The Use Of Motifs In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Hurston

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston describes the horizon as possibilities and opportunities. When the story starts out Janie’s perception of the horizon changes first from desire for love to the need of love, and ultimately the feeling of contentment towards love to show Janie maturing throughout the novel.

Zora Neale Hurston opens Their Eyes Were Watching God with an eloquent metaphor regarding dreams: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time (Hurston 1).” Hurston describes here how some dreams are achieved with time while others lurk out of reach until the dreamer gives up. Janie Crawford, protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, encounters numerous ambitions throughout her life, mainly concerning a desire to somehow achieve something in life, and to not just go through the motions. While Janie’s dreams and my own do not

From her first kiss to the tragic death of her soul mate, each quest for love and enlightenment lends shape to Janie’s emerging voice. For example, at the beginning of Hurston's narrative, Janie quiets her inner voice by succumbing to Nanny's influence

Janie shows the issues African Americans faced during this period and the their newfound confidence but also shows differences from the beliefs of this era. Hurston uses these departures and similarities to allow the reader to further understand the novel and the time period in which it takes

Through Tea Cake’s character, Zora Neale Hurston shows that society is destructive. Whenever there is a group of people living together, “society” is inescapable. Tea Cake pretends to be a man who is not consumed with the evilness of society, however, Tea Cake’s influence on Janie forces her to become weak and dependent. Uncovering society’s faults force Janie to become aware of her situation, and become a realistic person, rather than the romantic she has always

Sometimes they are able to reach at least one of their dreams but for the others the dreams hang out there, taunting them from a distance. However, women supposedly make their dreams the truth and act to reach that dream. At first it seems Janie’s dream is this true and passionate love. Throughout her short marriage with Logan Killicks, Janie is constantly trying to make herself love him like her Nanny promised she would. She asks herself “Did marriage compel love like the sun the day?”(21). Due to Janie’s naiveté to love she doesn't understand that you can’t force yourself to love someone, like how the sun forces out the day. Eventually Janie realizes that she is never going to get her dream of love through Logan and moves on to first guy who sweet talks her, besides Logan, Joe Starks. Janie gets a taste of the

Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the

In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the life of Janie is presented as a journey. Janie survives a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout this journey, she moves towards her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie undergoes many changes throughout her journey, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston reinforces the idea of understanding oneself by the use of repeating patterns such as the blossom and the bee, and the horizon throughout the novel. The use of these two motifs represents the ideal relationship, an effortless union of individuals and the possibility of change or dreams and wishes. Janie Crawford in the beginning of the novel is a young lady who is naïve to love and will do anything that is asked of her. She is essentially forced into a marriage that her Nanny set up for her, for her own protection. Janie denies at first but then gives in, believing she will fall

Hurston’s main way of inspiring a sense of feminism in her novel, is through the relationships of Janie including her Nanny, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. She addresses Janie’s role differently in each of these relationships using motifs and stereotypes. Janie begins her journey of self-discovery following the dreams of her Nanny to becoming a strong, independent woman who makes her own decisions. All of the roles that Janie obtains stem from the distinct

In a harrowing story one woman’s search for true love, Zora Neale Hurston draws readers in through her use of literary devices throughout the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and influences readers to care deeply about Janie’s life. On page 166, when Tea Cake and Janie struggle to survive a raging river, Hurston creates a tone of fear through her use of word choice, similes, and sentence structure. In a book filled with suspense to see what happens to Janie next, Hurston manages to rise above that suspense and create an even larger tone of fear during this scene.

Janie's entire life is one of a journey. She lives through a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout is all, she grows closer and closer to her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Zora Neale Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie changes a lot from the beginning to the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader.

This quote exemplifies Janie’s desire for answers throughout her three relationships, displaying what she is longingly seeking for in life. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows the life of protagonist, Janie Crawford, a confident, middle-aged black woman who goes throughout life discovering her quest for spiritual enlightenment and self-discovery. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston explains the hardships as ideas of maturity, sexism, and social class.

“ Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget The dream is the truth”(Hurston 10). Zora Neale Hurston, The author of Their Eyes Were Watching God begins her story with an analogy relating dreams and ships. She talks about how men will wait and wait for their dreams to come to them and they will waste their whole lives waiting for a dream that may never come. Women on the contrary will not wait for a ship to come in but they will forget about the ship all together and they will face reality and forget about their dreams. Hurston fails to describe how not all women face reality, but some women chase their dreams until the day that they die. This type of woman is seen within the novel’s main character Janie. Janie throughout the story goes from man to man in search of a dream. A dream of true love that she had when she was sixteen and carries well into her forties.

These strong female characters are able to portray their independence. Hurston’s fictional Character, Janie, sets a standard for women and proves that she does not need to rely on anybody. Janie is in an abusive and controlling relationship with her second husband, Jody. He would never let Janie do what she wanted, made her wear a cloth on her head so other men would not admire her, and always spoke for her. When Jody gives a speech at his welcome party for his new store,