Essay on Love 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

This was Janie witnessing organisms making love with one another. Hurston continues her paragraph of Janie’s encounter with sex by stating “the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight [then Janie feels pain]

Yielding, however, to the wishes of her aged grandmother - that she seek protection and security in marriage - Janie marries Logan Killicks. The passion that Janie has dreamed of, however, is missing from this marriage, and Logan's house is "a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods"(21). As her marriage slowly deteriorates and she enters the dying cycle of the tree, Janie never forgets the blossoming pear tree. "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think"(24), she exclaims. "The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree"(14), so when the classy, charming Joe Starks offers her a marriage and a better life, Janie sets off down the road with him, in another cycle of springtime bloom. The pear tree is reborn and she believes that "from now until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom" (32). Though she initially finds the passion she had longed for, Janie eventually becomes Joe's possession. He exercises arbitrary power over her, forbidding her from wearing her hair

Near the beginning of the book, Janie develops an idealistic view of love whilst lying underneath a pear tree. She is young and naïve, enthralled with the beauty of spring. She comes to the conclusion that marriage is the ultimate expression of love and finds herself pondering why she does not have a partner. In the rashness of her hormone clouded brain, she is drawn to Johnny Taylor, who is nearly a stranger. This is her first experience formulating ideas about

The imagery of the bees and the pear tree are the catalyst of Janie’s coming-of-age, representing her first “springtime” and the awakening of her sexuality. The moment Janie sees the bee pollinating the blossoms on the pear tree is when she becomes aware of her sexuality. She finds herself empathizing with the blossoms; both being young and undergoing the springtime of life. Contrastingly, however, Janie has no “bees singing for her” like the blossoms do (Hurston 11). In Janie’s eyes, the relationship between the bee

Throughout her marriages Janie has grown and become a mature woman. When she married Logan Killicks she was a young girl with no idea of the harsh world. She learned that she does not want to be with Logan. “Ah wants to want him sometimes” (Hurston; 3, 26). He does not treat her like wife should be treated, he treats her like a worker. She realizes that this horrible marriage to Logan is not what she dreamed about under the pear tree. When Janie meets Joe Starks he speaks to her in rhymes and promises her the world. Her dreams of a beautiful marriage are alive once again. Joe and Janie move to Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town where Joe becomes mayor. As time progresses and Joe gains more power and respect Janie feels lonely. Joe is so focused with his position that he unknowingly pushes Janie into loneliness and sadness. Joe had taken all the fun and life

From her first kiss to the tragic death of her soul mate, each quest for love and enlightenment lends shape to Janie’s emerging voice. For example, at the beginning of Hurston's narrative, Janie quiets her inner voice by succumbing to Nanny's influence

Evidently, Janie tried to achieve her desires for love by making affection similar to the marriage like the bee and the blossoming pear tree. Janie was a sixteen-year-old aspirant. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds while wanting to battle with life, but it seemed to elude her. Hence, she was seeking to find her singing bee through the

In Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, she focuses on the life of the main character, Janie Crawford. The novel takes place in a small town down south called Eatonville in the 1930’s. Janie is on a quest to find her true identity or in other words, her horizon. Along Janie’s quest for true happiness, she faces numerous obstacles that continue to hinder her from finding her true identity and a man she can truly love. As the expectations of others control her life, Janie keeps pushing and is determined to find a true inner happiness. Janie has to fight the expectations of others all throughout the novel until she reaches a point

We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door (159).” This shows, Janie does not regret giving up her easy life in Eatonville to face obstacles and hardships with the one she truly loves. She also believes that Tea Cake was heaven sent. In fact, the hurricane symbolizes obstacle, so essentially it was a test it was a test on the strength of Janie and Tea Cake’s love. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay in the house for long so they took to hiking to Palm Beach for safety. During their progression to Palm Beach, Tea Cake gets attacked by a vicious dog while trying to save Janie. They get to Palm Beach, but don’t stay long and end up going back the Everglades. When they get home Tea Cake becomes sick, and when they go to the doctor it turns out that Tea Cake has a serious case of rabies. The disease is making him delirious and irrational. He even tries to kill Janie, but Janie kills him first. “It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cakes head in her lap. She had wanted him to life so much and he was dead (184).” Here Janie has experienced her greatest loss. The one that given her that feeling of love, the one

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

     “’…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.

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

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she

The story has numerous amounts of unexpected events that was in the novel. One unexpected event would be when Janie had to kill TeaCake before TeaCake killed her. A quote that captures the dramatic nature of this particular scene would be “Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap. She had wanted him to live so much and he was dead. No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep. Janie held his head tightly to her breast and wept and thanked him wordlessly for giving her the chance for loving service. She had to hug him tight for soon he would be gone, and she had to tell him for