Their Eyes Were Watching God

Topic 2: Compare/contrast Janie in Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God & Edna in Chopin 's The Awakening in terms of conformity within a male-dominated society. (four page minimum)

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.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the heroine Janie, a beautiful mixed white and black woman, is on a journey to find someone who will make her feel love to find her own identity and freedom, away from her spouses. Janie’s marriages and quest for love impede her individual search for freedom, but in doing this she has discovered what exactly she wants for herself. Janie’s search for her identity and freedom is very much evident. Being abused and controlled during her marriages has made it clear how she wants to be treated and how she wants to live her life; as an individual who does not have to listen to anyone. The story opens with Janie’s return to town. Janie tells Phoebe Watson the story of her

“Difficult times often bring out the best in people.”by Bernie Sanders.”Beasts Of the Southern Wild” is a film directed by Benh Zeitlin and released in June 27,2012.The book “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was written by Zora Neale Hurston and was published in September 18,1937.The film “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and the novel “Their eyes were watching god” have some critical similarities.These include the characteristics of the protagonists,each protagonist’s relationship to nature, the fate of each protagonist’s mother,and the climax of a destructive storm.

In Catholic doctrine, the seven cardinal sins are the basis from which all the “sins” of humanity stem. In this system, any moral infraction a person may commit would be categorized under one of these seven sins (also known colloquially as the “seven deadly sins”). This system has been widely adapted throughout culture over the centuries, and is a common tool utilized to examine the actions of humans. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, enters into three marriages, two of which fail based on the failings of her husbands, and the third of which succeeds in spite of the failings of her husband. Each of these husbands, in fact, displays traits which fall under the cardinal sins, and the sin of pride in particular; even the third husband, Tea Cake, displays the very same sin, leading to the downfall of their marriage.

Over the course of the novel, Janie is married three times to three drastically different people. First is Logan Killicks, whom she has no choice but to marry; soon Janie discovers that she could never have loved Logan because he treats her as less than him. She leaves Logan for Joe “Jody” Starks because initially, she believes that she loves him. However, after he gains power in their community and his true opinion of Janie as less valuable than any man is revealed, Janie begins to hate him and she isn’t affected much when he eventually dies. After Jody’s death, Janie falls in love with Tea Cake, who treats her better than either of her previous husbands. He makes Janie feel valued and practically equal to him and other men for almost the first time in her life. Each marriage brings Janie closer to realizing her role and identity in society. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston explores each of Janie’s three husbands’ different opinions on gender roles in society and relationships to construct the idea that, in life, it is absolutely necessary to find your role in the world -- especially as a woman.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship.

In both Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the focus is on women who want better lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. The difficulties involving men which Janie and Delia incur result from or are exacerbated by the intersection of their class, race, and gender, which restrict each woman for a large part of her life from gaining her independence.

A major theme in Their Eyes Were Watching God is the search for real love. Janie Crawford goes on a journey in order to find her true love and what true love really means. If Janie didn’t have that desire, all the marriages she was in would not have a point. Men don’t always treat her right so when she meets Tea Cake things are different. The search for love is a hard search and only some people are lucky enough to find it in their lifetime.

Janie was raised by her grandmother in the backyard of a white family. As a teen, Janie had high hopes when she thought about becoming an adult. She thought of herself as a “pear [...] tree in bloom” which can symbolize how she wants to grow up into something strong and beautiful. However, her hopes become shattered when her grandmother, Nanny, announces that she has arranged for Janie to be married off to an older man, Logan Killicks. Janie then realizes that she can no longer enjoy her coming of age because “Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree”. Nanny responds to Janie’s refusal by saying, “You just wants to hug and kiss and feel around with first one man and then another, huh?” which implies that she thinks that it is shameful for

Jeana Schreiber Lit 204 Dr. Banner May 4, 2015 Death and Love Beloved and Their Eyes Were Watching God are examples of texts that deal with the way that death can lead to consequences. Both women actively killed for love, one out of sacrifice, the other to save the life of the man she loved. The texts complement each other when we consider the fact that both women coped with extreme circumstances that caused them to create dangerous circumstances for themselves. When they dealt with damaging figures in their lives they have two very different reactions. Both stories begin and end with death, with death providing them with a cycle upon which to base their livelihood.

occurrences. This emphasis of the past works to develop a valid statement: Actions and inequities of the past can have a lasting effect on one’s future. However, the purpose is not geared toward not dwelling in the past, but more so learning from the past. This is what separates the presence of the past in traditional American literary pieces, and the function of the past in African American literature.

In the novel "Their Eyes were Watching God," the main character, Janie, faces an inner battle in her three marriages, to speak or not to speak, which manifests itself differently with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie has her idea of what a marriage should look like shattered, as she failed to fall into the romantic idea of love that she held dear (Myth and Violence in Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). In her second marriage, to Joe “Jody” Starks, Janie buried her fight and spirit within herself, as she attempted to fit into the mold of the “perfect wife” Joe imagined (In Search Of Janie). Finally, in her marriage to Tea Cake, she feels the love she has longed for, and is accepted as the strong, independent woman she is (Janie Crawford Character Analysis). In every marriage, Janie feels the various effects of each man, as they either encourage or diminish her voice and inner spark.

In the beginning, Janie is cared for by her nanny, who is an older woman that wants to wed Janie shortly after Janie finds her sexualtiy. Nanny is described by Janie as a woman who is not imaginative and “pinches the horizon” by not wanting to live by the heart.Janie wants to be free to do her own choices and to explore the “horizon” which Nanny presents for her.Janie was forced into a relationship with Logan Killicks unwillingly by her Grandmother, Nanny. When marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for who he was and what he did. She never had the chance to know him before marriage. In the text, she says, "Ah'll cut de p'taters fuh yuh. When you comin' back?". (Hurston, 26) This was something that she did not enjoy doing. She had to follow his directions and do as she was told. Janie was trapped in this marriage with no self-esteem. She was dependent on Logan when it came to doing things such as chores around the house. Logan had told her, "If Ah kin haul de wood heah and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside.... You done been spoilt rotten." (Hurston, 25). These kinds of demands and duties Logan emplaced on Janie made

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, can be described as a novel of its time, for it reflects many historical moments, but could also be regarded as a novel of all time, for it is about people, love, tradition, culture, hate, politics--it is about what it means to be a human. This classic novel follows the life of a mixed woman by the name of Janie Mae Crawford. Set in the early 1900’s, this book follows the hardships that Janie must endure while not only being an adolescent, but by also being of a mixed race. Many themes are apparent throughout this novel, but the ones that seem most prevalent would be that of freedom and confinement. Hurston so beautifully depicts a world after the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century--a world dealing with racism, identitarian politics, and the legacy of slavery. A world in which we might still live today. Freedom and confinement play a large role within this work in that they are what started it all. For centuries, humanity has decided who is worthy of power and who is restricted in power, and minorities have more often than not been subject to abuse in this power struggle. Throughout the course of this novel, the development of the male voices within Janie’s life seem to parallel the development of Janie’s voice--her voice seems to evolve into a stronger one as her relationships improve.