Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis

The composition begins with Hurston describing her life as a child in the exclusively colored town of Eatonville, Florida where she enjoyed sitting on the front porch and saying friendly hellos to the white passer-bys. When she was thirteen, her mother died and she was sent to a boarding school Jacksonville, this is when she realized she was “a little colored girl”. Though she

In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston Tea Cake becomes an unlikely hero because of the way he saves Janie physically and emotionally. Before Janie met Tea Cake she was emotionally abused from Joe Starks treating her terribly for over twenty years. When Janie met Tea Cake it was as if she was seventeen again and was just starting her life with someone she had known forever because their love was so intense. Tea Cake not only saved Janie emotionally, but he actually saved her life during the hurricane twice. First from drowning then when she was about to be bitten by a rabid dog.

The main road that ran down the center of Eatonville was a major transit route for people traveling to and from Orlando and Maitland. This route gave Hurston the opportunity to sit in her yard and watch the “white folks” drive by. There was definitely racial turmoil and segregation in the Central Florida due to Jim Crow laws at the time, however Eatonville was able shield white oppression, to an extent (Tiffany, 36).

Battles and fights are some examples of conflict in most fictional stories. They can be many different fights, like the epic battle between good and evil, or a kingdom defending their land from enemies. When people think of the word ‘battle’, they may think of climatic sword fights and war. But sometimes, battles can take place inside of a person. Perhaps a character may have conflicting aspirations and desires that may cause an internal battle and maybe result in something catastrophic. Or perhaps a character has opposing personalities that might clash and cause something important to happen. In many works of literature, the writer

In many novels, authors have implemented social constructs in order to shape the mood of the books. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston alludes to social class, especially race, subtly. Hurston’s background of anthropology and growing up as an African-American woman clearly plays a role in the social makeup of the novel. The main character of the novel, Janie, has various experiences in which readers can discover the social structures in her life. Through Janie’s story of self-discovery, Hurston reveals social constructs of the time, especially race and wealth, by including anecdotes, complex characters, and thought-provoking scenes that highlight controversial issues.

Susan B. Anthony once said there is not a women born who desires to eat the bread of dependence. In the novel Their eyes were watching god by Zora Neal Hurston, Janie Crawford depicts the life of a young African women who struggles with male dominance. As well for Mrs. Mallard in The story of an hour by Kate Chopin. Both of these women become independent, share experiences with male dominance and share an appealing perspective toward nature. They also have distinctive outcomes in their lives. Janie and Mrs. Mallard share similarities in their lives and distinctions as well.

The principles in “How to Read Like a Literature Professor” by Thomas C. Foster can be applied to Zora Neale Hurtston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Most of the principles from the Thomas Fosters book can be applied to Zora Hurtson’s novel. The principles in “Their Eyes are Watching God” include; its all about sex, a symbol can be anything, geography and rain doesn’t just mean rain.

The war generals were also very significant people in the development of Eatonville and neighboring towns. “Now, these founders were, to a man, people who had risked their lives and fortunes that Negroes might be free. Those who had fought in the ranks had thrown their weight behind the cause of Emancipation” (5). This demonstration of leadership and uncertainty are characteristics that Hurston posses. “So, in a raw, bustling frontier, the experiment of self-government for Negroes was tried. White Maitland and Negro Eatonville have lived side by side for fifty-five years without a single instance of enmity. The spirit of the founders ha reached beyond the grave” (6).

Jacksonville is where she where Hurston “was now a little colored girl.”(14) The pain that discrimination can cause did not affect Hurston her self-pride and individuality did not allow racial difference to effect her negatively. Hurston writes “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood”. (14) Hurston describes how someone is always reminding her of the past transgressions of the White people. Her response is simply that the past is in the past and we must live in the present. Hurston does describe moments when she feels racial difference and her experiences with it. There are time where being amount thousands of white people the author is “a dark rock surged upon, and overswept.”(14) Additionally there are the times where the author is among just one white person in a sea of black people as she describes in her different experience with a friend at a Jazz Club. With all of these situations of difference the author describes not changing and remaining the same. The author explains pride in oneself multiple times throughout the essay stating “I am the eternal feminine” (14) and “How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my

I read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, copyright in 1937 and has a total of 193 pages.

Plot and Theme: The book Their Eyes Were Watching God was introduced through the eyes of the town’s people, judgmentally watching Janie return home for an unknown reason. The plot really starts however, when Janie begins to tell Pheoby of her childhood and being married off to Logan Killicks by her Nanny. After spending time with Logan however, she discovers that marriage and love are separate entities and after arguing with him over what her place on the farm is, she meets an ambitious man, Joe Starks, who promises her an easy life. She leaves Killicks for Joe and moves with him to the future Eatonville, where she becomes “Mrs. Mayor”, but quickly discovers that Joe’s promises were short-lived and she feels isolated, mistreated, and inferior.

In some of Hurston’s works she acknowledges Eatonville, which was the first all-black community in America that she moved to when she was only three years old (Kimmons, 3). Hurston viewed Eatonville as a place where blacks could ultimately be themselves without having to conform to the norms of a white society (Kimmons, 1). Hurston was protected from the realisms of judgement and disgust towards African Americans; since Eatonville was described to be somewhat safe from lynchings and other violence related to racism. After

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a woman’s journey of self-discovery. The main character, Janie, believes she will achieve fulfillment if she can find her idea of a perfect love. Only Janie’s final marriage provides her with the love she craves, her first two marriages are unfulfilling and oppressive. Hurston uses the mule symbolically to represent women and their oppression. The oppression of women is evident in Janie’s treatment from her husbands as well as the treatment of Matt Bonner’s mule.

At the beginning of the essay Hurston opens up with the statement that she is colored and that she offers no extenuating circumstances to the fact except that she is the only Negro in the U.S. whose grandfather was not an Indian chief. She presents a striking notion that she was not born colored, but that she later became colored during her life. Hurston then delves into her childhood in Eatonville, Florida an exclusively colored town where she did not realize her color then. Through anecdotes describing moments when she greeted neighbors, sang and danced in the streets, and viewed her surroundings from a comfortable spot on her porch, she just liked the white tourists going through the town. Back then, she was “everybody’s Zora” (p. 903), free from the alienating feeling of difference. However, when her mother passed away she had to leave home and

A voyage and return story is one of the seven basic plots in literature where the protagonist encounters new experiences throughout their lengthy journey and eventually returns back home with greater knowledge than they had before, as they have learned new life lessons along the way. Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an example of this type of basic plot. Throughout her life, protagonist Janie Crawford lives in three different towns with three different husbands, who all provide her with unique epiphanies on the expectations and realities of being an African American woman in the early 1900s. During these three various points of time in Janie’s life, the horizon in the distance is metaphorically used in the text to represent the hope that she always holds on to. Quite literally, her trio of husbands widen her horizons over time, as she learns the deeper truth about marriage, independence, and happiness.