The Things They Carried, By Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God What do a bee and a flower have in common with marriage? Even if by accident, nature intends for a mutual relationship of growth and blossoming between two partners. Zora Neal Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows Janie Crawford, who attempts to find herself despite the presence of extreme sexism and two dominating husbands.

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.

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.

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 had two previous marriages with the likes of Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, and neither one of them panned out well. She was forced to leave both of them due to the fact of neither one of them treating the way she was supposed to be leading to her not having love for them. However, Janie would finally find the love of her life in the form of Tea Cake. As soon as Janie locked eyes with Tea Cake, she was instantly attracted to tea Cake and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with

When tea cake shows up janie 's feels something she has never felt before, she is set free but the townspeople don 't think so. “‘Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money him bein’ younger than you?’” (Hurston pg.133)Janie is in love with Tea Cake because he loves her for her youthful young side that was forced into hiding for so long because of her previous husbands. However the rest of the community is discouraging her and trying to keep her in the image as a mayor 's wife. They told Janie that Tea Cake was after her money

more’n you kin say… When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” (Hurston 79). Janie stands up for herself and verbally attacks her husband, which was unusual for the time

“Where he left her?” This quote from one of the porch dwellers explains how Janie had just come out of a relationship with Teacake, and

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!

During Janie's first marriage, she outwardly conforms to the societal view of marriage, and the domestic wife, while inwardly questioning if she can learn to disregard her true

She needs to learn how to try to find herself more and what she wants that is not materialistic rather than just settling for things that may first appealing, but will only leave her unsatisfied at the end. Their Eyes Were Watching God Study Questions Chapters 10-15 10. Discuss Janie 's relationship with Tea Cake in comparison/contrast approach to Logan and Jody. Janie

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie merely wants to love someone, but that choice is ripped out of her hands when Nanny makes her marry someone she does not love. This marriage as well as another one does not work out because she never learns to love them. Finally, she meets Tea Cake, and falls madly in love with him even though he is a lot younger than she is. He is someone that she can truly love while still being able to be herself. They go through their struggles as well and sadly, he dies by the end of the novel.

Janie had a spiritual reassessment, which caused her to realize that none but her has a choice in how she lives her life. Janie is, somewhat, putting the pieces of this philosophy together throughout her journey; but she does not have a full reawakening until the very end, after Tea Cake’s death. It is at this point that she realizes the full extent of her worth and right to free will.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is a young woman who struggles to find her identity. Janie Separates her exterior life from her interior life by keeping certain thoughts and emotions inside her head, and she reconciles this by while presenting the proper woman society expects her to be. Janie also silently protests to those expectations by acting against what people require of her, both emotionally and physically. When Janie’s rude and abusive husband, Joe, dies, Janie is glad because she is finally free from him.

Written by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, follows a young woman named Janie Crawford and her coming of age story. The novel is introduced with Janie returning back to Eatonville after the passing of her husband Tea Cake. In the opening scene, Janie opens up to her friend Pheoby and tells her how things have been since she had left with Tea cake two years ago. However, Phoebe doesn't understand the story Janie is trying to tell her because she incorporates events from when her grandmother was around thus confusing her friend.