“Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just some thing she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of …show more content…
Throughout her first two marriages, it seems Janie’s dreams are simply out of reach, but Joe’s death brings her a new sense of freedom and promise. “The young girl was gone, but a handsome women had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair” (Hurston 87). For the first time, Janie feels her life has the possibility to become everything she desires. This is proven true when she meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake is the epitome of everything she longed for in a lover; the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Her love is tested during the hurricane when Janie claims she would rather die with him than live without him. Janie also mentions how her eyes were watching God, waiting to see what His next move would be and if He would let her keep her beautiful life, or if he had other plans. It seems Janie’s eyes were watching God not only during the hurricane but throughout the whole novel. Her eyes weren't watching God Himself, but His plans for her. Her eyes were watching fate; waiting to see where it would take her in life and what it would do with her dreams. Janie was waiting to see if even after she had found what she was looking for, it would take that away from her. The end of the novel shows how fate had a mysterious power over Janie that she did not understand until after she returned to Eatonville alone, but with Tea Cake’s presence still with her. Even through Janie had lost Tea Cake in the most tragic way, she did not lose the emotions she felt towards him or the beautiful memories he had given her. Tea Cake was Janie’s breath of fresh air. His body had died but his soul has not. Janie still feels his love. To everyone else in the town of Eatonville, it seems Janie had lost her dream, but in her mind she has found it, and holds on to it so tight not even death could break her from
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a 1937 novel which follows the life of a woman named Janie who, on her journey of finding her identity, marries three men in hopes of discovering her purpose. This novel is about a woman on her expedition to self-realization and fulfilment or perhaps it’s about the importance of the rabies vaccine. For the sake of simplicity, I will argue the former. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a deeply feminist text. Hurston provides us with a plethora of themes that can be viewed through feminist perspective such as Voice, Identity and Divergence from the Norm.
In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, tells the story of her ascension to adulthood and several of the lessons she learned along the way. Though married three times, her second marriage to Joe Starks had the most formative impact on her transition to maturity. Given that Joe played such a crucial role in this affair, we can classify him as a type of parent to Janie. Later, after her final marriage, Janie reflects on her life and is at peace. By that point, she came to realize how to be truly happy.
Plot: Within the first 6 chapters of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we are introduced to the main character Janie Crawford, who is returning to her hometown after many years of being absent. As she is talking with Pheoby Watson, she begins to talk about her life while she was away and is very descriptive about it. She talks about her struggles in life and her marriage with Logan Killicks and how she didn’t love him at all. She then speaks of her marriage with Joe Starks and how they find a town where they can happily live together. She speaks of how Joe made her a lot happier than Logan and she was more content where she was living.
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.
Tea Cake allowed Janie to involve herself in community activities while Starks tried to isolate Janie as much as possible. Janie and Tea Cake moved to the Everglades where there were “big beans, big cane, big weeds, big everything” (127). The luscious, thriving nature symbolizes the new and growing profound love Janie and Tea Cake have for one another. Soon, Janie “got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake” (133) because “its mo’ nicer than settin’ round dese quarters” (133). Therefore, Janie now doesn’t mind partaking in manual labor because it’s out of her personal choice and love for Tea Cake whereas, before with Logan she was forced into it causing no enjoyment. Janie “learned what it felt like to be jealous” (136) with Tea Cake involving Nunkie and “cut [Tea Cake] short with a blow” (137). Instead of fighting back, “Tea Cake kept holding Janie’s wrists” (137), “hurled her to the floor” (137), and “kissed [Janie] until she arched her body to meet him” (138). The resistance Tea Cake displays to use physical contact upon Janie reveals Tea Cake’s patient character. Also, it adds onto the motif of love where Janie and Tea Cake have equally passionate feelings toward one another such that Janie is demonstrating jealously which was absent in her previous marriages. Moreover, with the threat of the oncoming hurricane and the turned down invite from one of the Bahman workers, Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship heightens. The soon appearance of the violent hurricane caused “crashing” (159), “hurdling” (159), and “questioning God” (159). The hurricane brings the theme of religion where God is mentioned throughout the text as a sense of hope and faith. However, Tea Cake and Janie realize they needed to escape “before worse things happened” (160) causing Janie to soon approach a near death experience. While fighting for her life by holding onto “the tail of the cow” (166) in the aggressive waters, Tea Cake “split the water” (166)
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston utilizes the image of the horizon to represent the prospect of improvement, and to develop the relationships between Logan Killicks and Janie Crawford, Joe Starks and Janie, and Tea Cake and Janie.
As Janie leaves her first husband, Logan, for Joe, it is evident she believes this new relationship will fulfill her image of a loving partnership that she imagined as a young woman when she thinks “From now until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom. Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them,” (Hurston 32). The floral imagery is quite idealistic as Janie looks into the beginning of her new life with Joe, showing that she really sees their relationship as a new beginning. While she had previously realized that “...marriage did not make love…” (Hurston 25), Janie is still idealizing her future in a way that may not be realistic considering she runs off to marry the first man that offers her an escape from an unloving marriage. However, there is some development in her image of herself because she now sees Joe as “a bee for her bloom” which places him in relation to her, rather than seeing
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.
As a young woman, Janie wanted love, true love. In the beginning of the novel and Janie 's journey, she is under a blossoming pear tree where she spends most of her days. She is watching the bees fly to the blossoms, when she has an epiphany. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, experiences relief at the end of the novel. The novel begins at the end, emphasizing the importance of her moral reconciliation. Though at the beginning, it appears she returns home defeated, it is contrary. She returns home triumphant in finding her peace and fulfillment. When Janie starts to take things into her own hands instead of relying on her faith of others, she finally finds herself and joy. She needed to experience love in her own way to find what she was missing and what she needed in her love and her life.
In both the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, young girls are lectured on who they should be in life and how they should act.
Janie recollects her image on love when she leaves with Joe which signifies that she values love over the stable life that she had already possessed.
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.
These chapters show Janie's initial happiness with Joe, followed by her dissatisfaction with Joe as he starts to treat her like his property, because of her gender. Janie feels defeated by her search for love as she is trapped in a loveless relationship. Joe's control over Janie actually makes her a stronger and more independent woman.
Throughout history, the aspiration to accomplish one’s dreams and gain self-fulfillment has been and continues to be prevalent. Consequently, one’s reactions to the obstacles propelled at them may define how they will move forward in search of achieving their goals. Reaching one’s full potential is certainly not an easy conquest. Zora Neale Hurston, an especially noteworthy African American author, uses her astounding piece of literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God, to illuminate the path to discovering what is truly valuable in life. She uses the character, Janie Woods, who endures some of the greatest hardship imagined to elucidate the ways in which hindrance, although discouraging, only makes one stronger. Accordingly, Hurston argues