Women In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

It’s amazing that one state can have within it places that differ greatly in all aspects—people, surrounding, weather, and feeling. Zora Neale Hurston exemplifies this phenomenon in Their Eyes Were Watching God. There are a multitude of differences between Eatonville, FL and the Everglades; each place represents a certain theme or feeling to Janie (the main character) and their differences each contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed the audience to better understand the limitations that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Janie’s relationship with her first husband, Logan Killicks, consisted of tedious, daily routines. Her second husband, Joe Starks, brought her closer to others, than to herself. In her third and final marriage to Tea Cake, she eventually learned how to live her life on her own. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

“About four-in-ten women (43%) say they have personally experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their gender.” In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, readers are introduced to a woman named Janie Mae Crawford, an African American woman living her life during the early 20th century. The novel follows Janie through her three marriages with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake, depicting how she is treated within those different relationships and her personal growth. Janie’s journey to self discovery is limited by societal expectations within a relationship, highlighting the unrealistic standards placed upon women. In the early 1900s, men exerted control over women, especially their wives.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie Crawford’s odyssey becomes a powerful lens through which the theme of gender roles and relationships is meticulously examined. Hurston’s narrative artistry unfolds a tapestry of experiences, where Janie’s interactions with her three husbands—Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake—serve as a microcosm of the broader societal dynamics that both empower and subjugate based on gender. The novel deftly explores the tension between autonomy and confinement, a dichotomy that is inextricably linked to Janie’s womanhood. As readers traverse the emotional and physical landscapes of Janie’s life, they are invited to scrutinize the entrenched societal norms and the silent yet

What would you feel like as a woman if your husband was seen as more important or powerful than you? Or if it was considered okay for your husband to do whatever he please towards you? In Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the book revolves around Janie and what has happened in her life prior to returning to Eatonville, after “burying the dead”. The concept of gender roles impacts Janie, and the mayor, Jody’s lives and marriage. If the idea of women and men’s ideal jobs didn’t exist, then Jody wouldn’t think he had complete power and authority over Janie.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, she sets the protagonist, Janie Mae Crawford as a woman who wants to find true love and who is struggling to find her identity. To find her identity and true love it takes her three marriages to go through. While being married to three different men who each have different philosophies, Janie comes to understand that she is developed into a strong woman. Hurston makes each idea through each man’s view of Janie, and their relationship with the society. The lifestyle with little hope of or reason to hope for improvement. He holds a sizeable amount of land, but the couple's life involves little interaction with anyone else.

Zora Neale Hurston had an intriguing life, from surviving a hurricane in the Bahamas to having an affair with a man twenty years her junior. She used these experiences to write a bildungsroman novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, about the colorful life of Janie Mae Crawford. Though the book is guised as a quest for love, the dialogues between the characters demonstrate that it is actually about Janie’s journey to learn how to not adhere to societal expectation.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, attempts to bring into light problems caused by prejudice. However, as she tries to show examples of inequality through various character relationships, examples of equality are revealed through other relationships. Janie, the novel's main character, encounters both inequality and equality through the treatment she receives during her three marriages.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston explores the life of a southern black woman, Janie Crawford, whose three marriages of domineering control of men make her acknowledge her independence and self-satisfaction as an African-American woman. Set in the early 1900s, Hurston reveals the dominant role of men in southern society and one woman’s journey toward finding herself and God.

     The plan for Janie’s future begins with her lack of having real parents. Hurston builds up a foundation for Janie that is bound to fall like a Roman Empire. Janie’s grandmother, whom she refers to as “Nanny” takes the position as Janie’s guardian. The problem begins here for Janie because her Nanny not only spoils her, but also makes life choices for her. Nanny is old, and she only wants the best for her grandchild, for she knows that the world is a cruel place. Nanny makes the mistake of not allowing Janie to learn anything on her own. When Janie was sixteen years old, Nanny wanted to see her get married. Although Janie argued at first, Nanny insisted that Janie get married. “’Yeah, Janie, youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh… Ah wants to see you married right away.’” (Page 12). Janie was not given a choice in this decision. Her Nanny even had a suitor picked out for her. Janie told herself that she would try to make the best of the situation and attempt to find love in her marriage to Logan Killicks. But, as time went by, Janie realized that she still did not have any feelings of what she had considered to be love in her husband.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus

Feminism and gender equality is one of the most important issues of society today, and the debate dates back much farther than Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. To analyze Janie’s existence as a feminist or anti-feminist character requires a potential critic to look at her relationships and her reactions to those relationships throughout the novel. Trudier Harris claims that Janie is “questing after a kind of worship.” This statement is accurate only up until a certain point in her life, until Janie’s “quest” becomes her seeking equality with her partner. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s main goal pertaining to her romantic relationships undergoes multiple changes from her original goal of a type of worship to a goal to maintain an equal relationship with her husband.

Their Eyes Were Watching God was a book that presented the world with a new look on writing novels. Zora Neale Hurston’s experience in what she has seen through research was embodies in this novel. She demonstrates what data she has collected and intertwined it into the culture within the novel. While being a folklorist/anthropologist, and inspired by her life experiences, she developed a character who dealt with the issues that were not yet uncovered, female empowerment was one of them. Zora Neale Hurston defined this topic of female empowerment throughout the character Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Sexism and feminism are controversial issues, that is why they are a global issue in today’s society. People who argue sexism does not exist tend to focus only on the wires of the issue in relation to a birdcage. Like Frye said, “...step back...and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment”(Frye). So if people expand their focus to the world it is overwhelmingly apparent that in many countries women are second class subjects. Sexism is still a problem which feminists in our society today are still trying to fix. Through her use of characterization, symbolism and changes in relationships, Zora Neale Hurston argues in Their Eyes Were Watching God which is widely viewed as a feminist novel that even though American society is majority sexist and are uninformed about feminism, feminism will ultimately overtake but will not be enough to eradicate the sexism that has been embedded in all aspects of our daily lives. As Janie retrieves her independence after being maltreated by men, one must know that the novel cannot simply be regarded as a feminist novel because there are aspects that dispute with talks about feminist theory. The novel grapples in a way with feminist ideals of equality of men and women and traditional gender roles which is referred to as sexism.