Critical Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

Their Eyes Were Watching God was written in 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston. This story follows a young girl by the name of Janie Crawford. Janie Crawford lived with her grandmother in Eatonville, Florida. Janie was 16 Years old when her grandmother caught her kissing a boy out in the yard. After seeing this her grandmother told her she was old enough to get married, and tells her she has found her a husband by the name of Logan. Logan was a much, much older man. This book later follows Janie through two more marriages to Jody Starks, and Tea Cake. All three marriages extremely different from one another, along with Janie’s role in each marriage. Janie always had her own individual personality, her true self, but she also had an outer personality, the person she would pretend to be for each of her husbands. The Book took us through a journey of each of these marriages and through the journey of Janie finding herself.

There are many critical lenses in the English language such as historical, gender identity, and reader response. The critical lens gender identity is prevalent throughout Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. This critical lens covers a broad range of topics such as the role of female characters, what the absence or minimal appearance of these characters applies, and whether the characters are viewed in a positive or negative manner. Many of Janie's actions throughout the novel are dictated by men, and her idea of her pear tree love, and by the ideals about men that her grandmother has instilled in her.

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.

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.

In the novel "Their Eyes were Watching God," the main character, Janie, faces an inner battle in her three marriages, to speak or not to speak, which manifests itself differently with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie has her idea of what a marriage should look like shattered, as she failed to fall into the romantic idea of love that she held dear (Myth and Violence in Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). In her second marriage, to Joe “Jody” Starks, Janie buried her fight and spirit within herself, as she attempted to fit into the mold of the “perfect wife” Joe imagined (In Search Of Janie). Finally, in her marriage to Tea Cake, she feels the love she has longed for, and is accepted as the strong, independent woman she is (Janie Crawford Character Analysis). In every marriage, Janie feels the various effects of each man, as they either encourage or diminish her voice and inner spark.

Tea Cake comes into the store in Eatonville where Janie worked at, and she is automatically interested his charm: “She was in favor of the story that was making him laugh before she even heard it” (Hurston 90). They quickly fall in love with each other as Tea Cake treats her like a real woman. Tea Cake respected her and made her feel better about herself, something Logan and Jody had never done: ”... she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play… she looked over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 92). Tea Cake lets her play checkers and didn’t treat her as an object or lesser than himself. Soon enough, Tea Cake and Janie fall in love, move to Jacksonville then to the Everglades. Tea Cake gives Janie everything she’s ever wanted. He teaches her to shoot a gun, and doesn’t care Janie has a better shot; he does not care for the power over Janie that Jody did. Tea Cake drives Janie to find security in herself and find her own independence. Janie is finally herself with Tea Cake; however, the novel quickly proves the critical lens when a rabid dog bites Tea Cake. Tea Cake was trying to save Janie from drowning a river after a hurricane hit the Everglades. He had to fight away a mad dog, and he was bitten in the face. His health quickly declines within a mouth. He begins going mad and accuses Janie of not loving him and cheating on him. Before

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.

The first encounter of Janie and Tea Cake took place at the shop Joe, Janie’s deceased husband, left Janie to care for. In that moment, the two instantly clicked. It even “seemed as if she had known him all her life” (Hurston 99). As they continued to meet, the two found themselves falling in love with one another. A happy, married life soon followed. In contrast to Joe, Tea Cake let Janie try new things and expose her to different experiences as shown in “Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting…week after week” (Hurston 110). For once, Janie met a

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, experiences relief at the end of the novel. The novel begins at the end, emphasizing the importance of her moral reconciliation. Though at the beginning, it appears she returns home defeated, it is contrary. She returns home triumphant in finding her peace and fulfillment. When Janie starts to take things into her own hands instead of relying on her faith of others, she finally finds herself and joy. She needed to experience love in her own way to find what she was missing and what she needed in her love and her life.

In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford had a host of marriages that didn’t go how she planned. She was married a total of three times, two of her husband's happen to pass away. Which makes me think to myself that Janie was probably getting fed up with the pain and suffering made her feel that love was not the things for her due to all the problems that occurred in the past relationships. Real love doesn’t come easy nor it comes and go. Real love is solid and stays with you forever.

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

Tea Cake allowed Janie to involve herself in community activities while Starks tried to isolate Janie as much as possible. Janie and Tea Cake moved to the Everglades where there were “big beans, big cane, big weeds, big everything” (127). The luscious, thriving nature symbolizes the new and growing profound love Janie and Tea Cake have for one another. Soon, Janie “got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake” (133) because “its mo’ nicer than settin’ round dese quarters” (133). Therefore, Janie now doesn’t mind partaking in manual labor because it’s out of her personal choice and love for Tea Cake whereas, before with Logan she was forced into it causing no enjoyment. Janie “learned what it felt like to be jealous” (136) with Tea Cake involving Nunkie and “cut [Tea Cake] short with a blow” (137). Instead of fighting back, “Tea Cake kept holding Janie’s wrists” (137), “hurled her to the floor” (137), and “kissed [Janie] until she arched her body to meet him” (138). The resistance Tea Cake displays to use physical contact upon Janie reveals Tea Cake’s patient character. Also, it adds onto the motif of love where Janie and Tea Cake have equally passionate feelings toward one another such that Janie is demonstrating jealously which was absent in her previous marriages. Moreover, with the threat of the oncoming hurricane and the turned down invite from one of the Bahman workers, Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship heightens. The soon appearance of the violent hurricane caused “crashing” (159), “hurdling” (159), and “questioning God” (159). The hurricane brings the theme of religion where God is mentioned throughout the text as a sense of hope and faith. However, Tea Cake and Janie realize they needed to escape “before worse things happened” (160) causing Janie to soon approach a near death experience. While fighting for her life by holding onto “the tail of the cow” (166) in the aggressive waters, Tea Cake “split the water” (166)

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed the audience to better understand the limitations, and emotional challenges that women had to deal with in a male dominated society. Janie’s relationship with her first husband, Logan Killicks, consisted of tedious, daily routines. Her second husband, Joe Starks, brought her closer to others, than to herself. In her third and final marriage to Tea Cake, she eventually learned how to live her life on her own. Janie suffered through many difficult situations that changed her as a person, and her opinion on love.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, emotions such as love and hatred are showcased through the multiple marriages of Janie Crawford and her three husbands, impacting her life with bitterness, torture and ultimately peace due to Janie’s naive ideals of lust and desire. Nanny arranges Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks, a responsible and financially stable man, after she catches Janie kissing the handsome Johnny Taylor. Although Nanny’s intentions are for the well-being of her only granddaughter, Janie finds herself losing interest in Killicks as the marriage turns bitter. Expecting love to save her lifeless marriage with Killicks is a false ideal leading Janie to leave the relationship and fall into the arms of Jody Starks. As jealousy captures the suave and idyllic Starks, he turns into a demanding monster, dictating the miniscule movements of Janie, torturing her mind and soul. Although Janie’s innocent desire for passion revives during her marriage with Tea Cake, several misunderstandings lead to a devastating end but eventually brings peace to her heart. Hoping her granddaughter will find happiness, Nanny arranges the marriage of Janie to Logan Killicks, a respected and monetarily secure man. After a year, Janie realizes her marriage to Killicks is a loveless union causing bitter disputes.