Critical Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Ferguson

During the 1930s there was a time period known as the Harlem Renaissance, during this time African Americans sought a newfound cultural freedom and advancements in social classes. In the novel, Their Eyes Are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays both similarities and departures from the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston uses the main character Janie to illustrate these ideals such as the struggle to find oneself and fight against the opinions of others. In addition Hurston also depicts issues and similarities like African Americans who achieved high social classes and discriminated those below them, racial segregation, but also a new found African American confidence. She also demonstrates departures from the Harlem Renaissance

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.” (Hurston 226) The book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is told from Janie’s point of view and she is telling her story to her friend Pheoby. She grows throughout three marriages and the hardships she faces. She learns what she wants from life and how to become an independent individual. Throughout the story of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie is on a quest for self-fulfillment and individuality. This is shown through the changes she endures in her relationships and can cause the readers to take control of their own lives.

For this lesson, I have chosen the book Their Eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The main character in my book Janie has just buried her husband the former mayor and a man that verbally abused Janie. Janie never really spoke to people unless it was her close friend Phoebe, and even them speaking was not often because of Janie’s husband Joe. However, now that Joe is dead, Janie has been speaking more often to the porch sisters, and people in the town. Furthermore, in chapter ten we are introduced to the character Tea Cake. Janie feels like she has known Tea Cake her whole life, even though, she has just met this man. Janie and Tea Cake grow closer through the chapters ten-twelve, Janie communicates well with Phoebe and Tea Cake the

“Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered.” (Hurston 186). In passage #3 which was pulled from page 186 in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston is telling Jody’s internal thoughts after being hit by her husband, Joe Starks, for the first time. Hurston is trying to convey the message that no matter how hard you try, not all your hopes and dreams will come true.

Development in people is different for everyone. In order to grow, people need to endure experiences with the people around them and the events that occur, being good or bad. Janie’s three marriages help her mature into a woman. Throughout all of her relationships, Janie learns several important lessons and things about herself, as well as discovering the reality of love. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s marriages to Logan Killicks, Jody Starks, and Tea Cake are essential moments in her life, which play a huge role in her learning experience.

Janie Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, were both two women who lived in America during two different time periods, with contrasting backgrounds and beliefs. Hester Prynne, a Puritan who came from England to Boston in the 1600’s, and Janie Crawford, a woman of color living in the deep South in an all Black community post civil war. Janie and Hester are both two outliers in their communities, and were both harassed when there actions differed from the others around them, yet neither of them rebelled and emerged above everyone else in the end.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, the story opens with an intriguing extended metaphor: “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…” In this quote, Zora Neale Hurston describes how far off a man’s dream can be. Within the first few paragraphs, we meet our main character, Janie Crawford as she’s walking back into town. Multiple people are looking on from the porch, wondering where Janie has been.

Janie and Nanny’s views on marriage are completely different. Nanny was born during slavery and has seen firsthand the struggle of black women. She wants Janie to live a semi privileged life with a man that can provide for her. She is not concerned with age or love. “De black woman is de mule of de world as far as Ah can see” (Hurston; 1.14). Janie is young and in love with the idea of love and marriage. She has lived a privileged life with minimal worries and does not understand the importance of a man in her life. “Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun the day? (page 21) After her three marriages, Janie believes that love is more important than a big house and

In this global era of evolving civilization, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the fascinating fact about love. Love is a feeling of intimacy, warmth, and attachment. Love is inevitable and it plays a vital role in human life as Janie uses her experience with the pear tree to compare each of her relationships, but it is not until Tea Cake that she finds “a bee to her bloom.” (106).

The struggle for women to have their own voice has been an ongoing battle. However, the struggle for African American women to have their own voice and independence has been an ongoing conflict. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie struggles a majority of her life discovering her own voice by challenging many traditional roles that are set by society during this time. Hongzhi Wu, the author of “Mules and Women: Identify and Rebel—Janie’s Identity Quest in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” recognizes the trend of African American women being suppressed by making a comparison between animals throughout the novel and Janie. Wu argues that there are ultimately two depictions of the mule that the reader remembers and compares both of these interpretations to Janie’s transformation throughout the novel. While Wu’s argument is sound in the fact that it recognizes certain stereotypes African American women faced during this time, Wu fails to recognize Janie’s sexuality in depth as her major push away from the animalistic pressures she has faced.

In Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie Crawford tells her story of being mixed-race in the American South at the turn of the century. Janie is fascinated by finding love, and escapes a loveless marriage with Logan Killicks to marry the mayor of Eatonville, Joe Starks. This marriage, too, takes a turn for the worst and becomes physically abusive. After living as a widow following Joe’s death, Janie runs away with Tea Cake, and here she finally finds true love that is not dependent on her husband’s wealth or authority. Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog during a hurricane, and Janie is forced to shoot him herself before he kills her. Whether she is living in an all-black town or in a situation with both white and black people,

     “’…but she don’t seem to mind at all. Reckon dey understand one ‘nother.’” A woman’s search for her own free will to escape the chains of other people in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus

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.

Love is different for each and every person. For some, it comes easy and happens early in life. For others, such as Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, it happened much later in life after two unsuccessful marriages. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny raised Janie to be attracted to financial security and physical protection instead of seeking love. Nanny continually emphasized that love was something that was bound to happen after those needs were met; even though Nanny never married. Janie formulates her ideal of love while sitting under a pear tree as a teenager; one that fulfilled her intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically. She was then informed that she was to have an arranged marriage to an older