I was always thought of as a smart kid throughout school. I think that assumption comes from me being the youngest of three and my older sisters being the brilliant ones. Even though I took accelerated, honors, and AP courses throughout high school and graduated with a 3.8 GPA, I never once passed an AP exam. Most of the failures I rationalized with my lack of motivation or interest in a subject, but one test score was especially hard for me to accept. I could not understand how I did not pass my AP Literature exam, my favorite class I had ever taken. During the exam, I noticed challenging questions and essays and I felt tense until I got to the Q3, an open essay question. I had chosen to write about Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale
In chapter three of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie was married to Logan Killicks and began to live with him on his isolated area of land. Janie was under the impression that her love for Logan would begin almost immediately after the two were married. Janie believed this due to the fact that her Nanny had told her so beforehand. When Janie arrive at Logan’s house she went inside and began to wait for her love for him to begun. After three months had passed and she still felt nothing for Logan she began to worry and went to visit her Nanny for advice. When she arrived at her Nanny’s house she began to tell her of her issues and as usual Nanny became irritated. She told her to do what she was told by Logan and that eventually her love for him would begin to show. I feel that Janie would never truly be able to feel any type
1-5 Song: suds in the bucket In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God in chapter 4 Jane runs away from her husband with another guy that promised her a life of luxury and fame. The author says that jane is a girl that will leave for a better life, ”after that she came to where Joe Starks was waiting for her with his hired rig”(Hurston 33). This part is just like from the song Suds in the Buckets the girl just ups and leaves with her friends without telling anyone but her friend and in the book Jane does the same thing. The songwriter said that the girl just left with her boyfriend without saying anything, “When her prince pulled up, A white pickup truck”(evens).
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.
Oprah Winfrey changed every aspect of Their Eyes Were Watching God from what Zora actually depicted. Every relationship and symbol was affected in some way between the book and the movie. Although Janie thought that she was not good enough to do anything right in Joe’s eyes; she eventually became stronger knowing that she would be a stronger person without him. Oprah changing Zora’s meaning and making it into a completely different accusation. Janie was deprived of her dignity; of her just being a trophy wife, and Janie learned how to become stronger on her own.
Very rarely do we take time out of our busy lives to look at the world around us. However, when we do look in depth, it is astonishing what you can see. Every little part of nature is constantly at work; bees are busy pollinating, leaves are rustling in the wind, rain melts into the soil. Nature is made up of many different features which all come together to create the beautiful scenery around us. Our lives are much like nature, made of many different aspects such as people and experiences, which come together to create your being. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses examples of nature such as the hurricane, the pear tree, and the horizon to symbolize important aspects of Janie’s life.
Will Lund Ashleigh Sabin Language Arts 11 10 April 2024 Comparing Their Eyes Were Watching God, To The Ballad Of Reading Gaol. “Their eyes were watching God”, by Zora Neale Hurston, the book focuses on the life of a main character named Janie. Throughout the book, it explains in detail the journey of her life, the people she meets, each of her relationships, and how none of them ended well. Zoras story portrays the idea of losing the things you love, as does the poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde. This poem also portrays the idea of losing the things you love or love that comes with a cost.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Mae Crawford, the Protagonist, is involved in three diverse relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie grows into young woman through marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation-- they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston’s famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character’s natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.
In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, author Zora Neale Hurston suggests that mutual respect and equality are necessary components of love.
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel where Janie tells her whole story from childhood up to the death of Tea Cake. Some important details that show feminism are when Janie refused to work in the field with her first husband and also how Joe was very dominant and sometimes abusive in her marriage. I believe “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a feminist novel because Janie did not follow the stereotypical of a woman during her time.
Have you ever questioned your identity, or wondered if the place you are in life is where you’re meant to be? In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, heroine Janie Crawford struggles to discover love and self-definition. Janie was raised by her grandmother (Nanny) and therefore had to deal with Nanny’s strict morals and opinions about the world. In consideration of the way Janie was raised, she never had a chance to evaluate life and come to a conclusion of who or what she wants to be. Janie was always living the life Nanny wanted for her. As a result, Janie eventually breaks the “trance” nanny has over her and goes on a quest to find her true identity. Janie executes her quest to true love and identification through her marriages with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Virgible “Tea Cake” Woods.
It is a commonly held belief that our childhoods have at least some effect on our adult life. For Zora Neale Hurston, she presents that view in her novel, Their Eyes were Watching God. While Hurston does not give too much insight into Janie’s childhood, one can perceive how her adult life has been affected by what Hurston gives. Janie was raised by her Nanny, used to enduring things that were out of her control in her childhood (specifically started when she was young and married off.) It seems as if Janie is never in full control, despite making decisions that should alter her life. Janie also possesses a sort of innocence, especially when it comes to love, as she grows older. Comparing that to Ernest Hemingway’s The Nick Adams Stories, Nick shows a different aspect of how a childhood can impact adulthood. He is a character that grows up learning to be independent and having an ability to take care of himself. And that stems from the experiences he has a child.
Zora Hurston focuses on many themes throughout her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of them being the development of gender roles. While it may seem that the novel is a story of one woman discovering herself on her own, an underlying theme is how people’s identities are determined by their relationships. Through a multitude of relationships in the novel Hurston develops the different roles of men and women within a relationship. In Zora Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston emphasizes the development of gender roles to suggest that society views the people involved based on the role they play in their various relationships.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie suffers through three abusive marriages. Janie’s husbands take away her voice and equality, for their own desires. Janie learns a lot from each marriage, hopefully leaving her in a better place to make the best decision for her own well being, if she chooses to marry again. The lack of equality and freedom given to Janie in her relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake helps Janie to realize her need for a happier more independent life, that may not include a man.
"De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see."