Their Eyes Were Watching God Reflection

Janie Crawford finds and loses herself in Their Eyes Were Watching God many times through her three marriages; Janie’s three husbands each play a key role in her becoming a woman within herself. She was married to Logan Killicks at a young age and learned marriage and love don’t always go hand and hand. Janie left Logan for her second husband, Joe Starks, who offered her the prospect of love. In the end, he taught her that being a woman takes courage far greater than she ever knew. Her third marriage to Tea Cakes gave Janie everything that was missing from her life.

Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses odd names. Each name serves its purpose. Hurston uses name such as: Logan Killicks, Jody (Joe) Starks, and Tea Cake. In Chapter 4, Janie and Logan had had a verbal fight.

In the books, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Cane by Jean Toomer, spiritual elements are displayed in the characters and their actions. While the books show these spiritual elements in most of their characters, the women in particular are other-worldly and out of reach. These characteristics are not only emphasized by the protagonists themselves but also by the characters around them, especially, although it is unknowingly, by the men. In Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie is a goddess for many characters throughout the novel, especially Pheoby and Mrs. Turner.

On the road of self-discovery In the novel "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Janie Mae Crawford struggles perpetually with society for self identification. She challenges the stereotypical African American woman by determining her own independence. Janie significantly changes both internally and externally throughout the novel with the influence of her grandmother and her quest for self identity. Janie's grandmother, Nanny, had a major influence person in Janie's life. Nanny wanted social and financial security for her granddaughter.

In 1920s Harlem, swing music reigned, great works of art and literature were being created every day, African American creative expression was at its height - The Harlem Renaissance was alive. Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, was one such black expressionist at this time. Several characters in her celebrated novel demonstrate the ideas of the Harlem renaissance, but most notable of these characters is Janie, the strong, Black woman that the novel is based around. The novel tells the story of Janie’s journey for love, and the heartbreak and misfortune that she encounters along the way to the “horizon”. Zora Neale Hurston’s writing is both a reflection and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance The Harlem

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God the author, Zora Neale Hurston, utilizes the motifs of the horizon and the road to symbolize the theme that a big part of achieving your dreams is the journey you choose to take to get there. Hurston uses these motifs to try and convey her message that without traveling on the right road you will never reach your horizon. If you do not focus on the journey you may never reach your dreams. Early in the novel Hurston uses the horizon motif to show that men have more unrealistic dreams and horizons, thus never reaching them because they never focus on the journey they take to get there.

Differences are what make people interesting. Different religions, cultures, and beliefs affect everyone and are interesting to see. However, sometimes these differences cause people to be persecuted. Prejudices threaten the cultural diversity that make the world such an interesting place. In Zora Neal Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie is ostracized from her community because of the color of her skin.

Joelle Windmiller Their Eyes Were Watching God and Sexuality 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. Zora Neale Hurston takes a naturalist approach to expressing sexuality in her book. The experience in which Janie attempts to make her first expression of love, Nanny resents her actions and proceeds to turn it into something to be ashamed of.

Jealously In “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston sees jealously as a flaw in the African American community and on a personal level as inhibitor that clouds a person’s actions, thoughts, and judgement. Throughout the story, Hurston touches on jealously in how it makes people act and how it’s an ugly characteristic to have. In the beginning of the story when Janie is reminiscing about her childhood, she talks about a young girl named Mayrella who used to bully her. “Dere wuz uh knotty head gal name Mayrella dat useter git mad every time she look at me.

Despite its profound position, the novel Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston has been challenged of its place in high school student’s education by parents and educational groups. Their main argument implied that the novel contained sexual explicitness, obscenity, racial remarks and vulgar reasons. However, Their Eyes were Watching God should contain its place in the high school English curriculum because of two reasons: its significance in American History and the moral of love and self-expression. First, this book withholds too many important factors in American history to be left out. Hurston uses various examples in order to express the hardships of

In the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, adapted from the novel authored by one Zora Hurston, Hurston utilizes the character Joe Starks to demonstrate the social issues such as domestic abuse and objectification of African American women of this time. Starks is a man that had been stripped of the possibility of power his entire life. Being a well of African American, starks had an understanding of wealth but subsequently craved the power typically associated with it. As mayor elect of the town Eatonville—starks utilized his newfound power to the fullest. However, with the town at his mercy Starks began to reveal his arrogance, impertinence, anger, jealousy and his constant objectification of women.

“I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want”-Muhammad Ali (brainyquotes). In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie's growth from a young girl without an identity, not knowing her own race, to a woman strong enough to return to her hometown of Eatonville allows her to discover who she is and how she has the power to change her own life. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God shows that the only way to achieve fulfillment is to ignore society's control and concentrate on one's own desires, while avoiding selfishness. This is revealed as Janie moves through abusive relationships to one which finally allows her room for her own thoughts and

The gender roles that Janie experiences ultimately prove to be the downfall of her first two marriages. Her relationships become rocky as she begins to chafe under the pressure of satisfying the men’s expectations. Unfortunately, these two marriages were likely not the only ones to perish during the same time period for the same reasons.

Most teenagers struggle with finding themselves. Sometimes, this struggle continues for their entire life. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston emphasizes that life-long battle. She shows her readers that everyone toils with finding themselves and that loving someone won’t always help them find their identity. She uses many symbols to help describe this struggle.

Life is full of challenges and learning experiences, everything we go through makes us stronger and better people. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie fumbles through three complex marriages that provide protection, stability, and love and happiness. After trial and error she realizes that she must think about herself by applying what she has learned from her relationships and cherishing her values. she is involved with three men who were all but perfect. The similarities and differences in Janie’s three spouses Mr. Killicks, Jody, and Tea Cake suggest that relationships present challenges which you can learn to overcome the complexities of marriage ultimately improving the quality of your