Their Eyes Were Watching God: Self Actualization

She ended up living a life full of manipulation and mediocrity. While living with Joe, she had to tend to many different tasks as his wife.  She wasn't independent with him either.  She was Joe's tag-a-long.  'She went through many silent rebellions over things like that.  Such a waste of life and time.  But Joe kept saying that she could do it if she wanted to and he wanted her to use her privileges.  That was the rock she was battered against.' (Hurston, 51)  Janie always had to wear her hair a certain way, always up in a head rag, in order not to attract attention to other men and women. She was always in a state of loneliness with herself.  While married to Janie, he would not allow her to attend the people's gatherings believing that she does not belong to such a group of lower class people.  Joe was depriving Janie of her independence and sanity.  "Naw, Ah ain't no young gal no mo' but den Ah ain't no old woman either.  Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too.  But Ah'm us woman every inch of me, and Ah know it.  Dat's uh whole lot more'n you kin say.  You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but 'tain't nothin' to it but yo' big voice.  Humph!  Talkin' 'bout me lookin' old!  When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life." (Hurston, 75)  This quote spoken by Janie proves that she was getting sick and tired of being pushed around by Joe and his stuck-up ways.  This was a slow

Therefore, both Joe and Janie are looked up to by the townspeople. To some extent, this could be considered a form of equality. Unfortunately, this is about where the equality stops. While Joe gains prominence through his own actions and words, Janie gains some prominence by doing what she is told to do. She is not permitted to voice her own opinions or join in the lighthearted gossiping which occurs outside of their store. Janie is expected to be the dutiful wife. If she makes a mistake, then she should have known better and therefore should accept her punishment quietly. Joe holds the obvious upper hand in the relationship until his death whereupon Janie inherits a large amount of money and learns to enjoy the freedom of living as her own person.

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.

Another desire of young Janie is to find true, passionate love in a relationship. Returning to the metaphor of the pear tree, Janie says to her Grandma, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston 24). Janie dreams of a peaceful, pleasant, and comfortable love in her marriage, similar to the quiet bliss of sitting in the shade of a blossoming pear tree. In her article, Kubitschek also points out Darwin Turner’s understanding that “‘All Janie wants is to love, be loved, and to share the life of her man. But . . . she must first find a man wise enough to let her be whatever kind of woman she wants to be’” (qtd. in Kubitschek 109). Unfortunately, this love and freedom was not acquired in Janie’s first marriage. Despite her hope that feelings of true love would develop with her first husband Logan Killicks, “she knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). Discontent with lack of passion in her first marriage, Janie decides to abandon her dream of finding love with Logan and does not hesitate to run away with Jody Starks when the situation presents itself. Deborah Clarke comments on this change in heart, writing, “Janie thus gives up a

Janie’s outward appearance and her inward thoughts contrast following Joe’s death. She finally frees herself from his control only after he dies as she, “…tore off the kerchief…and let down her plentiful hair” (87). In freeing her hair, Janie begins to free herself from others’ control and social norms. However, she chooses to keep it tied up until after Jody’s funeral in order to keep appearances that she is grieving his passing in front of the townspeople. However, on the inside, Janie doesn’t really feel any sorrow and “sent her face to Joe’s funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world” (88). It is only after Joe’s elaborate funeral that Janie shows her first act of freedom by burning “every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (89). She chose to let her hair be free from his domination, thus freeing herself from him overall and allowing herself to move onto the next journey in her life.

The book opens with Janie returning to Eatonville, after Tea Cake’s death. She walks down the street wearing the same overalls she wore while she was working with Tea Cake, causing many of the town’s residents to wonder about her. When confronted about this gossip, Janie proclaims, “if God don’t think no mo’ ‘bout ‘em then Ah do, they’s a lost ball in de high grass” (5). She means that if God cared about the townspeople as little as she did, they would get lost amongst all the other things God likely does not care about. This shows how little she minds what other people think of her, and how her quest for self determination has been

Those living in today’s world are constantly bombarded with the stereotypes and distorted images of a consumerist society. As a result, they often struggle with a loss of identity because mass media try to dictate what they should want to be and do. Zora Neale Hurston tackles this age-old search for self-discovery in her fictional frame story Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie Crawford tells her best friend, Pheoby, about her quest for her own voice, despite setbacks in the form of relatives, two husbands, and entire towns that attempt to silence her. From a young age, Janie yearns for enlightenment; however, the roles Nanny, Logan Killicks, and Joe Starks force upon her prevent her from reaching selfhood until she meets and falls in love

All through the novel Janie travels through valuable life experiences allowing her to grow as a woman. Janie at first has a difficult time understanding her needs rather than wants, but as she continues to experience new situations she realizes she values respect. Janie’s first two marriages turned out to be tragic mistakes, but with each marriage Janie gained something valuable. When Janie is disrespected in her second marriage with Joe Starks, he publicly humiliates her, disrespecting her as a wife and woman. This experience forced Janie to come out of her comfort zone and stand up for herself.

Instead of treating Janie like the beautiful woman that she is, he uses her as an object. Joe was a man who “treasured [Janie] as a posession” (Berridge). Joe’s demanding nature suppresses Janie’s urge to grow and develop, thus causing her journey to self-realization to take steps backward rather than forward. In Janie’s opinion, “he needs to “have [his] way all [his] life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let [him]self heah 'bout it” (Hurston 122). It is almost as if Janie loses sense of her own self-consciousness due to the fact that she becomes like a puppy being told what to do by her master. The death of Jody is actually a positive thing. Joe’s controlling nature stifles Janie’s inner voice. While married to Jody, Janie became closer to others, however, she did not become closer to herself. Being on her own again gave her another chance to embark on her journey and realize who Janie Crawford really is.

Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie’s journey towards spiritual enlightenment and her development of individuality, largely through Janie’s relationships with others. Hurston uses the themes of power, control, abuse, and respect, in Janie’s relationships with Nanny, Killicks, Starks, and Tea Cake, to effectively illustrate how relationships impact identity and self-growth.

In conclusion, In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, the audience watches Janie enter a period of self-discovery. When Janie gains this power of freedom, she realizes she craves something different from what society had told her she would want; What we feel inwardly to be true, society seeks to take that truth away. With this experience an internal and external

Becoming an image herself looking in the mirror was an obvious and physical change seen in the story. "'Ah ain't been sleepin' so good for more'n uh week cause Ah been wishin' so bad tuh git mah hands in yo' hair. It's so pretty'" (Hurston 124). Letting loose her hair and Tea Cake telling her how pretty she was marked a new beginning for her and a time for a new image. Seeing herself in a new way, the mirror and Tea Cake helped her realize that she is a beautiful woman and she can be much better if she tried. Mirrors are always used to analyze oneself to be pleased, or to be displeased so you can adjust. In Janie's case however, she was surprised to see herself again and approved of her new, yet not so new self.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston a young girl named Janie begins her life unknown to herself. She searches for the horizon as it illustrates the distance one must travel in order to distinguish between illusion and reality, dream and truth, role and self? (Hemenway 75). She is unaware of life?s two most precious gifts: love and the truth. Janie is raised by her suppressive grandmother who diminishes her view of life. Janie?s quest for true identity emerges from her paths in life and ultimatly ends when her mind is freed from mistaken reality.

Love, sorrow, hope and faith were all prevalent in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. The main character Janie went through life knowing there was something great waiting for her that would lead her to happiness and she always looked up to God for hope. The author was able to present Janie’s journey through her unique dialect that never failed in setting the scene. This being said as throughout Janie’s life she was finally able to find herself.