The Three Marriages In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

He “[invites] Janie to be…herself” and he “does not limit her to a particular role” (Domina 315). As a result, there are no expectations for Janie to fulfill. She has no need to conform to a certain type of behavior or appearance, which allows her to finally reconcile the differences between internal and external versions of herself. Professor Deborah Clarke describes Janie’s time with Tea Cake as an opportunity for Janie to flourish and learn how to “formulate a self which is not predicated upon oppression” (Clarke 607). Because Tea Cake does not impose societal expectations upon Janie, she is able to navigate a relationship in which her innermost self that she has kept hidden can now rise to the surface.

     As two different people, Janie and Tea Cake are allowed to live their lives as equals. When living with Joe, Janie is never allowed to do things such as speaking her mind, playing games, or doing anything which is not completely ladylike. Tea Cake encourages her to do things which were previously not open to her, such as playing chess, speaking openly about her feelings, and hunting. He teaches Janie to shoot and hunt wild game.

Janie is married to two men, before she finds Tea Cake, that both suppress her individuality in their own ways. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, suppresses her by keeping her in a marriage that she can't fully, or at all, love the man she's married to. "Cause you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it." Janie says she needs to be told how to feel about Logan in order for her to be able to love feel anything towards him at all. Janie is a mixture of the people around her because they're telling her to live and how to think. Janie can't bring herself to figure out how to do these things on her own so she ends up looking for the answers in the man she married, her grandmother, and her society. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, keeps her from showing who she really wants to be by

She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 96). Checkers was an activity Janie’s prior onerous husband, Joe, had not let her participate in, therefore by using Teacake as a foil character to Joe the reader incorrectly assumes that he will be the one to free Janie, as their relationship is based on equality. However, it soon becomes apparent of his trickster ways. The first being Teacake’s use of Janie’s hidden money without her knowledge leading to his disappearance. Without any knowledge of what was going on Janie assumed that Teacake must have taken her money and left. Yet, the reader later discovers he used the money to go out to dinner, go to party, buy a guitar, etc. all without Janie’s knowledge (Hurston 124). Despite Teacake eventually winning her money back his conniving behavior, inherent to tricksters, is used to manipulate Janie into falling in love with him even though his faults cause her to stress and risk loss for his benefit. She become dependent on his love for her happiness as Hurston states, “But it was always going to be dark to Janie if Tea Cake didn’t soon come back” (Hurston

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.

Throughout parts of the novel, Teacake emotionally and physically beats Janie down to reassure himself and to ensure ownership over her. For example, “Before the week was over he had whipped Janie…Being able to whip her reassured him in possession...He just slapped her around to show he was boss” (Hurston 147). In order to cover his own insecurities, Teacake manifests his worries into physically aggression. He is overcome with jealousy, and treats Janie as his individual property in order to keep her around. However, Teacake loves Janie and only scourges her since he is solely afraid of losing the woman he loves most. In fact, he pampers and commiserates with her much after the incident to express his condolences. Regardless, Janie is completely understanding of Teacake’s hostility and feels not one ounce of anger since she loves every aspect of him. Ultimately, the two contain such strong and deep affections for one another that they are willing to overcome any difficulties and inspire each other to be the best version of

Throughout her marriages Janie has grown and become a mature woman. When she married Logan Killicks she was a young girl with no idea of the harsh world. She learned that she does not want to be with Logan. “Ah wants to want him sometimes” (Hurston; 3, 26). He does not treat her like wife should be treated, he treats her like a worker. She realizes that this horrible marriage to Logan is not what she dreamed about under the pear tree. When Janie meets Joe Starks he speaks to her in rhymes and promises her the world. Her dreams of a beautiful marriage are alive once again. Joe and Janie move to Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town where Joe becomes mayor. As time progresses and Joe gains more power and respect Janie feels lonely. Joe is so focused with his position that he unknowingly pushes Janie into loneliness and sadness. Joe had taken all the fun and life

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God recounts the life and loves of a bi-racial woman in the racially charged South during the 1900s. After the death of her third husband, Janie returns to Eatonville amid judgment and gossip, prompting her to share her life’s lessons with dear friend Phoeby. As Hurston’s protagonist relives her turbulent loves, she embarks of a journey of self-discovery, her voice transforming from suppressed to empowered over the course of her marriages.

The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

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.

Tea Cake was Janie's third husband.  He was a simple person who returned kindness for kindness.  He saw women as equal human beings and told them that.  He was very passive in thought, but smart in his own ways.  His desire in life was to love and be loved.

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

Janie begins her story explaining that her grandmother raised her because her own mother ran off. Janie’s grandmother worked as a nanny for a white family, so Janie grew up around that family. She was so used to being around white people that she actually believed that she was a white girl. Janie’s grandmother was devoted to making Janie happy and safe. She had the desire to marry Janie off right away, because she knew that a good man could provide the security that she could no longer provide if something happened to her. A farmer, named Logan Killicks, was the perfect guy that Janie’s grandmother had in mind for her to marry. Janie resists the need to get married, but she does it for her grandmother. She feels absolutely miserable living with Logan Killicks. He didn’t provide a sense of love that Janie felt she needed, but her grandmother argued that the love will come naturally and in time. Soon after Janie

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale is a text acclaimed for its ability to speak to contemporary gender and sexual politics. Its plot focusses both on Janie's series of romantic relationships as well as on Janie's individual quest for self-fulfillment and spiritual nourishment. Their Eyes Were Watching God explores traditional gender roles as one of its main themes, specifically the way that stereotypical ideas about relationships between men and women empower men and disempower women. Hurston used the theme of gender roles within marriages to develop the character and the relationships of the protagonist, Janie, with her different husbands. Throughout the novel, Janie is married three times, but in each cases, the issue of gender