Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis

“Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston”. In this story the main character Janie gets married three times. Her first husband Logan Killicks didn’t work out because she was forced to marry him by her Nanny. The second husband Joe Starks, she kinda had feelings for him, but it wasn’t anything big. Then her third husband was Tea Cake, she love him and actually had feelings for him. Now all three husbands represent something in Janie’s emotional, spiritual, and physical growth.

The black culture is very diverse in different parts of the world-even in different parts of the state. Janie as moved throughout Florida to places such as West Florida, Eatonville, and the Everglades. Residing in these different places helps develop and define the character of Janie. Throughout Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie experiences many variations of black culture that helps build her character as she travels through Florida.

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.

The unique story that is Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story of voices collected together to create one big voice. Hurston uses many characters’ voices to help Janie find her own, actual voice and tell her story by the end of the novel. The story by Zora Neale Hurston is a frame story which is a story within a story. Hurston, like many other authors, uses the frame narrative to help the story come full circle and create a sense that the reader is part of the story. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses multiple voices throughout the story to show all the parts that come together to fully understand Janie’s story.

“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”

"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.

One of the universal themes of literature is the idea that children suffer because of the mistakes of an earlier generation. The novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" follows the story of Janie Mae Crawford through her childhood, her turbulent and passionate relationships, and her rejection of the status quo and through correlation of Nanny 's life and Janie 's problems, Hurston develops the theme of children 's tribulations stemming from the teachings and thoughts of an earlier generation. Nanny made a fatal mistake in forcibly pushing her own conclusions about life, based primarily on her own experiences, onto her granddaughter Janie and the cost of the mistake was negatively affecting her relationship with Janie.

“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. Neale Hurston further supports this theme with symbolism, like Janie's hair rag that held up her

Although she is the protagonist, the supplementary characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God have a different definition of what portrays as desire. Desire for them, relates to a feeling of want that can be accomplished through someone else, and also as a feeling that effects other character’s feelings. The antagonists demonstrate desire as a feeling or wanting to control someone else’s desires of wanting, like Janie. The importance of Janie going along with these peer-developed desires is that through completing them, she finds her own self-fulfillment and self-discovery. Gorman Beauchamp discusses in Zora Neale Hurston’s Other Eatonville, the connections that Hurston made between her own life and Janie’s life within Their Eyes Were Watching God. He reflects mostly on Jody’s character and states “[Jody] and his creation compose the force that stunts Janie’s growth and stifles her desires: he embodies in his considerable girth the oppressive patriarchy of feminist theory” (Beauchamp 85). This not only indicates Jody’s effect on Janie’s life, but it is also similar to the other character’s motives to Janie. These developed desires directed to Janie are seen to properly align her into where the other characters feel she should

Both Joe and Tea Cake’s funerals are representative of how they lived as people. Joe constantly exuded an aura of power and dominance and made people respect him. As a result, he was seen as a god-like figure by many and in a sense was impossible to relate to. The imagery of “[p]eople on farm horses and mules; babies riding astride of brothers ' and sisters ' backs” (88) makes it seem as though they are going on a religious pilgrimage rather than grieving over a loved one. By mentioning how the “expensive black folds” of the coffin “were resurrection and life” Joe may be likened to Jesus in how he was resurrected after three days of being killed (88). However, although many idolized him, Janie did not feel remorse during the funeral. Rather,

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Janie is held back from growing to her full potential. Janie is married three times and in each marriage there is one item that restrains her. In her marriage with Joe she was forced to wear a head rag to cover her hair because it is so long and beautiful.

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. Therefore, the opening scene is actually the closing scene, which leads to a flashback that eventually encompasses the whole novel. At the age of 16, Janie was sitting outside under a pear tree when she witnesses a revelation. Under the pear tree, she witnesses a bee pollinating the

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston can be characterized as an African-American novel; at least, according to Toni Morrison’s criteria for this genre of novel, it can be. Morrison claims that for a novel to be categorized as African-American, it must contain three things: a “community commenting on or responding to the action,” “the presence of an ancestor” who provides insight and wisdom to the main character, and “an oral quality.” This novel contains all three of these criteria in the forms of characters like Nanny Crawford and the porch-sitters, and in Janie’s oral telling of her story to her friend Pheoby Watson. Through these characteristics, Their Eyes Were Watching God makes a connection to traditional African storytelling

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. It is not confrontation that keeps Janie strong, but her retreat into silence that makes her strong. Through her hardships, Janie finds her true identity and the ability to control her voice. Janie uses speech as a vehicle for liberation through her marriages with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible Woods.

Porch. A covered shelter projecting in front of the entrance of a building. This inanimate object served to develop various themes throughout the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. She reveals the theme of jealousy and envy, gender inequality and a sense of community with the help of the porch.