While the novel “their eyes were watching god” and the film by the same name were very much alike they were also very different. The movie while touching on major issues that are parallel to book also misses some other points. While the book touches heavily on nature and janies innerself as discovered through nature the movie lacks the symbolism that the book was heavy with, Tea Cake and Janie's relationships are changed and the janies trial is not included in the film either. In the book “Their eyes were watching god” the symbol for janie's sexual awakening is very heavily emphasized as the blooming pear tree. The pear tree is a motif that is introduced right in the beginning of the book, it always goes back to sex, not the act of sex but
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” can be seen different from the way Janie plays a role in the book than in the movie. One way that shows the movie is different from the way the story is when the people of Eatonville would talk about Janie and what she looked like. The
Their Eyes Were Watching God In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, I want to inform reader’s that Janie's "home" is the pear tree. In the story when Janie was under the blossoming pear she explains how the pear tree was blooming. Janie sees a bee pollinating a pear blossom and that made her come to a realization of love and marriage.
In the book “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” the main character Janie marries three different men, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks (Jody), and Vergible Woods (Teacake). She marries each of these men for different reasons. First, she marries Logan because her grandmother guilted her into marriage with him. In the book, on page 13, it says, “‘Brother Logan Killicks. He’s a good man too.’ ‘Nah, nanny, no ma’am…’” This is saying that Nanny wanted Janie to marry Logan, however Janie didn’t want to marry Logan. Secondly, Janie marries a man named Joe Starks, also known as Jody. She marries Jody because she doesn’t want to be married to Logan. In the book, on page 30, it says, “Janie debated the matter that night in bed.” In summary, this is saying that
Educator and literary critic, Keiko Dilbeck claims in her article ‘Symbolic Representation of Identity in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God’ (2015), that Zora Neale Hurston used objects and characters as symbols for identity and qualities of good relationships. She does this first by, citing the example of the Pear Tree symbolizing youth, then by listing Janie’s three husbands and the qualities the represent, then by discussing the all important symbol of the hair. Dilbeck’s purpose in writing this article was to discuss the many symbols in the text in order to enhance reader’s understanding of the novel's themes and symbols. The author creates a reflective tone by discussing the novel's purpose and it’s relationship to Black Woman during
The novel and movie Their Eyes Were Watching God contrast each other in many different ways. A key distinction between the two is that Nanny’s backstory is prominent in the novel, but not inside the film. This variation can lead viewers to have a contrasting view on the story and changes the flow of the movie especially. Sections of the motion picture can be left incomplete, and it is difficult to understand some scenes without this important information. The removal of Nanny’s background in the film weakens character development, but it helps the film grow in popularity and profit.
Their eyes were watching God is a story based on a young woman who goes by the name Janie Crawford. She lives in Florida and is searching for love. In the novel she explains her journey of love to her friend Pheoby. Since Janie does not associate with the others she asks Pheoby to delay the message to the other people in the town Eatonville. Janie was raised by her grandmother Nanny after her mother left town. Janie and Nanny live with a white family the Washburns and they take care of the house. When Janie turned sixteen she started to take interest in Johnny Taylor, but Nanny sends her off to marry and live with a much older man in his late 30’s by the name Logan Killicks. Since Mr. Killicks is doing well for himself Nanny feels that Janie
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.
In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the image of a pear tree reverberates throughout the novel. The pear tree is not only a representation of Janie's life - blossoming, death, metamorphosis, and rebirth - but also the spark of curiosity that sets Janie on her quest for self-discovery. Janie is essentially "rootless" at the beginning of her life, never having known her mother or father and having been raised by her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny even says to Janie, "Us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways" (Hurston, 16). Under a pear tree in Nanny's backyard, however, Janie, as a naïve
The author uses metaphor of a quote on page 11, which was, “Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?” This is a metaphor
In the excerpt from their eyes were watching god, there is a group of people who become one entity without individual identities. Once a leader in a group is established, that leader often becomes the personality of the group. If you are outside of the group or the group doesn’t know something about you, they will attack you violently and mercilessly. All too often it happens. The same thing happened to Janie. She was outside of the group, and they didn’t know much about her anymore, so they attacked her verbally.
The authors of the time did have a valid reasoning to believe that the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was such an uninspiring novel. An artificial reading of the novel shows the reader a few small points that came make people mad. Janie the main character lives a sheltered life. Her grandmother, an ex-slave, shelters her from such a world, and she is brought up in a rich environment. All the black people that she do see are fairly well-off. She marries her first husband, Logan, who is not financially stable and she has to do labor, so she leaves him. Her next husband, Jody brings her to an all black city, Eatonville. The city mirrors that of a white city. Jody makes all the rules in the town and soon it becomes prosperous and grows while Jody makes a lot of money. She is unhappy in this rich white society. Thus when Jody dies, she goes off into the Everglades with Tea Cake and works in the fields
The film Their Eyes Were Watching God, based off of the novel by author Zora Neale Hurston, is a story of a young woman named Janie who spends the film narrating her life story to a friend. Janie’s story is one of self-exploration, empowerment, and the ability to express her freedoms both as a maturing woman and African American, throughout her life experiences. As she navigates through sexism and racism to find herself it becomes more evident that it will be more difficult than she initially thought to reach a point of happiness.
The power of color and class is exposed throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and “Reapers” by Jean Toomer. Although all three pieces of literature tell different stories, they all contain the concept of how race and social hierarchy correspond to each other. Their Eyes Were Watching God contains a character whose name is Ms. Turner. Ms. Turner is a woman that does not accept her blackness, and because of that, she feels that she is ranked higher than the African Americans within her society. Throughout The Bluest Eye, the characters within the novel are constantly dealing with the issues regarding race and class, especially Pecola, the main character. Pecola is part of the low class in society because she is African American and also poor, compared to the African Americans within her
The metaphor of the horizon and the sun follow Janie’s exploration of herself and her search for true love. In the novel, Janie swiftly moves through three marriages, but only finds love in her final marriage to Tea Cake. When Janie is first talking to Jody she is hesitant because “he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees" (29). Nature, especially pollen and bloom time, has come to represent love in this novel while the sun represents happiness and cheeriness and that is what Janie is looking for in a relationship. Jody is not a super positive and bubbly guy but he “spoke for far horizon" (29). He spoke about the possibilities that could be if they were together. Possibilities that Janie was hoping would give her a chance to find out
What is feminism? Well, feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. So with that being said would you say the book “Their Eyes are Watching God” is a feminist novel? If you said no you would be correct. “Their Eyes are Watching God” is not a very feminist novel, I say this because Janie wasn't treated with respect by the men she was with, she never spoke up, and she was always told what to do.