How Does Zora Neale Hurston Use Metaphors In 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

In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, tells the story of her ascension to adulthood and several of the lessons she learned along the way. Though married three times, her second marriage to Joe Starks had the most formative impact on her transition to maturity. Given that Joe played such a crucial role in this affair, we can classify him as a type of parent to Janie. Later, after her final marriage, Janie reflects on her life and is at peace. By that point, she came to realize how to be truly happy.

Many literary works embody the concept and elements of symbolism. It can evoke striking feelings and communicate prominent ideas through its symbolic language. A profound author, Zora Neale Hurston, known for her use of symbolism in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, conveys symbols to communicate the experiences of a beautiful yet determined, black woman named Janie Crawford. Janie endeavors to find her euphoria and her perception of self-recognition and love. What comes with her journey of her womanhood is her undying struggle in discovering her aspirations from many marriages to realize her true love that completes her. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the horizon, the pear tree, and the bee and blossom as symbols

It’s amazing that one state can have within it places that differ greatly in all aspects—people, surrounding, weather, and feeling. Zora Neale Hurston exemplifies this phenomenon in Their Eyes Were Watching God. There are a multitude of differences between Eatonville, FL and the Everglades; each place represents a certain theme or feeling to Janie (the main character) and their differences each contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

Janie’s love life was not always the (Perfect Love Story) in all three of her marriages something was always missing. Zora Neale Hurston,Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie,Tea Cake,Killicks,Jody Starks In this novel Janie marries 3 different men and she faced many difficulties in each of her marriages she married Logan Killicks first then Janie’s first love Jody starks and her second love Tea Cake.In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston uses symbolism to illustrate difficulties through Janie’s marriages.

Throughout the Novel Janie struggles with handling the opinions of others and allowing them to affect how she sees herself. For instance Hurston writes “some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships. Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon- for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you- and pinched it into such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (Hurston 89). Here Hurston demonstrates that others will always see things differently from one's perspective and Janie’s ongoing internal conflict with doing what would make her happy or doing what will satisfy those around her. However at the end of the novel Janie ultimately departs from the beliefs of others and displays self empowerment by disregarding the opinions of others over her actions. Similarly Hurston states “so she was free and the judge and everybody up there smiled with her and shook her hand. And the white women cried and stood around her like a protecting wall”(Hurston 188). This quote from the novel indicates that Janie displays self empowerment throughout the course of the novel and individual progress. This quote also shows the ideal of equality because although Janie is mixed she has always made her African

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

The American Psychological Institute states that the current divorce rate is around forty to fifty percent for first marriages and even higher for second and third marriages. The upward trend of divorce rates in America has many Americans concerned about the decreasing emphasis on commitment and family values that often results from divorce. In Zora Neale Hurstons’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, experiences three marriages, one of which ends in divorce and the other two in death. Many readers may question the values of Janie and her seemingly ‘gold- digger’ Nanny as they both seem to be chasing the unattainable, a perfect marriage with a rich husband. As the novel plays out, the reader goes deeper into Nanny and Janie’s values and how they affect Janie’s three marriages. In the article “The Death of Janie Crawford: Tragedy and the American Dream in Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Darryl Hattenhauer correctly identifies Nanny as someone who would want Janie to follow her dreams in Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God; meanwhile, Hattenhauer incorrectly believes that Nanny would not want Janie to marry Jody.

All through the novel Janie travels through valuable life experiences allowing her to grow as a woman. Janie at first has a difficult time understanding her needs rather than wants, but as she continues to experience new situations she realizes she values respect. Janie’s first two marriages turned out to be tragic mistakes, but with each marriage Janie gained something valuable. When Janie is disrespected in her second marriage with Joe Starks, he publicly humiliates her, disrespecting her as a wife and woman. This experience forced Janie to come out of her comfort zone and stand up for herself.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she sets the protagonist, Janie Mae Crawford as a woman who wants to find true love and who is struggling to find her identity. To find her identity and true love it takes her three marriages to go through. While being married to three different men who each have different philosophies, Janie comes to understand that she is developed into a strong woman. Hurston makes each idea through each man’s view of Janie, and their relationship with the society. The lifestyle with little hope of or reason to hope for improvement. He holds a sizeable amount of land, but the couple's life involves little interaction with anyone else.

     “’…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.

Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship.

Mythology is a key part of many of Zora Neale Hurston’s short stories and novels. She researched the stories of her home town and many other areas of the world. Hurston used this knowledge of myths and stories to help her carry them on to later generations in a form that almost everybody could relate to. Through out all of Zora Neale Hurston’s stories, mythology has been a crucial keystone. Her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has been influenced by three different ancient myths: the myths of Ezili Freda, Osiris and Isis, and Aphrodite and Adonis.

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