Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In life, all humans are looking for love and respect. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie searches her whole life looking for love and finally finds it with Tea Cake. When she was a child, she craved the love from her grandmother but she received mostly a structured life with a lot of responsibility. Her first marriage was to Logan Killicks, which Janie soon realized that she wasn’t married because of love, but because of the amount of work she could do to keep the farm going. Her second marriage was to Joe Starks which lasted twenty years, but she never felt the love even though she had economic security. Finally, Janie learns what true love is with Tea Cake. Janie’s love for these men gets very puzzling throughout the novel, will Janie figure out what true love really is?

Nanny works for a white woman and saves enough money to buy some land and her own home. She loves Janie very much and has dreams that she would not have to work for another white family. In Nanny’s eyes, this was the most important type of love, but Janie craves to understand what real love is. Janie could not understand other people’s love. define love for everyone because that would imply that ones love could duplicate another’s. However, as she grew, her definition of loved changed to understanding that there are different ways that people loved each other. Nanny okays Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks, but Logan, who is an older man, is searching for someone to work on his farm. Janie is saddened to find that there isn’t love between her and Logan. She was taken as a bride mainly to help Logan with the plowing, planting,