Tess Of The DUrberville And Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis

Everyone has a goal, a mission, a dream. Many dreams of people are far away and in many cases are perceived to be mysterious and merely out of reach. In the story Their Eyes were Watching God, this notion is expressed by the symbol of a horizon. The horizon is a faraway horizontal line between the earth and the sky; between human life and the beyond. This mid point between the possible and impossible is where dreams, wishes, and desires lay. The horizon symbolizes dreams that are seemingly out of reach. In the beginning of the story, this is the state of the dreams of Janie, her horizon. Through chapters 1-9, readers understand through the two failed marriages of Janie, that she dreams to love and be free. Janie wants to love another person

In the first marriage Janie was a 16-year-old girl who was forced into marriage with a man in his 50’s. She lives with Logan on his potato farm, where Logan is very set in his ways and does not care what Janie has to say or think. Being that Janie is only 16years old she allows her outer personality to submit to whatever Logan wants even though her inner self, her true self is miserable. She believed that because they were married that just being married would bring love. So she continues to submit to Logan’s

Zora Neale Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God demonstrates many of the writing techniques described in How to Read Literature like a Professor by Tomas C. Foster. In Foster’s book, he describes multiple reading and writing techniques that are often used in literature and allow the reader to better understand the deeper meaning of a text. These of which are very prevalent in Hurston’s novel. Her book follows the story of an African American woman named Janie as she grows in her search for love. Hurston is able to tell Janie’s great quest for love with the use of a vampiric character, detailed geography, and sexual symbolism; all of which are described in Foster’s book.

When Janie was a young girl, she was raised by her Nanny. Nanny had seen much in her life, and wanted only the best for Janie. In Nanny’s eyes, this involved marrying up and becoming wealthy enough to live comfortably (Hurston, 114). Marriage, to Nanny, wasn’t about love so much as it was about stability (Hurston, 13). This explains why, when she caught Janie kissing Johnny Taylor, she pushed Janie into marrying Logan. “Although she [protested], Janie finally submits to her grandmother and marries Logan Killicks” (Myth

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a 1937 novel which follows the life of a woman named Janie who, on her journey of finding her identity, marries three men in hopes of discovering her purpose. This novel is about a woman on her expedition to self-realization and fulfilment or perhaps it’s about the importance of the rabies vaccine. For the sake of simplicity, I will argue the former. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a deeply feminist text. Hurston provides us with a plethora of themes that can be viewed through feminist perspective such as Voice, Identity and Divergence from the Norm.

In both the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, young girls are lectured on who they should be in life and how they should act.

Traditional view of women in society leads to the male domination. In her book Their eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston discusses the idea of gender identity where society had power over women that lead to oppression of females. Although the use of a third person narration shows the power over Janie, however Hurston's use of symbolism and diction actually empowers her.

Love can appear out of nowhere.In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, She introduces us to Janie a mixed woman who struggles with finding her vision of love. When she meets her later husband Teacake we see that her vision of love is slowly coming true. Hurston uses the relationship Janie has with Teacake to show that Janie found the love she envisioned when she was a child.

Zora Neale Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God explains the journey of Janie Crawford’s life. Janie experiences abuse, sacrifice, and true love throughout different situations in the book. As she goes through each circumstance of life, Janie gains confidence and courage that she does not have in the beginning of the story. Janie’s chief accomplishments in the book are finding freedom and independence despite the situations in which she has to overcome loss and disaster, has to prove her worth to a man, and has to learn to value and accept herself.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, authored by Zora Neal Hurston, tells the story of an African American woman named Janie living in the 1900s who spends her life trying to find self-fulfillment through love. She marries two men before she finds her one true love. Hurston uses symbols such as the pear tree and the horizon, Janie’s hair, and the hurricane to define Janie. Judgment is also a reoccurring element used by Hurston to show Janie's quest for love and the independence that she gains in her journey. Throughout her life, Janie also has to fight the stereotypical role that is expected of her by other people.

In a marriage, the two people involved are supposed to trust each other and each bring something equal to the table. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, a southern black woman living in the early 20th century and protagonist of the story, has trouble finding her perfect person throughout her life and her whopping three marriages for her time. Janie was first forced into marrying Logan Killicks by her grandmother. Soon after marrying Logan, she ran away with a stranger titled Joe Starks, her marriage to Joe being the longest of the three. After Joe died, an older Janie started to see, and eventually married, a younger man, Vergible Woods who was most commonly referred to as Tea Cake.

Analyzing a work of literature through the eyes of a feminist critique means to analyze how the female characters in works of literature, primarily written by males in male-dominated societies, behave. When making such an analysis, one attempts to see how women are oppressed, be it economically, psychologically, or politically. The belief that underlies this criticism is that Western civilization is inherently patriarchal and women are defined not by their inherent worth, but by the women’s difference from what the males of that day deemed normal. The end goal of this analysis of the great works of literature that influence Western civilization is to change the way people see the world and to question preconceived notions people have about

The male gaze was introduced by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" and is “a feature of gender power asymmetry in film”. Mulvey explained, “Women were objectified in film because heterosexual men were in control of the camera”. The male gaze is when the audience views the scene of object –in this case the woman- from the prospective of a man. This may occur if the camera lingers over a woman’s curves for a while displaying her as an erotic object rather than a human being, making her a victim of sexualisation. The woman is usually unaware of this gaze, which brings patriarchy to the situation. Her essay also explains that the ‘female gaze’ is similar except it is like women looking at themselves through a male’s eyes. This can have a negative effect on real life women because they are being told what they should look like in order to be noticed by men and what men want to see. Feminists

The issue with eradicating the male gaze isn’t as simple as introducing a female gaze that will sexualise men, not because equal sexual objectification isn’t the answer, but because it isn’t actually equal. Mackinnon’s understanding of objectification involves reducing someone’s humanity to an object of mere instrumental worth, which in turn reduces the person to the status of an object. So when objectification does occur, the person is depersonalised, so that no individuality or integrity is left. (Papadaki 2010/revised 2015).

A feminist lens has multiple facets. Overall, its purpose is to look at the differences in gender and how they are reflected in patriarchal language and literature. These differences can appear in multiple forms, whether it be political, economic or psychological oppression. When viewing these issues, one of the key aspects to using a feministic approach is to identify with the female characters, and to be able to see the views of both them and the patriarchy. By doing this, the text can be deconstructed and looked at from multiple perspectives, allowing the differences in treatment and thought process to be clear.