Theme Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

At 16 Janie marries Logan Killicks. Nanny arranges this marriage for protection and not for love. As a result of her past, she forced Janie into being with Logan. In this marriage, Janie shows that she does not love him. She states, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think. Ah..." (Hurston 24). Logan does not show any love for Janie. Janie’s unhappiness taught her that love can not be forced upon anyone.

As Janie’s guardian, Nanny more or less had full control over her, especially so, given the time period. Janie’s marriage to Logan was completely a product of Nanny’s insistence. Even in her marriage to Joe, a choice that Janie made herself, she had little to no control over own well-being, once they were married. These decisions and their consequences made up the first half of Janie’s life, which is bewildering, because none of them were actually her decisions. Janie’s reclamation of power over herself, in her relationship with Tea Cake, is only the beginning of her spiritual

One of the juxtapositions Hurston includes in her novel is presented after the death of Janie’s second husband, compared to the death of Janie’s final husband. Any individual knowing Janie would idealize a grand funeral and a truly sorrowful widow to the death of her prosperous and well-known

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” had a motif that explains the whole book about Janie’s first love. The motif was “He could be the bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring.” (Hurston 106). The pear tree is Tea Cake which symbolizes the

Desire is a general and popular human sensation. Zora Neale Hurston discusses many instances of desire in Their Eyes Were Watching God. The novel portrays numerous varieties of desire that demonstrate the protagonist, Janie’s alteration from wanting an object to desiring a specific idea throughout the novel. As Janie acquires her own desires and possibly lives a better and more fulfilling life, Hurston indicates that these desires are in fact not structured by Janie’s own thoughts and experiences, but rather implicated by antagonists in the novel and also often making Janie the desired focus. Through the first four chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston allows Janie to experience multiple life altering desires that mold her into

People come into our lives for different reasons. Some leave a positive impact, while others bring negativity. Readers and critics alike have treasured Zora Neale Hurston’s 20th century novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, for generations particularly for its complex portrayal of the different main characters. The people a person meet and the experiences that person many go through in their lifetime can alter a person significantly. Through the tyrannical words of Joe Starks and the inconsiderate actions of Nanny, Janie in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is negatively influenced as her actions and thoughts alter her life. The author Zora Neale Hurston conveys the message that people closest to a person’s heart can often hide their true

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.

After reading Hibben’s critique I agree with the statements she makes. Hibben’s talks about how Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship was different from the others. When Janie was with Mister Killicks she didn’t care about his “land, and his sagging belly, and his toenails that looked like mules’ feet,” she wanted love not material things. Janie wasn’t pleased with all the nice things she could obtain from marrying Mister Killicks, she was looking for the happiness love would give her, not what Killicks had. This can also explain why Janie ran away with Joe Starks. Janie was enticed with Starks’ words and thought that he could be the one that could give her the love she was searching for. However, she was not happy with being the “mayor’s wife,” that just did what Starks told her to do. Janie did not feel love until, as Hibben’s describes, “Tea Cake came along with his trampish clothes and his easy way and his nice grin,” allowing Janie to fall for him. Even if Tea Cake was younger he made her feel something she never had before,

When Janie was a young girl she had romance on the brain. She had her first kiss underneath a blossoming pear tree. Her Nanny does not want to her be kissing any boys until she is married (Hurston 18-19). She does not want her grand daughter to be an easy girl.

Janie and TeaCake just arrived in the Everglades, and shortly after that TeaCake found a job as a bean planter. The money coming in from his job, as well as the money from Janie, allowed them the ability to buy a “house”. The “house” is more of a shack, but Janie puts her special touch on it to spruce up the place and make it feel like home. While in the Everglades there is not much to do, so TeaCake goes hunting with Janie and teaches her how to shoot a gun. They go hunting so many times and shooting so many times that Janie starts to become a better shooter than TeaCake.

The internal structure of Their Eyes Were Watching God is told in a logical order. Janie begins the story and then a flashback (frame) continues on to the end. There are several motifs, community, race and racism, and religion are a few.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, it is clear that Janie does not care about what people think about her when she exclaims,

Janie, at first, doubts Tea Cake loves her because of her age and then, on account of her fortune, fears he may have married her only to run off with her money. However, Tea Cake proves through and through that he loves Janie for Janie and treats her with love accordingly. Though Janie and Tea Cake’s marriage is not perfect, (such as when he beats her to show Mrs. Turner and her brother that he is in possession of Janie) she has found the “bee for her bloom” in Tea Cake. Willingly, unlike with Killicks who would have forced her, Janie works with her husband in the fields when she and Tea Cake make a home in the Everglades (184–185). When jealousies arise through the flirtation of Nunkie, a girl who takes a liking to Tea Cake, Janie and Tea Cake fight but talk through and express their feelings over the flirtation to one another until each gives in and they become united once more (188–191). This jealousy is completely unlike Jody’s jealousy of men looking at Janie’s hair in the store; where Jody refuses to open up and explain his feelings to Janie because of his pride, Tea Cake and Janie are able to communicate their emotions to one another and resolve the tension. While her other two marriages were action based and emotional deaths of love, the pride that kills Janie’s third marriage is a physical death. Tea Cake pridefully refuses an offer to take Janie and escape from the Everglades before the hurricane comes upon them. Tea Cake tells ‘Lias, who has offered he and Janie a ride out of the Everglades “Man, de money’s too good on the muck. It’s liable tuh fair off by tuhmorrer. Ah wouldn’t leave if Ah wuz you… De white folks ain’t gone nowhere. Dey oughta know if it’s dangerous” (214–215). Instead of relying on the natural, God-given signs (Indians and animals fleeing), Tea Cake pridefully relies on his desire to keep bringing in money and on the fact that the white men have not left. Tea Cake

When Janie first arrives to the town, she is greeted by envious glares and cruel remarks from the porch sitters. “Seeing [Janie] as she was” made them remember the “envy they had stored up from other times.” Their jealousy ate them them through till they couldn’t take it any longer. They made “burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters;

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. (Hurston.1)” This represents the dreams of men, always in reach, never too far. “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. (Hurtson.1)” Women were not given the same opportunities as men were, so when they had a dream, they shoved it to the side. Not because they wanted to, but because they that’s what was expected of them. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God displayed a forever long journey of Janie Crawford. Set in the 1930’s Janie was expected to marry and have children. However, Janie’s idea of marriage was a bit different than her concerned Nanny’s. Nanny did not want her granddaughter, Janie, to be a house maid as she was. So when a prosperous suitor made his feelings for Janie apparent, Nanny arranged for Janie and Logan Killicks to be Wed. This was the beginning of Janie’s journey of love.