Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Character Analysis

To begin, Zora Neale Hurston uses sunset motifs to foreshadow events that are negative. In chapter four of the novel, the motif is used to symbolize the marriage of Joe Starks and Janie Crawford. “So they were married there before sundown, just like Joe had said. With new clothes of silk and wool” (Hurston 33). Janie thinks she has found love within the marriage and it creates a build up to the climax. “They sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged” (Hurston 33). The relationship between Joe and Janie becomes abusive and untrustworthy. After Joe’s death, a weight of pain and sorrow is lifted from her shoulders and is free.

The horizon is also used to show the things in Janie’s life that are hard to reach, untouchable and unattainable ‘… but he spoke for a far horizon’ (29). For instance, in the book Janie’s idea of a perfect relationship and her yearning for a perfect marriage is unattainable, and that is why she gets married three times to get this fulfilment. The horizon represents her wishes as Hurston quotes in Page 1 thus: ‘Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board…For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight … until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation…”

During the hurricane Tea Cake asks Janie if she regrets leaving Eatonville to which she replies, “Naw, We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.” At daybreak there is a horizon- this connects to the situation as Janie implies that she has seen and captured her horizon, she has obtained her dream. Dusk happens after sunset, it’s the coming of darkness. Janie does not care if she has to die in the terrible hurricane. Janie notes that there are people who never “seen the light”- meaning they’ve never seen or captured their own horizon and dreams. Just by being with Tea Cake Janie believes she has a part of her horizon. This is expressed as a point that Tea Cake is expressed as “the sun of the Evening Sun.” During sunset in the evening, the evening sun is part of the horizon. This symbolizes that Tea Cake is part of the dream of Janie in becoming free and being able to love. After trial, Janie thinks “The sun was almost down and Janie had seen the sun rise on her troubled love and then she had shot Tea Cake and had been in jail and had been tried for her life and now she was free. Nothing to do with the little that was left of the day but to visit the kind white friends who had realized her feelings and thank them. So the sun went down.” This quote represents more than that given day- it represents the life of Janie. In the end, Janie had gone through 2 marriages as the sun rose on her “troubled love”, Janie had to kill her lover and be tried in court. Now, the sun would go down and the horizon would arise. This shows how Janie had to go through all her struggles and sacrifices in order to reach her horizon. Now Janie is free- she is free from having to be in pursuit of her

When they first meet they play games together and talking like lovers would. They play checker together which her other husband forced her to do. This shows that this new man accepts her independence and doesn't perceive her as a mule. She is seen as an equal. The symbol of the horizon is repeated throughout the novel; to Janie, the horizon symbolizes her of the possibilities, that which she can dream about. During her arranged marriage with Logan Killicks, he claims to be a great partner to her but in reality, he only showed glimpses of the horizon to her. The only meaning that he provides a temporary her with a vision of what her life could be like. Though after Jody, too, turns out to treat Janie poorly and stifle her voice, it is Tea Cake who ultimately provides Janie with access to the horizon. In her marriage with Tea Cake, Janie is able to find love, sexual satisfaction, independence, and self-expression all at once, that which she has always dreamed of. For that reason, even after Tea Cakes death, Janie feels that she still has and always will have access to the metaphorical horizon. Her pursuit of happiness is fulfilled and she is able to live

"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. Then they act and do things accordingly." These dream quotes came from the one and only "Their eyes were watching God," book by Zora Neale Hurston. Mrs. Zora Neale Hurston was an expert in writing in dialect. This unique literary form creates differences between other novels or storybooks. In this book, various events (to be specific, a death) seem to illuminate the meaning of life as a whole.

After Janie is done telling her story to Pheoby she states that “Tea Cake, With the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking” (193). Tea Cake’s sun shawl is a visual image of a being of light, almost like an angel. Hurston relates Tea Cake to this sun being to illustrate how he illuminated Janie’s life, in other words, Hurston illustrates how he is the light of her life.

Tea Cake loved Janie so much that he would rather himself get hurt than her, which is something Janie had never experienced: true love. Without Tea Cake’s role in Janie’s life she would have never experienced true love and actual happiness. Tea Cake is a mysterious man from the

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.

Janie struggles with her marriages with Logan Killicks and Joe Starks throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, but finds a good man and husband in Tea Cake. Logan goes to marry Janie because Janie’s grandmother forces her to marry him because Nanny wants her to have a good marriage and thinks Logan can give it to her. While Joe comes in and shows Janie he has authority and is loving, but later tries to control her and what she does. Tea Cake on the other hand show Janie love and is willing to let Janie be herself and do the things she likes to do. Janie doesn’t love Logan or Joe because they try to change and control her, while Tea Cake loves her for who she really is.

She had finally found the one who she loved and not long after, he died. When Tea Cake died she was devastated. “Commenced to sing,commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the windows and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace” (Hurston 192). From that time on the when she saw the sun it reminded her of Tea Cake. Janie knew that he would always be with her. She has found the peace she has desired her entire

The fourth and final section of the novel focuses on Janie's marriage to Tea Cake. Finally, Janie met someone who provided the love she longed for her whole life. Janie experiences true happiness for the first time. The framework of the novel ends as Janie's story is complete and Pheoby returns home to her husband. The reader understands the story through Janie's eyes while a narrator tells the story in third person to allow the reader to know more about the other characters and their perspectives.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, written in 1937, is about a African american girl named Janie Crawford who grew up in a white household. Through her transition to womanhood she wanted to experience true love, which set her on a quest to do so. Her grandmother arranged a marriage for her, which Janie wasn't so happy about. The story follows her growing as a person and her many experiences with her marriages. Each impacting her emotionally and making her the woman she becomes at the end of the book. Towards the ending of her book, after being harmed emotionally, and sometimes physically by her past husbands she meets a man named Tea Cake, much younger than her. She fell in love with him and

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the character Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods is a Christ figure for a multitude of reasons. Some of these include him being approximately in his thirties, having lowly forms of transportation, and most importantly, sacrificing himself for the good of someone else. Janie was approximately in her early 40’s as evidenced by “Ah been wid Jody twenty yeahs” (82). She was also significantly older than Tea Cake as shown by “You know how dese young men is wid older women” when Pheoby was warning Janie on the dangers of Tea Cake which puts him at least eight years younger than Janie (113). Tea Cake also has lowly modes of transport as evidenced by “Tea Cake in a borrowed car teaching Janie to drive” as he doesn’t

Watching this interaction, Janie felt deep within her that she, too, was a part of this connection, “It connected itself with vaguely felt matters that struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh” (Hurston 10-11). The interaction between the pollinator and the flower weaved into Janie’s mind, enticing her. The “love embrace” (Hurston 11) of the two lead Janie to change her view of marriage and what it meant to be in love. She realized that love is natural and should be felt with one’s whole being. Janie, now consumed by her new belief made a decision to be lead by love. This caused a series of events that entangled her in a loveless marriage, to Logan Killicks, a man she neither felt attraction to, or loved. While she felt trapped, her new belief still burned bright inside

In the book, Janie personally grows because at first she didn’t know what love was by doing demanding work, she would finally stand up for herself, and then finally understand what true love is with Tea Cake. At first, Janie would always rely on her nanny because she never had a mom or dad when she was young. The only reason Janie ended up marrying Logan Killicks was because her nanny wanted someone that could protect her, but she ended up doing all of his work. Janie was not sure how marriage was supposed to be because she has never been in love before and she was just happy to not be lonely anymore. In the book, it conveys “Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gits hot. You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place. ‘Tain’t no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long…You don’t