Janie's Character Analysis In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Joe is power hungry and seeks to dominate Janie, who cannot be held back and craves the freedom to manage her own life. With such caustic tension, it seems odd that Janie would stay with Joe until his death. Clearly, she was not afraid to walk out on a husband, so why did she choose to stay? Though Joe was frequently an oppressive dictatorial husband, he still offered more love to her than the cold, quasi-emotionless Logan Killicks. Only after finding love with Tea Cake, however, would Janie realize one of the major themes of the novel: in order to gain true happiness, you cannot sacrifice one desire for another, in her case freedom from oppression for love.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed us to better understand the restraints that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Her marriage with Logan Killicks consisted of dull, daily routines.  Wedding herself to Joe Starks brought her closer to others, than to herself.  In her final marriage to Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake, she finally learned how to live her life on her own.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

People grow and develop at different rates. The factors that heavily influence a person's growth are heredity and environment. The people you meet and the experiences you have are very important in what makes a person who he/she is. Janie develops as a woman with the three marriages she has. In each marriage she learns precious lessons, has increasingly better relationships, and realizes how a person is to live his/her life. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie's marriages to Logan Killicks, Jody Starks, and Tea Cake are the most vital elements in her growth as a woman.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie Crawford has experienced and had interactions with the nature around her. These interactions symbolised Janie’s quest for love, her own independence and personal freedom through each endeavor. Janie’s quest for her womanhood was directly influenced by the natural environment around her. For instance, the novel states that Janie “Saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a blossom” (11).

Throughout the book Janie struggles to find the true definition of love and how to make herself happy with her relationships. She goes through several different ideas of love before finding that it is mutual compassion, understanding, and respect that makes her the most happy.

Often in literature, the author sets the main character on a physical journey to divert attention away from the main character’s spiritual journey. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie, goes on a physical journey that not only challenges her sense of self, but also is vital in her life-long spiritual journey to personal liberation and self-empowerment. Janie’s relationships mark Janie’s migration toward fulfilling Hurston’s purpose of the piece: Janie becoming empowered and finds personal liberation. Hurston proves Janie’s physical journey plays a central role as Janie completes her spiritual quest to personal liberation and self-empowerment.

In the novel,  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there are many recurring images, one of the most important images is Janie’s hair which represents her power strength, identity, her freedom,  and life experience. Her hair also is the cause of some conflicts like with Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake and helps develops who Janie is as character by showing us what she wants throughout this whole story.

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.

Instead of treating Janie like the beautiful woman that she is, he uses her as an object. Joe was a man who “treasured [Janie] as a posession” (Berridge). Joe’s demanding nature suppresses Janie’s urge to grow and develop, thus causing her journey to self-realization to take steps backward rather than forward. In Janie’s opinion, “he needs to “have [his] way all [his] life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let [him]self heah 'bout it” (Hurston 122). It is almost as if Janie loses sense of her own self-consciousness due to the fact that she becomes like a puppy being told what to do by her master. The death of Jody is actually a positive thing. Joe’s controlling nature stifles Janie’s inner voice. While married to Jody, Janie became closer to others, however, she did not become closer to herself. Being on her own again gave her another chance to embark on her journey and realize who Janie Crawford really is.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Lora Neale Hurston, the main character engages in three marriages that lead her towards a development of self. Through each endeavor, Janie learns the truths of life, love, and the path to finding her identity. Though suppressed because of her race and gender, Janie has a strong will to live her life the way she wills. But throughout her life, she encounters many people who attempt to change the way that she is and her beliefs. Each marriage that she undertakes, she finds a new realization and is on a never-ending quest to find her identity and true love. Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake each help Janie progress to womanhood and find her identity.

      Human beings love inertia. It is human nature to fear the unknown and to desire stability in life. This need for stability leads to the concept of possessing things, because possession is a measurable and definite idea that all society has agreed upon. Of course, when people begin to rely on what they know to be true, they stop moving forward and simply stand still. Zora Neal Hurston addresses these general human problems in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston, however, does not present the reader with the nihilistic hopelessness of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but rather offers an understanding of the basic human aspect that causes us to fear emptiness. Janie, the

The world of Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God was one of oppression and disappointment. She left the world of her suffocating grandmother to live with a man whom she did not love, and in fact did not even know. She then left him to marry another man who offered her wealth in terms of material possessions but left her in utter spiritual poverty. After her second husband's death, she claims responsibility and control of her own life, and through her shared love with her new husband, Teacake, she is able to overcome her status of oppression. Zora Neale Hurston artfully and effectively shows this victory over oppression throughout the book through her use of

Janie’s relationship with her second husband, Joe Starks, is perhaps the most damaging. In the beginning of their marriage, Janie is proud and admiring of the successful, strong man she marries and runs off with. At first, it seems as though Janie has executed a successful breakaway from her unfulfilling life with Logan Killicks, and transitioned to an exciting, happy life with Joe Starks. Unfortunately, Janie and Joe’s marriage retracts from the infatuated love it once was, into a

Janie, in Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, was a unique individual; as a half-white, half-black girl growing up in Florida in the early 1930's, a lifetime of trials and search for understanding was set for her from the start. As the main character she sought to finally find herself, true love, and have a meaningful life. Growing up, in itself, provides a perfect opportunity for finding that essential state of self-realization and ideal comfort. Michael G. Cooke reviews Their Eyes Were Watching God in his article "The Beginnings of Self-Realization"; within the article it is falsely criticized that every time Janie is negatively impacted she grows to become more

    In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford is the heroine. She helps women to deal with their own problems by dealing with hers. She deals with personal relationships as well as searches for self-awareness. Janie Crawford is more than a heroine, however, she is a woman who has overcome the restrictions placed on her by the oppressive forces and people in her life.