny doesn't care whether or not Janie's in love, so long as she doesn't have to worry about her financial situation. The main goal of the ex-slaves was to be able to survive in the world, and that meant money to pay for their survival. Many of them either stayed with their old masters, bought farms of their own, or moved N orth in pursuit of other vocations (Hoobler 51). Nanny wanted Janie to be able to survive in her community. She tells Janie that "De n----- woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah kin see. Ah been prayin' fuh it tuh be different wid you" (Hurston 14). Nanny may want society to change for Janie, but she still won't let her granddaughter make her own decisions about her life. Nanny is trying to follow her dream of affluence and true happiness through her granddaughter, Janie. Many blacks did this by moving North for better work and living standards. What they

The story ‘their eyes were watching god’ is about Janie Crawford and her search for love in a world where women were denied everything including love and their voice. She is portrayed as a heroine, who undergoes through many disappointments in search of unconditional and fulfilling love. Moreover, she is a heroine following her desire to gain autonomy in a gender biased society. The novel also talks about the different types of love that Janie has experienced and how this has shaped her life as an independent woman. A lot of literary devices, including symbolism, the view of the narrator, and imagery are used to create a picture of Janie and her circumstances. Analysis of the book provides a picture of how women today struggle in search of true love amidst a distrustful society and the delicate balance between

Up to this point, the relationship between Janie and Tea Cake has seemed almost too good to be true. Chapters 13 and 14, while continuing to demonstrate that their relationship is a good experience for Janie, raise some complex questions about Tea Cake’s character. Their arrival in the Everglades is a moment of fulfillment for Janie as she finds herself surrounded by fertile nature. Overall, her experience is generally a fulfilling one. Nevertheless, Tea Cake manipulates her in subtle ways, raising, once again, the specter of male domination in her life.Chapter 13 is marked by Tea Cake’s cruel absences from Janie. Although Janie accepts his explanations, it is hard to believe that someone as intelligent as Tea Cake could be so careless only

Janie’s journey sets off when her grandmother, Nanny, insists she marries Logan Killicks, a man twice her age. Because Nanny’s experience with slavery, her worldview has been about financial security for Janie. Like all elders they hope that their children and grandchildren have protection and stability so they can ease. “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection… (Hurston 15)”. With Janie rebellious young age, she does not realize what her grandmother went through. Janie knew she had to obey her grandmother so she can give her Nanny assurance that she would be taken care of before she dies. But not long after the Nanny’s death, Logan Killicks starts to treat her like a “mule” a free work of labor. Because of Janie status she ought to speak for herself.

Are women treated less equally than men today in 2018? Janie’s constantly deals with inequality from the men she is surrounded by. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is the journey of the main character Janie. Janie is biracial; she has white and black physical features. She has a black grandmother and a white mother, so her family has been through many racial issues.

Also, Jan continuously states his feelings about how Bigger greets him and call him sir while ignoring Bigger’s culture and feelings. While driving Jan, tries to treat Bigger equally and asks him about a food place in the black neighborhood. During this drive towards the dinner, Jan continues to have conversations with Bigger and when responding Bigger struggle trying not to call Jan Sir. To this Jan in an angered tone state's "Bigger, please! Don’t say sir to me. . .. I don’t like it. You’re a man just like I am; I’m no better than you. Maybe other white men like it. But I don’t.” ( ). In this quote, it's evident that Jan is being color blind towards Bigger and the reality of the society in which both grew in. Since Jan is focused on making Bigger feel equal to him, he is forgetting the

Before any man in Janie’s life controls her, there is first Nanny. “’T’ain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. Ah ain’t gittin’ ole, honey. Ah’m done ole” (Hurston 18). Nanny is part of a generation of slaves. Even when Nanny achieved freedom in life, she took shelter under a white property and lived under them instead of being truly on her own. So when she sees how her daughter ran off and Janie left all alone with an aging old woman, she is terrified of Janie having a risky life. The only way for Nanny to feel secure about Janie’s security is to marry her off to Logan Killicks, an older man with 60 acres of a farm. Tyson defines the

In the beginning of the book Janie experiences a love that is protective from her grandmother Nanny. This protective love that Nanny gave to Janie leads to the arrange marriage between Janie and Logan Starks. Janie believed that marriage leads to love as she follows her grandmother's command into marrying Logan Killicks, she believed that with marriage comes love, but as she comes to find out marriage does not lead to love. With Logan, a similar type of protective love is given to her, because to Janie and