Racism In Janie's Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Relationship abuse is a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a former or current intimate partner” (Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness). In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the lead character Janie goes through three marriages that all show characteristics of abusive relationships and domestic violence. There are key elements in her early life that make her susceptible to be and remain in a situation like what is stated above and Janie herself is changed and shaped as a person because of these relationships. The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is claimed to be one of the boldest twentieth century works dealing with feminism and domestic violence in relationships for women. Displayed through jealousy, anger, coercion, and

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.

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.

Society has always thought of racism as a war given to the lowly African American from the supposedly high class white man, but no one thought there would be prejudice within a hierarchical class system inside the black community. However within that class system, history has shown that darker colored women are at the deep trenches of the totem pole. In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” African American women are put under harm and control exposing the racism and sexism with their community. Through the life of Janie Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the concept of a woman finding her independence in a black, hierarchical, and racist society.

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.

Feminism and gender equality is one of the most important issues of society today, and the debate dates back much farther than Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. To analyze Janie’s existence as a feminist or anti-feminist character requires a potential critic to look at her relationships and her reactions to those relationships throughout the novel. Trudier Harris claims that Janie is “questing after a kind of worship.” This statement is accurate only up until a certain point in her life, until Janie’s “quest” becomes her seeking equality with her partner. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s main goal pertaining to her romantic relationships undergoes multiple changes from her original goal of a type of worship to a goal to maintain an equal relationship with her husband.

Although I recognized them as separate ideas, I did not make the association between the three. However, upon reading Crabtree’s interpretation of the novel, her perspective was much needed to further understand the novel. Moreover, it provided more explanation behind Janie’s actions and beliefs. Now I understand how folklore culture shaped Janie’s aspirations and image of romance. As a millennial, it is difficult to relate to the characters in the book, especially Janie. However, Crabtree’s interpretation of Janie’s motivations helped me understand and draw a connection in spite of the time difference. Additionally, it provided reasoning of the large emphasis placed on the vernacular within the novel. It felt that the style of the text truly mirrored the essence of what Hurston wanted to convey, the essence of southern Black culture. In short, I found Crabtree’s interpretation to be thought provocative, it gave me insight to a new perspective I’ve never thought

Janie's hair is an important symbol in Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston. Her hair represents Janie’s freedom and independence as a woman. When Janie’s hair is up, it shows that Janie is becoming less of a person, and when Janie’s hair is down, it shows that Janie is being the person she wants to be. Throughout the book, the symbol of Janie's hair demonstrates how the power of identity can be suppressed or expressed.

herself. Janie, all her life, had been pushed around and told what to do and how to live her life. She searched and searched high and low to find a peace that makes her whole and makes her feel like a complete person. To make her feel like she is in fact an individual and that she’s not like everyone else around her. During the time of ‘Their Eyes’, the correct way to treat women was to show them who was in charge and who was inferior. Men were looked to as the superior being, the one who women were supposed to look up to and serve. Especially in the fact that Janie was an African American women during these oppressed

    Comparison of Hurston's life and work is ironic. Though Janie, having passed through dominance and loss, had a 2 story home and money in the bank to come home to, Hurston had none. Hurston's later life was that of the economically disadvantaged-- what Ellison, Wright, and other male black authors penned their novels in protest of. Brilliant, talented, she could not rise above the economic limits imposed on her and thus a talented anthropologist with two Guggenheims ended up buried in an unmarked grave.

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

While Wright focuses his argument on the fact that Hurston doesn’t analyse the issue of race relations, he fails to recognize the novel’s focus on feminism. The fact that Wright is focused on civil rights and the fact that he is looking primarily for evidence supporting race relations can be seen, as he states that Hurston depicts blacks in a “safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live” (Wright). While he may be correct that this is the case, he fails to notice that that was not what Hurston was focusing on, and that was not what she intended to convey. Hurston was rather focusing on the Women’s Rights movement, as shown by Janie making her own choices and given increasing rights throughout the book. Janie moved from a marriage that was set up for her (with Killicks), to a marriage that she chose to take part in but was suppressed (with Joe Starks), to a marriage where she was treated as an equal (with Tea Cake). After strained relationships with Killicks and Joe Starks, Janie exclaims about her relationship with Tea Cake that “Somebody wanted her to play [checkers]. Somebody thought it was natural for her to play” (Hurston 92). This indicates a drastic change from her previous relationships, such as her one with Joe Starks, where Janie was frequently beaten and suppressed. That Janie was given more of a say in her marriages can be used to indicate how women were also given more of a say in the twentieth century -- after the passage of

The story ‘their eyes were watching god’ is about Janie Crawford and her search for love in a world where women were denied everything including love and their voice. She is portrayed as a heroine, who undergoes through many disappointments in search of unconditional and fulfilling love. Moreover, she is a heroine following her desire to gain autonomy in a gender biased society. The novel also talks about the different types of love that Janie has experienced and how this has shaped her life as an independent woman. A lot of literary devices, including symbolism, the view of the narrator, and imagery are used to create a picture of Janie and her circumstances. Analysis of the book provides a picture of how women today struggle in search of true love amidst a distrustful society and the delicate balance between

The book Their Eyes Were Watching God is a book that follows a woman and her quest for true love. The character Janie struggles to find the man that will sweep her off her feet and goes the experience of trial and error to find the one. Janie first man was chosen by her Grandma because of his riches, yet Janie felt no connection towards him. The second man (Jody)Janie married always suppressed her and never appreciated her, so janie stuck with him things would be different but that never happened even after his death. The last man is the one Janie finally connect with and deeply cared about because deeply cared for her, but sadly she had to kill him because he had gotten bitten by a dog. Throughout the book it gives us many lesson that we should

“Their eyes were watching god” a novel that looked how societies view on women, written by Zora Neale Hurston, portrays a society where “nigger women” are considered a “mule”. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, strives to find her own voice but struggle to find it because of the expectation in the African American community. Each one of her husbands play a big role in her life long search for independence and her own voice.