Zora Neale's Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston follows the main character Janie’s journey to find love on her own terms. The first man she married, she married to appease Nanny, her grandmother. The second man she marries is Jody Starks, who she marries because she failed to find love for her previous husband. After the oppressive Starks dies, Janie remarries Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods, the only man she has ever loved. They move to “the muck” where Janie feels more at home than ever before because she is with Tea Cake and because she can choose to indulge in her own relations without anyone telling her what to do or with whom to associate.

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.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” had Janie face several conflicts throughout the book, conflicts that relate to the real world and real world human rights issues. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” covers human rights issues such as gender inequality, the right to marry the person you love, the right to be an equal within a marriage, and racism. The novel’s ending, where Janie returns back to Eatonville after having to kill Tea Cake, is surprising, to say the least, and creates a sense of shock and slight confusion within the reader. The resolution of the novel shows that the author intended to show each of the aforementioned human rights issues, and how none of the issues are guaranteed to have a happy ending. Zora Neale Hurston also seems to imply,

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses Janie to show that one must have a voice in order to have a sense of who one is and have control over oneself. Janie is a dynamic character and other characters in the novel contributes to her attributes because each of them control specks of her life. To develop as a character, Janie undergoes quests to find her identity and retain it. It is arguable that Janie hangs onto pieces of who she is as she discovers more about herself and gain control over those aspects because Hurston sets the novel up as a frame story. With a frame story, there are reflections happening, so in turn, she must have learned from what she experienced between the beginning and the end of the novel. In addition

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.

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

Janie, in Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, was a unique individual; as a half-white, half-black girl growing up in Florida in the early 1930's, a lifetime of trials and search for understanding was set for her from the start. As the main character she sought to finally find herself, true love, and have a meaningful life. Growing up, in itself, provides a perfect opportunity for finding that essential state of self-realization and ideal comfort. Michael G. Cooke reviews Their Eyes Were Watching God in his article "The Beginnings of Self-Realization"; within the article it is falsely criticized that every time Janie is negatively impacted she grows to become more

Their Eyes Were Watching God, written in the third person limited point of view, consistently uses the same perspective throughout the book. Although Janie herself is not the narrator, the story is told from her perspective. On page 46, Hurston writes, “She [Janie] felt far away from things and lonely.” This statement shows how the book is written as to where only Janie’s thoughts are revealed. While Janie interacts with other characters, the reader can only observe them externally; Janie is the only character inside whose head is visible to the

The novel is primarily about a woman who struggles in her search for self while trying to reconcile her beliefs with those imposed on her by society and the men in her life. Important symbols in the novel include, the horizon, hurricane, Porch, Janie’s hair, gates, the pear tree, Land ownership and wealth, Janie’s overalls. All of the symbols provide the reader with clues as to how and why Janie’s grows and developments into the person she becomes by the end of the novel. Horizon symbolises Janie’s life long search for happiness. Pear tree indicates that Janie is maturing sexually and mentally and her interest towards love and romance is increasing.

The main character Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was a lost, naive girl in the beginning of the novel. Zora Hurston shows Janie's character development through allusions and symbols such as the pear tree Janie is under, the hair rags Joe makes her wear, and the hurricane that Tea Cake and Janie experienced while they were in the Everglades. Janie also grows after each husband as she is starting to find her way in this crazy roller coaster people called life. As Janie is forced to marry Logan, she starts to gain a sense of where she stands in life.

Dyshere Logan Tammy Geidel AP English Languish and Composition 23 July 2014 A Summary of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a novel written in flashback telling the story of a woman named Janie. It starts off by the main character Janie returning to the town that she watched grow from the ground up.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston used a variety of writing techniques to cover a broad amount of themes. The most important message she got across was that it takes a journey to self discover yourself. Similar to how when someone is going through college they will change their major multiple times before finally deciding what they would actually like to do and even then sometimes they realize they may have made the wrong decision or wish they did something different. In comparison to the book Janie would be the college student going through many experiences to discover her true self and become happy. Hurston represents these ideas by using a well planned plot and strong characterization.

A theme that is often discussed in this book is Janie’s self-revelations. Throughout the book you see Janie growing up and having different experiences with the different people that she meets; and she always acts differently because Janie is someone who expects a lot from her husband as a lover and a friend. Fast forwarding

In Their Eyes Were Watching God the character of Janie is developed through her relationships with men. Janie’s first marriage is with Logan Killicks. She did not really like him but her grandmother suggested she marry him and she agrees. However, there was a big difference because he was old and she was still young, but he was still trying to date her and she did not like how he treated her like a child. Janie is upset when Nanny informs her she will be marrying Logan Killicks. She claims that he is too old and not really the one she wants to fall in love with. She states that Logan Killicks is “desecrating the pear tree,” something that is very important to her (Hurston 11). At this time, Janie was working to figure out who she is and what she wanted. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston works to “give a voice to women of color.” Janie transforms from an object to a subject and “from a passive woman with no voice who is dominated by her husband to a woman who can think and act for herself” (Johnson). “Janie saw her life like a tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone” (Hurston 7). Once Janie marries Logan, she figures out that marriage does not mean the two people love each other. Once she comes to that understanding and she has the chance, she leaves and does not look back (Johnson). It is with her marriage to Logan Killicks that Janie begins to realize she is important and she should value herself. Janie understand that she is just

Janie Crawford is the protagonist their eyes were watching god . the novel witnessed her transformation from a naive girl to out spoken woman . Janie has physical and psychological changes that enable her to become an independent woman. Her skin is black but flaunts due to her mixed heritage of black and white.