Metaphor In Their Eyes Were Watching God

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.

In the beginning of the novel, Nanny forces a romantically curious Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a mature land owning man, in hopes of ensuring her a stable life. Although Janie is apprehensive of her grandmother’s decision, she submits to Nanny’s will after she lectures her of life’s harsh truths and the lessons that she had learned, stating, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de n----- man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n----- woman is de mule uh de world..." (Hurston 14). Nanny’s words illustrate her twisted view of black women, which influenced her ideals of life and in turn, tarnishes Janie’s dream of finding true love. Through experience, Nanny learned that black women were mules; people who were brutally discriminated against by everyone other than themselves for being both the less dominant gender and a minority. In order to prevent Janie from experiencing the same abuse in life, she arranges a marriage for Janie with Logan. While doing so, Nanny disregards Janie’s personal needs, which soon took her down a turbulent path in life. Years into the future and long past her neglected youth, Janie comes to the realization that, “She hated her grandmother…She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love.” (Hurston

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston describes the horizon as possibilities and opportunities. When the story starts out Janie’s perception of the horizon changes first from desire for love to the need of love, and ultimately the feeling of contentment towards love to show Janie maturing throughout the novel.

Nanny Crawford grew up as a slave on a plantation owned by a rich man, who raped her and impregnated her with Janie’s mom. After Nanny escaped slavery, she was very poor. Because of this she wanted to make sure that Janie was married and financially stable before Nanny died. “Me, married? Naw, Nanny, no ma’am! Whut Ah know ‘bout uh husband?” (Hurston 12). This quote represents Janie’s view on getting married. Janie is reluctant to get married because she wants to be free and independent. She is also very young and I think that the thought of becoming tied down to a man she does not even know at such a young age is frightening to her. “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. Ah ain’t gittin’ ole, honey. Ah’m done ole” (Hurston 15). This quote represents Nanny’s view on Janie getting married. Nanny does not necessarily care about Janie getting married, she just wants Janie to have that financial security and protection that she never had, especially before she dies. Janie and Nanny have a trusting relationship. Janie often goes to Nanny for advice, trusting the advice that Nanny gives her. Though they have a relatively good relationship, they both also have very

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.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, symbols are implemented to help the readers Identify and understand the leitmotif of the novel. One commonly found symbol is Janie’s hair, which represents her personality, individuality, and character. The state of her hair changes as the novel progresses and Jamie goes through different stages of life, struggling to find true love. Using Jamie’s hair to express her feelings and emotions throughout the novel, Hurston highlights the theme that finding true love and happiness requires one to be free and adventurous in life without letting any obstacles or events alter one’s character.

In order to understand Janie’s journey to discover love and herself, one must first define love from her perspective and analyze its origins. Janie’s adult concept of love is influenced by many things, including her grandmother and her childhood concept of love. Janie thinks there is a standard for love because her grandmother had standards for who she loved. Nanny’s concept of love, which shapes Janie’s, is heavily influenced by her slave background. Nanny was impregnated by her master, then witnessed her daughter, Janie’s mother, get raped by a school teacher (16-20). Because of the trauma both she and her daughter faced, Nanny ardently begs Janie to marry a man who will keep her safe from harm. Not only does Nanny want a protector for Janie, but she also wants a provider for her. If Janie is to have a husband who is well-off, she will not want the way her mother and grandmother did. Thus, Janie figured that she could marry a person for the security they

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.

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.

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.

In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the life of Janie is presented as a journey. Janie survives a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout this journey, she moves towards her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie undergoes many changes throughout her journey, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston reinforces the idea of understanding oneself by the use of repeating patterns such as the blossom and the bee, and the horizon throughout the novel. The use of these two motifs represents the ideal relationship, an effortless union of individuals and the possibility of change or dreams and wishes. Janie Crawford in the beginning of the novel is a young lady who is naïve to love and will do anything that is asked of her. She is essentially forced into a marriage that her Nanny set up for her, for her own protection. Janie denies at first but then gives in, believing she will fall

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

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on Janie’s life, and how her experiences change her perspectives on major ideas such as love, life, and happiness over the course of the story. Her three marriages, along with the boy that first sparked her interest in love, were particularly meaningful in relation to how they helped her realize exactly what those ideas meant to her, and not how other people think they should mean to her. Throughout her life, Janie struggled to accommodate what she wanted while also meeting other people’s expectations. As a result, she spent a great deal of her life longing for different lovers and more intimate connections than what she was dealt with. Janie overcomes this desire as she matures in the book, finally

The prevailing theme in the story would be Janie’s many ups and downs when it comes to how she confronts her inner self; especially when it comes to her youthful vision of love. An example of this would be, “ She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.” (Hurston 11) This statement fulfills the assumption that with all the coddling life has done to Janie, she will consequently receive a more oriented and richer of who she is. She is given time to explore herself, and as a teenager, she starts to come of han age in which she realizes what it means to love in her mind. Her sense of love is constantly brought up again and again in order to engrave the idea that Janie may never be truly satisfied with the love she