Summary: Outward Conformity Intheir Eyes Were Watching God

The journey that Janie embarks on is to find herself. She learns that she can be happy with or without a man, and with or without riches and superficial items. It is also a quest for love and fulfillment. In her marriage to Joe, Janie has all of the worldly possessions one could dream of having, but she does not love Joe. She is not happy in that marriage because even though she has every tangible item she could want, she does not have love, and that is an essential part of life. With Tea Cake, however, she does not have expensive items galore, but she does have love. Her marriage to Tea Cake shows that you do not need what money can buy to make you happy, you need love. The contrast between the two places also shows that individual freedom is necessary to be happy. Living with limited expression is harmful to a person. No one desires to live a life, having their ideas suppressed by another. Janie’s need to be free and for expression is one that every person in the world can relate to. The contrast between Eatonville and the Everglades highlights the meaning of the

Janie lowers her interruptions in the story and lets her own character give relentless testimony. All the city's black residents gathered in the courthouse to watch, and Janie feels these people, her former friends, turned against her; some even testified against her. Dr. Simmons stands up for Janie, but Janie’s testimony, which tells the court about her, and Tea Cake’s past and their love, is the most moving of all. With this change, she realizes she is her own person with a voice of her own that she can use without a man’s guidance. That is her goal throughout the novel to find her own voice and use it to express who she is as a

Tea Cake performs the old courtship rituals, indulges in shooting and razor fighting, and plays the dozens and the blues. Compared with Killicks and Starks, former husbands of Janie, Tea Cake prefers interaction and people to ‘things’: “So us goin’ off somewhere and start all in Tea Cake’s way. Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game” (134). In this pastoral setting, Janie regains her voice to tell narratives. Janie feels free to join the notorious ‘lying’ and tale-telling sessions whenever she wants to: “She got so, she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest” (158). Yet, even with Tea Cake, she has to face intermittent crises and physical aggression. S. Jay Walker has

From the beginning, Janie’s happiness is abundantly clear in her relationship with Tea Cake. Although she is now a woman in her forties, Janie acts very youthful and unrestricted with him. She wears “new dresses and...comb[s] her hair a different way nearly every day (111)”. Tea Cake allows for Janie to be herself, in stark contrast to misogynistic Joe who constrained her individuality daily. Janie reports that “Tea Cake love[s] me in blue, so Ah wears it (113)”.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is innocent and does not know what she is searching for. Life experience, however, teaches her to gain control of her destiny and leads her to a love that provides equality, understanding, and self discovery. Through the novel Janie is on a quest for love, though she does not really know what she is searching for over here journey she goes through many trials of love, whether romantic or not each leading her to a new step of self discovery. As she continues to jump into new relationships, she gains understanding of herself and her identity, while growing as a person and taking control of her life and relationships. Through Janie's journey to no known destination she gains equality in her relationships specifically as a women and understanding of who she is

The difference between Janie’s desire for freedom and her agreement to her transition from marriage to marriage shows a contrast in her attempt to balance multiple identities. The entirety of Their Eyes Were Watching God emphasizes Janie’s struggle to become both a woman and black person in a society that does not allow either to exist at the same time. Janie went through several marriages before she found her ultimate happiness. In her attempt to reject her Nanny’s pairing of herself and Logan Killicks, her Nanny explains that “de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out”

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses Janie to show that one must have a voice in order to have a sense of who one is and have control over oneself. Janie is a dynamic character and other characters in the novel contributes to her attributes because each of them control specks of her life. To develop as a character, Janie undergoes quests to find her identity and retain it. It is arguable that Janie hangs onto pieces of who she is as she discovers more about herself and gain control over those aspects because Hurston sets the novel up as a frame story. With a frame story, there are reflections happening, so in turn, she must have learned from what she experienced between the beginning and the end of the novel. In addition

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story that follows protagonist Janie Crawford, through many hardships, relationships, and adventures. As Janie Returns to her hometown in Florida after a long absence the novel is a recollection of her experiences and adventures to her friend Pheoby Watson. Janie struggles throughout the entirety of the novel to find freedom and peace with herself. She experiences relationships with a few different kinds of people all of which help her to eventually find that

Similarly, Janie makes another great sacrifice when she decides to leave her life of ease and luxury in Eatonville, so she can start a new life with Tea Cake. In Eatonville, she had authority as the store owner and as the former mayor’s wife, but she decides to follow her heart which ultimately leads to her fulfillment of self-actualization with the help of Tea Cake. Without Tea Cake, Janie could not have found herself, and his impact on her remains even after his death. Janie recounts her life lesson to Phoeby saying, “Love is lak da sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore...Two things everybody’s got tuh do for theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (191-92). Through Janie’s words, the effect of Tea Cake on her is eminent through how Janie learn about life and herself and leads her to becoming independent. Because Janie sacrifices her luxurious life in Eatonville, through Tea Cake, she fulfills her need of self-actualization, a recurring idea in the book. Janie’s values concerning her life and of Tea Cake are also illuminated in her conversation with Phoeby before she leaves Eatonville. She and Tea Cake “‘...[had] done made up [their] minds tuh

In conclusion, In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, the audience watches Janie enter a period of self-discovery. When Janie gains this power of freedom, she realizes she craves something different from what society had told her she would want; What we feel inwardly to be true, society seeks to take that truth away. With this experience an internal and external

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

The final stage in Janie’s development as a woman is her marriage with the twelve years younger Tea Cake. Both are totally in love with each other and Janie lives a live she has never lived before. She experienced a big change when she moves from her formal live as “Mrs. Major” (43) in Eatonville to the Everglades where Tea Cakes teaches her how to farm, fish and hunt and introduces a totally new rural life to her. Janie described her lifestyle in these days with "...we ain't got nothin' tuh do but do our work and come home and love" (127).

At the beginning of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is not knowledgeable about the world because her ambitions are determined by others. This causes her to be stuck with paltry horizons although, she still

“You got tuh go there tuh know there,” Janie, the main character of Their Eyes were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston says as she reflects on her life and what had brought her to her point of self actualization. Janie takes a long journey with many different people on the way helping her self-actualize. Achieving self-actualization came from fulfilling her talents and potentials with the help of others. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, self-actualization is considered as the achievement that all people should strive, but they must pass through the basic needs in order to achieve the one goal, which is self actualization. Janie’s life throughout this book progressed like a ladder climbing through Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to achieve

    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.