The Role Of Janie's Development In Everglade

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 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed us to better understand the restraints that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Her marriage with Logan Killicks consisted of dull, daily routines.  Wedding herself to Joe Starks brought her closer to others, than to herself.  In her final marriage to Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake, she finally learned how to live her life on her own.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

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.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie Crawford has experienced and had interactions with the nature around her. These interactions symbolised Janie’s quest for love, her own independence and personal freedom through each endeavor. Janie’s quest for her womanhood was directly influenced by the natural environment around her. For instance, the novel states that Janie “Saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a blossom” (11).

Throughout the book Janie struggles to find the true definition of love and how to make herself happy with her relationships. She goes through several different ideas of love before finding that it is mutual compassion, understanding, and respect that makes her the most happy.

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.

Even if Janie went through a lot of changes in her life she still did not change herself in some aspects. It sometimes seems as if she did not really learn from the mistakes she made in

Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, self-growth is evident in one specific character, Janie, by the help of her significant other. Teacake is an ideal mate for Janie because he helps her achieve freedom. Shortly after the two meet, Teacake automatically views Janie as an intelligent and able being instead of regarding her as inferior to the male race. Teacake offers Janie to a game of chess, and she cannot help but be fascinated over the thought that, “Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it was natural for her to play. That was even nice” (Hurston 96). In general, men in Eatonville regard women as physically and morally weaker than men due to the strict basis of gender. On the other hand, Teacake notices that Janie has more to her than just looks and is bright enough to partake in common-folk activities without being

Janie was raised by her grandmother who she calls Nanny that had previously lived the life as a slave. The young sixteen year old girl was brought to us as a product of

All through the novel Janie travels through valuable life experiences allowing her to grow as a woman. Janie at first has a difficult time understanding her needs rather than wants, but as she continues to experience new situations she realizes she values respect. Janie’s first two marriages turned out to be tragic mistakes, but with each marriage Janie gained something valuable. When Janie is disrespected in her second marriage with Joe Starks, he publicly humiliates her, disrespecting her as a wife and woman. This experience forced Janie to come out of her comfort zone and stand up for herself.

One of the universal themes of literature is the idea that children suffer because of the mistakes of an earlier generation. In Janie’s case,

      Human beings love inertia. It is human nature to fear the unknown and to desire stability in life. This need for stability leads to the concept of possessing things, because possession is a measurable and definite idea that all society has agreed upon. Of course, when people begin to rely on what they know to be true, they stop moving forward and simply stand still. Zora Neal Hurston addresses these general human problems in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston, however, does not present the reader with the nihilistic hopelessness of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but rather offers an understanding of the basic human aspect that causes us to fear emptiness. Janie, the

It’s quite common for an individual to undergo an internal and external battle within ones self. Outwardly, many people plaster on a facade to conceal an unpleasant or discreditable reality, while inevitably suppressing those feelings inwardly. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses symbolism and metaphors to convey the complexity of Janie’s experience.

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

Janie's quest is for self-discovery and self-definition, but she encounters many obstacles while trying to win this quest.