In The Eyes are Watching God, the author Zora Neale Hurston expresses the struggles of women and black societies of the time period. When Hurston published the book, communities were segregated and black communities were full of stereotypes from the outside world. Janie, who represents the main protagonist and hero, explores these communities on her journey in the novel. Janie shows the ideals of feminism, love, and heroism in her rough life in The Eyes. Janie, as the hero of the novel, shows the heroic qualities of determination, empathy, and bravery. Janie shows determination as she persists and struggles to define love on her own terms through her marriages. First, her determination shows when Janie runs away with Jody. She becomes aware that her marriage with Logan does not satisfy her goals and dreams for love, so she takes a chance and marries Jody. Hurston states, “Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south. Even if Jody was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good” (32). The quote shows how Janie is thinking for herself and starting to release her mentality to always look to someone else. Logan threatened to kill Janie if she left, but her determination to reach her goals let her go past that fear and put her own life on the line to push towards her goals. Also, if she left Logan, Janie would leave her known world to venture off into potential dangers and her safety from their marriage would be gone. Even with all these threats and dangers over her head Janie was determined to reach her dreams for love, so nothing could stop her. Next, Janie continues on her determined journey for love when she goes off to marry Tea Cake. In the quote, …show more content…
Janie is the symbol of feminism and independence for women in the novel and shows her heroism in many instances. Some of her heroic qualities include determination, empathy, and
Janie's character in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a fluid character that changes, but also remains constant in some aspects. During chapter 5 and 6 her tendencies are called to attention through Joe's criticism. As he verbally attacks Janie and pushes her around her feelings and reactions illustrate who she is as a character, in this point of her life. During a meeting, in which Joe becomes Mayer, they ask Janie to say a few words about it in encouragement. Before she had a chance to respond, Joe did for her.
(Hurston 55). Jody’s determination to keep Janie safe and protect her from other men causes Janie to be upset. Janie feels as if her only purpose “was there in the store for him to look at, not those others'' (55).
It is not until Jody dies that Janie finally realizes the impact that Nanny had on her. As Janie reflects by herself in her room, she realizes she had hidden her true feelings about her grandmother and that she hates her for what she did. Nanny had taken her horizon, and rather than let Janie free to find it, and tied it “about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (89). Janie describes it as if she “had found a jewel inside down inside herself” (90) and rather than let it shine, she was “set in the market-place to sell” (90). These thoughts show significant growth in Janie’s character, as before she had just gone with what her grandmother said, and did not let herself truly feel.
Self-discovery is essential to a prosperous life. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie, the main character, discovers who she is through her relationships. Janie learns from each of her experiences, but the most significant are her husbands: Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake. Each of these people attempt to control her thoughts and actions, but Janie rebels against them. Janie stands up for what she believes in, and through these confrontations, she better understands herself.
but it didn’t do her any good” as Jody kept on fighting for her “submission” (71). As Jody continues to make Janie submit, less of her individuality is present as she is reduced to the ideal wife in Jody’s eyes. He does this by covering her hair, confining her to the store, and insults her. Again, In one scene,
Zora Neale Hurston’s writing in Their Eyes Were Watching God, reflects the Harlem Renaissance through Janie 's individuality, and departs from the Harlem Renaissance with the common recurrence of black woman empowerment. In the novel, Hurston reflects the ideas of the Harlem renaissance with the ways in which Janie rebels and goes against norms for women.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie suffers from hardship in two relationships before she can find her true love. Janie explains to her best friend, Pheoby, how she searches for love. Therefore Pheoby wants to hear the true story, rather than listening to the porch sitters. Throughout the book Janie experiences different types of love with three different men; Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. At 16 Janie marries Logan Killicks.
For example, when she seeks love, she marries Logan. When she realizes that she cannot attain love through marriage, she desires wealth and power. In order to obtain this, Janie leaves Logan to marry Jody Starks. She is constantly moving from desire to desire every time she is unhappy with her present condition. It would be in her best interest to set realistic goals for herself, and settle in to her life in a way that will provide her with the most efficient method to obtain her goal.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s flaws about love continuously brought her to the same ending with all of her husbands, no matter how long the marriage lasted. In The Odyssey, Calypso was trapped on an island to fall in love with men who washed ashore. The fatality of her faults was her over affection and her need for love while being so alone on her island, Ogygia. Their weaknesses are exact opposites, specifically in their relationships with men. The flaws are role in relationship, attachment to men, and lastly, their submissiveness to men.
Janie grows stronger and more confident as a result of her relationship with Tea Cake because she begins to appreciate her own interests and aspirations. Hurston contradicts established gender roles through Janie's relationship with Tea Cake and emphasizes the value of a satisfying, equal partnership in the shaping of a woman's identity. Hurston addresses the challenges experienced by women in their search for independence and identity through Janie's adventures and the significance of separating oneself from a patriarchal culture. At the beginning of the book, Janie was a girl who was
Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of how one man, Tea Cake, changes how a grown woman named Janie views life, opportunity, and happiness. Zora Neale Hurston employs parallelism in order to reveal the dynamic of this relationship between Janie and Tea Cake and writes, “He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (Hurston 128). At the very end of the book, Hurston writes again, “Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie, is influenced by others to change her ideals. Hurston vividly portrays Janie’s outward struggle while emphasising her inward struggle by expressing Janie’s thoughts and emotions. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the protagonist is concisely characterized as having “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” as Janie does. Janie conforms outwardly to her life but questions inwardly to her marriages with Logan Killicks, her first husband, and Joe Starks, her second husband; Janie also questions her grandmother's influence on what love and marriage is.
Zora Neale Hurston, an author during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, an amazing novel written about the losses and loves of a lady named Janie Crawford. The author describes the way Janie found out who she really was and what love was throughout her three marriages. Janie’s first two marriages were unfulfilling and not healthy for herself. Janie realized what true love was when she met Tea Cake. Janie’s first marriage was to a man named Logan Killicks, which was forced upon her by her grandmother.
Toni Morrison’s A Mercy portrays a young slave, Florens, struggles with her past as well as her life as a slave. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God shows a woman, Janie, who struggles through various relationships in her life, but in the end, they help her find her freedom and individualism. Both stories have different story lines, but upon a closer look, it is easy to see that Florens and Janie have common factors in their lives; which includes, both characters are isolated by others, both characters want to love someone, both character’s guardians make decisions for them that they do not understand which causes conflict, and finally, both characters commit difficult actions which ends up changing their lives.
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel portrays Janie, a middle aged black woman who tells her friend Pheoby Watson what has happened to her husband Tea Cake and her adventure. The resulting telling of her story portrays most of the novel. Throughout the novel, Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of love, or being in a relationship versus freedom and independence, that being in a relationship may hinder one’s freedom and independence. Janie loves to be outgoing and to be able to do what she wants, but throughout the book the relationships that she is in with Logan,Jody and Tea Cake, does not allow her to do that.