Zora Neale Hurston's They Eyes Were Watching God Essay

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

When Janie is about sixteen her grandmother finds her in the act of kissing a boy, and afraid for Janie, she arranges for Janie to be married to Logan Killicks, who is an older man with vast property to his name. Nanny, as Janie calls her, is unable to wrap her mind around the idea of marrying for love and mocks Janie saying, "So you don't want to marry off decent like, do yuh? You just wants to hug and kiss and feel around with first one man and then another, huh?" (Their Eyes Are Watching God, 13). Her grandmothers’ gift of life is different from the life that Janie wants to live. She tells Janie, “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.'” (Their Eyes Are Watching God, 11). Nanny doesn’t believe that trying to find love and make a better life for you will succeed, she tells Janie that marrying and older man with land to his name will bring security, and she shouldn’t want more than that. Because of this Janie agrees and goes along with the plan. She is depicted as very compliant and rarely speaks her mind, even saying “But Ah hates disagreement and confusion, so Ah better not talk. It makes it hard tuh git along” (Their Eyes Were Watching God, 90).

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.” (Hurston 226) The book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is told from Janie’s point of view and she is telling her story to her friend Pheoby. She grows throughout three marriages and the hardships she faces. She learns what she wants from life and how to become an independent individual. Throughout the story of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie is on a quest for self-fulfillment and individuality. This is shown through the changes she endures in her relationships and can cause the readers to take control of their own lives.

Janie’s quest begins with her grandmother forcing her to marry Logan Killicks; her compliance demonstrates her need to follow what others expect of her. Although she believes "[Logan] look like some ole skullhead in de graveyard", she marries him, simply because her grandmother tells her she will love him with time (13). She compares him to a “skullhead”, literally likening him, and subsequently their relationship, to death. Although she knows she wants to find love, and that she does not love Logan, she marries him to appease her grandmother. This shows how much Janie cares about what other people think of her, and what lengths she is willing to go to keep others pleases with her.

     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.

 It is Janie’s relationship with Nanny that first suppresses her self-growth.  Janie has an immense level of respect towards Nanny, who has raised Janie since her mother ran off.  The respect Janie has for her grandmother is deeper than the respect demanded by tradition, from a child toward his caretaker, probably because

However, she quickly learns that Logan, finds her useless, “spoilt rotten” and compares her to his old wife, who did manual labor for him without many complaints (26). Not only does Janie find Logan unattractive, but she does not even find him intellectually or emotionally stimulating, as he never shows her affection (24). Attempting to gain some perspective on how to liven up her marriage, Janie seeks out the advice of her Nanny, an unmarried former slave. Janie claims that she “wants to want him sometimes” (23), but her efforts are in vain. Due to the conditions Nanny was raised in, Nanny told her granddaughter that love was bound to happen eventually because Logan was financially stable. Nanny did not understand Janie’s wishes of love; she was on a basic level of understanding. While Janie obeyed Nanny’s wish of her to stay with Logan for almost a year, when Janie knew the marriage was headed nowhere except disaster, she runs off with a man named Joe Sparks who she had correspondence with for almost a year. Janie concluded from her time with Logan “that marriage did not make love” (25). Janie’s view on love did not change with her relationship with Logan. In fact, it was because of the horrendous outcomes of the marriage that Janie decided to chase after her ideal relationship with

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she

Logan simply amplifies the negative effect Nanny has on Janie. Rather than showing affection or love towards Janie, as a husband should, Logan is constantly passing judgment on Janie, and mistreating her. He accuses Janie of having an entitled attitude, and says to Janie, “You think youse white folks by de way you act…Ah’m too honest and hard-workin’ for anybody in yo’ family.” (Hurston 32) Not only does Logan insult Janie and her family, but he provides no compassion towards Janie, nor encouragement for her to try to become a better person. In her relationship with Logan Killicks, Janie is constantly unappreciated and looked down upon. Rather than being offered constructive criticism, she is constantly surrounded by negativity and recognition of her faults rather than her strong points, thus preventing her from developing into a better person or finding happiness.

Nanny makes Janie believe that marriage makes love and forces her to wed a much older man, Logan Killicks. Jones believes that Janie?s first efforts at marriage show her as an ?enslaved and semi-literate? figure restrained to Nanny?s traditional beliefs about money, happiness and love (372). Unfortunately Janie?s dream of escasty does not involve Killicks. Her first dream is dead. Janie utters, ?Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think? (Hurston 23). Logan began to slap Janie for control over

Janie’s marriage to Logan takes the reader to another level. Throughout her marriage, because she was unlearned of things, Janie had to continually ask about this and that. Janie never loved Logan. She was forced into this marriage by her

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston discusses the topic of women oppressed in marriage by exploring themes of arranged marriage, gender roles, and abuse. In the early 1900’s, marriage was seen as the way to gain protection and a purpose in life. For many young women, marriage meant that they would be seen as a cook, a maid, and a nanny. The protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Starks, is a young African American woman who recounts her marriages and young life to a friend. In her first marriage, we see how she is oppressed by her grandmother and her husband’s inability to love her. Joe, her second husband, resorted to physical violence and emotional abuse to control Janie. After Joe’s death, Janie is finally free to live her life as she chooses, and in that process, she meets Tea Cake, a charming young man whom she eventually marries. In that marriage, Tea Cake and Janie start strong and happy, their lives filled with love and joy. However, eventually, the influence of gender roles and possession that were common at that time took control of Tea Cake. Through reading about these experiences we explore the way she was treated in each of her marriages, how she was oppressed, and how she found freedom.

Intersectionality is the study of identity that looks at how different aspects of identity intersect with each other to form specific and differing experiences of oppression. Zora Neale Hurston deals with the intersection of race and gender through the story of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, rather than seeing the way in which Hurston deals with this intersection, the author Richard Wright claims, “The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought. In the main, her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy.” While Wright is correct in suggesting that Hurston’s focus is not on race, but rather gender, he is incorrect in suggesting her novel has no purpose and is created simply to be entertainment for white readers. Wright’s own writing focuses entirely on race through a sociological lens that uses women’s dead bodies as objects in order to make arguments about race, and this is why Wright is unable to see the value of Hurston’s novel which focuses heavily on gendered oppression. Analysis of Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God will show that the novel has tremendous worth in how it addresses the intersection of race and gender proving incorrect Wright, whose own writing will clarify that his views on writing make him unable to see the worth of Hurston’s work. Understanding the message that Hurston aims to convey to the reader will clarify how different

Being young Janie was forced to marry by Nanny. She thought that being married to someone would help her not end up like her mother. “Dat’s what makes me skeered you didn’t mean no harm you don’t even know where harm is at. Ahm ole now. Ah can’t be always guidin’ yo’ fact from harm and danger. Ah wants to see you married right away.”(10). Janie 's first husband was Logan Killicks, this was the man Nanny had picked out for her. Logan was an older guy about 60 and well off. He was able to offer her the protection and financial security that she needed for the rest of her life. In the marriage Janie didn’t feel in love but she kept trying because she

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.