Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston: An Analysis

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston follows the main character Janie’s journey to find love on her own terms. The first man she married, she married to appease Nanny, her grandmother. The second man she marries is Jody Starks, who she marries because she failed to find love for her previous husband. After the oppressive Starks dies, Janie remarries Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods, the only man she has ever loved. They move to “the muck” where Janie feels more at home than ever before because she is with Tea Cake and because she can choose to indulge in her own relations without anyone telling her what to do or with whom to associate.

At the beginning of their marriage they have a few ups and downs but they then promise to share everything with each other. In chapter fourteen, because of Tea Cake, Janie decides to start working in the fields on her own free will. This was something neither Logan nor Jody were able to get her to do, but now because of how in love with Tea Cake she is, she works in the fields so she can spend more time with him. She actually enjoys this work and tells him that “Ah laks it. It’s mo’ nicer than settin’ round dese quarters all day” (pg. 133). Her character has changed significantly at this point since the beginning of the novel since, while hanging out with the towns people, she “could tell big stories herself” which she would never have imagined doing while with

Janie was no longer letting anything control her any longer. She was making her own decisions now by talking to Jordan and not listening to her grandmother, who told her to respect her husband. With the results of this, Janie ran from Killicks to marry Joe for numerous years while waiting for her hunger for love to be filled. However it never was with Joe. After the death of Joe, Janie soon found Tea Cake, who gave her the love she starved for: “after a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind” (Hurston 107). Hurston gave Janie Tea Cake to show that she was no longer going to wait around and wait for love. She was now going to find it herself. Proving that she was no longer the naive girl who sat under a tree and dreamed all day.

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

This loneliness was supposed to be filled by another man, her second husband Joe Starks. She continued her development as a woman especially in the beginning of the new relationship when Joe “spoke for change and chance” (28). The problems Janie had to face in this marriage were that her husband did not treat her equal but rather treated her as an ornament. She found out that the love he provided to her in the beginning was rather part of the ulterior moves Joe had about becoming an important landlord and major. Joe gave only material goods to Janie who felt again as if something misses in her life.

It’s amazing that one state can have within it places that differ greatly in all aspects—people, surrounding, weather, and feeling. Zora Neale Hurston exemplifies this phenomenon in Their Eyes Were Watching God. There are a multitude of differences between Eatonville, FL and the Everglades; each place represents a certain theme or feeling to Janie (the main character) and their differences each contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

The struggle for women to have their own voice has been an ongoing battle. However, the struggle for African American women to have their own voice and independence has been an ongoing conflict. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie struggles a majority of her life discovering her own voice by challenging many traditional roles that are set by society during this time. Hongzhi Wu, the author of “Mules and Women: Identify and Rebel—Janie’s Identity Quest in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” recognizes the trend of African American women being suppressed by making a comparison between animals throughout the novel and Janie. Wu argues that there are ultimately two depictions of the mule that the reader remembers and compares both of these interpretations to Janie’s transformation throughout the novel. While Wu’s argument is sound in the fact that it recognizes certain stereotypes African American women faced during this time, Wu fails to recognize Janie’s sexuality in depth as her major push away from the animalistic pressures she has faced.

During the 1930s there was a time period known as the Harlem Renaissance, during this time African Americans sought a newfound cultural freedom and advancements in social classes. In the novel, Their Eyes Are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays both similarities and departures from the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston uses the main character Janie to illustrate these ideals such as the struggle to find oneself and fight against the opinions of others. In addition Hurston also depicts issues and similarities like African Americans who achieved high social classes and discriminated those below them, racial segregation, but also a new found African American confidence. She also demonstrates departures from the Harlem Renaissance

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their eyes were watching God the main character Janie is on a quest for self-fulfillment. Of Janie’s three marriages, Logan and Joe provide her with a sense of security and status. However, only her union with Teacake flourishes into true love.

Janie Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, were both two women who lived in America during two different time periods, with contrasting backgrounds and beliefs. Hester Prynne, a Puritan who came from England to Boston in the 1600’s, and Janie Crawford, a woman of color living in the deep South in an all Black community post civil war. Janie and Hester are both two outliers in their communities, and were both harassed when there actions differed from the others around them, yet neither of them rebelled and emerged above everyone else in the end.

     “’…but she don’t seem to mind at all. Reckon dey understand one ‘nother.’” A woman’s search for her own free will to escape the chains of other people in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Lora Neale Hurston, the main character engages in three marriages that lead her towards a development of self. Through each endeavor, Janie learns the truths of life, love, and the path to finding her identity. Though suppressed because of her race and gender, Janie has a strong will to live her life the way she wills. But throughout her life, she encounters many people who attempt to change the way that she is and her beliefs. Each marriage that she undertakes, she finds a new realization and is on a never-ending quest to find her identity and true love. Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake each help Janie progress to womanhood and find her identity.

It’s no wonder that “[t]he hurricane scene in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a famous one and [that] other writers have used it in an effort to signify on Hurston” (Mills, “Hurston”). The final, climactic portion of this scene acts as the central metaphor of the novel and illustrates the pivotal interactions that Janie, the protagonist, has with her Nanny and each of her three husbands. In each relationship, Janie tries to “’go tuh God, and…find out about livin’ fuh [herself]’” (192). She does this by approaching each surrogate parental figure as one would go to God, the Father; she offers her faith and obedience to them and receives their definitions of

Janie still didn’t give up hope in finding her identity and how she wanted her freedom. She tried marriage for the third time with tea cake. She knew tea cake would be different form the rest. He treats Janie better and he treats her more as a human and he actually treats her as if she belongs. When they got married he gave her gifts. Tea ake is humble and he knows where he come from he doesn’t act luke he has it all. “According to In order to demonstrate his lack of interest in material things, Teacake takes