Their Eyes Were Watching God was a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston, American author, filmmaker, and anthropologist, who writes about a character named Janie, a dynamic character throughout the novel. Janie would change both her values and personality to match people that would be around her the most, in which case would be the men of her life. Janie meets three bachelors named Tea Cake, Logan Killicks, and Joe starks. Each of these characters brought new and different approaches to life. Tea Cake.
Love and judgment can cause people to do things that they would never think that they would do. In the novel love and judgment causes Janie to think and make absurd decisions that she wouldn’t normally do. In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses figurative language to develop the theme that love and judgment can cause people to make fanatical decisions. Hurtston uses a metaphor to show love can cloud your judgment sometimes. When Joe died, Janie said this about Tea Cake “He could be the bee to a blossom.
Misguided Assumptions Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Hurston, is the story of Janie Crawford, a black woman with beautiful Caucasian-like hair and her pursuit for love. Janie meets Joe Starks while she is married to her first husband Logan Killicks. Janie chooses to leave her first husband to marry Joe with the hope of finding the love she had envisioned as a young girl. Unfortunately, Jody’s love of wealth and power is much stronger than his love for Janie.
An Epic on Jaine’s Silence And her Expolaration of INNER-SELF Introduction In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston a young lady named Janie starts her life obscure to herself. She searches for the horizon as it illustrates the distance one must travel in order to distinguish between illusion and reality, dream and truth, role and self (Hemenway 75). She is unconscious of life’s two most valuable endowments: adore and reality. Janie is raised by her suppressive grandma who reduces her perspective of life.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston, many symbols and metaphors appear to fully depict how Janie lived her life and what kinds of things she believed in. Hurston uses metaphors to describe the lessons Janie learned as well as the expectations that she set for herself growing up in such an unstable environment. Janie, the main character, references many symbols, as they all have a great influence on her life as well as the decisions she made, the metaphors in the novel bolster our understanding of why Janie was the way she was, and why it was important for her to find a stable relationship that would give all that she wanted. Janie always viewed the horizon as ever changing, because she could always go further and
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.
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.
Imagery and metaphors are used in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" to help the reader get a better understanding of the book. These forms of figurative language are used throughout the book to grab the reader's attention and make them feel more connected to the book. Without these forms of figurative language, the book would be bland and wouldn't connect with the reader in any way. There are many examples, including metaphors and imagery, spread evenly throughout the story of "Their Eyes for Watching God." They use imagery to give the reader an idea of what it looks like inside the story.
Estelle Ngobua Debra Lydon American Literature 13 April 2023 Their Eyes Were Watching God. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston male dominance and power is seen in the book as the author uses symbolism to explain and show how the male figure poses a threat to the female’s freedom in the relationship. This masterpiece shows how no human can stand against God or what he has in turn for you. As the protagonist's life is put together life lessons are shown in themes of power, male domination, love, inequality, discrimination sexism, teaching her things she wouldn’t have known.
Through symbolism and imagery, in the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neal Hurston highlights the theme that all helpless individuals rely on powerful beings for hope. In the narrative, Janie, the protagonist, describes her life story chronologically, which ends with a violent hurricane. Janie and her husband, Teacake, decide not to believe the hurricane warnings and stay home near lake Okeechobee. Unfortunately, the cyclone arrives with the lake and catastrophically destroys their town. This hurricane made people faithful that “The bossman might have the (hurricane) stopped before morning…” and that “Ole Massa is doin’ His work now” (159).
Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Look into a Woman’s Perspective Often overlooked, the female perspective is one that is unique and different from typical male perspectives. Author Zora Neale Hurston reveals such a perspective to readers in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Within this work, Hurston centers the story around main character Janie Mae Crawford and her life throughout the years. From adolescence to adulthood, Hurston uses symbolism to represent Janie’s perspective as she navigates through her journeys of joy and sorrow. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the pear tree, the horizon, and the bee and blossom as symbols of Janie’s ideals and dreams.
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.
Is it worth risking everything in order to be happy? In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, an African American woman named Janie makes many challenging decisions in order to be happy. This novel takes place in the 1920’s which creates many obstacles that Janie must overcome in order to achieve happiness. There are many stereotypes and inequalities during this time that make life extremely difficult for Janie. Although Janie allows others to mistreat her at points throughout the novel, she is overall an excellent role model for young readers because she overcomes several stereotypes of African American females during this time period, and she makes many difficult decisions based solely on her own happiness.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses speech as a tool to show the progression of the story. Janie Crawford, the main character of the novel, finds her true identity and ability to control her voice through many hardships. When Janie’s grandmother dies she is married off, to be taken care of. In each marriage that follows, she learns what it is to be a woman with a will and a voice. Throughout the book, Janie finds herself struggling against intimidating men who attempt to victimize her into a powerless role.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston develops a contrast between the male and female genders of the time period of the story, and the male and female gender of today. Hurston wrote this novel in or about a time when women were considered simple-minded , women were disempowered by the empowered man in the relationship, and women can only gain power through marriage. But when Janie kisses Johnny Taylor, her view of men changes after seeing “a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!
