Symbolism In The Eir Eyes Were Watching God

“Your time is limited, so don 't waste it living someone else 's life. Don 't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people 's thinking. Don 't let the noise of others ' opinions drown out your own inner voice,” Steve Jobs once said. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author uses many stylistic and literary elements to emphasize that Janie, the main protagonist, must not let anyone take away her voice.

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston supports a theme of desire, love, and independence. Neale uses different literary devices such as symbolism and motif.

"There's two things everybody got to find out for theyselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore." (Film) Janie, a young, strong willed, black woman, sets of on a life long journey to find her perfect shore in Their Eyes Were Watching God. While this is true for both the film and novel, some argue that the film excluded some of the most important pieces from the novel. However, details about Nanny, Leafy, Logan Killicks, and Jody, may have been unnecessary for the big screen.

To begin with, when Janie was a pre-teen girl, she was obviously afraid of the social pressure, the overwhelming gender and racial discrimination. It was Nanny who told her the significance of observing the social order and follow the will of the white. For example, Nanny had experienced the cruelty of slavery. To help her grand-daughter live a good life, Nanny bought some land and a house finally and decided only marry Janie to a rich white person could Janie be prevented from the disasters as hers. She caught Janie with Johny and married her to Logan, a wealthy farmer. However, threatened by the terror of social tradition, she does not fight aggressively against this order. She naively thought a

Have you ever been in a past relationship and started a new one only to realize you have been comparing the two? You may realize that you desire the past spark that the present does not have. In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, she utilizes juxtaposition to discreetly invite the audience to compare two scenes; whether it be Janie’s reactions to events, Janie’s outlook on a goal or fantasy versus someone else's, or how Janie is treated by her spouse.

All people grow and develop at different rates, with factors such as heredity and environment strongly influencing one's development. The age-old debate of nature-vs-nurture is at the forefront, as always. The people one meets, and the experiences one goes through play vital roles in forming that person. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford grows as a woman with the men she was married to. Through the tides of life and relationships she realizes how a person is truly supposed to live their life. Janie's three marriages play crucial roles as elements in her development as a person and as a woman. Countless allusions and symbols crafted by Zora Neale Hurston flow fluidly throughout the novel and allow for the reader to understand Janie Crawford’s journey and extensive development. These recurrent patterns serve to better illustrate abstract concepts in the novel. Hurston's powerful use of symbols and allusions work to describe Janie’s relationships along with clarifying and intensifying the telling of Janie's story and growth.

The main conflict in Their Eyes Were Watching God is between Janie and her grandmother, Nanny Crawford. Nanny has been raising Janie since birth. She treats Janie as if she were her own. Nanny and Janie love each other, but through the years, they have shared differences of opinion. Nanny 's opinion on marriage, life, and social status fuels their conflict.

Every people have their own love, this is what all of people have heard or read since they are born. This story, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neal Hurston, involved many secret meanings on itself. Among those many meanings, the Janie’s progress of taking true love is the clearest thing. Author divides the progress as a chronological order as the Janie’s husband has changed. Not only author express end of love, but also does she uses literature device during a chapter, living with a husband.

Zora Neale Hurston once said that “No matter how far away a person can go the horizon is till way beyond you”, and in her fictional novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston takes the audience through Janie Crawford’s journey to her horizon. The novel, published in 1937 follows Janie through her three marriages to Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods. Each of Janie’s relationships move her closer and closer to her dreams symbolized as her horizon. Through her relationships with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake, Janie gains a sense of perspective, freedom, and opportunity.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses lots of characterization and figurative language to give the reader an inside on Janie’s feelings and surroundings. In chapter the way the men focus of Janie’s physical features, and women criticize Janie’s hygiene and looks allows the reader to make an image of how Janie looks. The men were “saving with the mind what they lost with the eye,” and the women “took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance,” this also shows how the women were going to keep that image of Janie in their head to hold over her (Hurston 2). Janie has a love for nature, the figurative language and metaphors allows the reader to understand Janie and her connections with nature. Hurston uses the pear tree in the backyard to show how Janie felt free and

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston Janie finds herself in two marriages; One that was chosen for her and one that she chose herself. Both of husbands contrast the other. Although neither of her marriages were very successful. Despite Janie’s desire to marry her true love she is unsuccessful in finding a suitable husband.

In like manner, the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston can be closely associated with Mr. Foster’s “quest formula”. The novel revolves around a main character named Janie who, since a young girl, has always wanted to find true love after witnessing a bee pollinating a pear tree. With only her grandmother as her family, she married twice, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, before she found a man that made her happy. During unexpected circumstances, Janie had to kill Tea Cake and return to her previous home, where she rationalizes that Tea Cake gave her what she wanted the most, freedom and free will, and finally finds her peace of mind.

In the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” relationships were a big part of the reason, Janie woods was such a dynamic character. The reason being, she was faced with many different trials and tribulations, which found their way into her path making her ability to find love and pursue it, a little difficult. Another reason was opinions that she got from her family, friends and peers in her surroundings. Those negative components, were reasons there were positive changes in janie. Being forced, pressured and mislead into relationships made her stronger, and more independent.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is in many ways a novel about the protagonist's sexual awakening. As it was written in the conservative early twentieth century, much of this sexuality is masked in metaphor.

Racism can be defined as prejudice, discrimination, or contributions to a system that perpetuates the idea that one race is inferior to another. Racism was heavily enforced throughout American history, specifically in the early 1900’s. Coincidentally, this was the same time feminists, or women’s-rights activists, were in the in the midst of their fight for equality. Feminism is the theory that women should be treated equally to men in terms of social, political, and economic matters. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses the protagonist, Janie, to convey both concepts through her journey to self-love and acceptance. Due to Janie’s realization of the racial caste system and the structural misogyny in society, the focuses of