Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Janie’s search for love and self
Their eyes were watching god overall theme
Their eyes were watching god overall theme
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Janie’s search for love and self
Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God: Exposing Strength to Defy Society Although happiness can be attained by everyone, not everyone is able to choose their own contentment. Criticism has been and still is a problem in today’s society. Some people are forced to do what others tell them to do, not allowing them to decide the paths of their life. This problem can be observed in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s quest for her identity emerges from her experiences, which make her discover that strength is the key to find self-fulfillment and true happiness despite a cruel society. Janie starts her life without knowledge of two precious gifts: truth and love. Janie is raised by her oppressive grandmother who deprecates
When Janie is finally on her own, she begins to acquire her own sense of self-esteem and ethics. As Janie meets Tea Cake, the man who will change her life, Janie is prepare to have a relationship in which she is as important to herself and also important to the man who is with her. With Tea Cake, everything was different. Janie’s attitude indicates freedom and self-discovery, her hair is what communicates her independence and power. Janie could wear colorful dresses and she could show off her hair, something that she did not do while she was married to Jody Stacks. Janie was finally free to love whoever she wanted to. As always, not everyone accepted Janie’s relationship, when Janie left town to marry Tea Cake, the town starts to gossip about how Tea Cake was younger than Janie, they also assure that Janie was being taken for her money. Despite all of the critics, Janie decides to continue with her romance, she no longer cares about the comments of people because she finds that her new husband loves and appreciates her immensely. “He kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull. Then we lives off a dat happiness he made till some mo’ happiness come along” (Hurston 141). For the first time, Janie has found happiness in a marriage, Tea Cake was not a wealthy man, but he was the perfect man for Janie. He reveals his love by praising in Janie’s beauty; he loves her the
At the end, Janie’s allegiance to her own needs makes her unconcerned to the townsfolks’ judgements. Similarly, young people who are struggling to conflict decisions can identify with the idea that strength and sacrifice can lead to self-empowerment and true
If Ah ever gits tuh messin’ round another woman it won’t be on account of her age. It’ll be because she got me in de same way you got me—so Ah can’t help mahself." Tea Cake professes his love to Janie by saying that she is the only woman he thought of marrying. Tea Cake knows that he will be loyal to Janie, but can not control other women's urges to flirt with him. When Tea Cake tells Janie that he is the man in her life he says:"You don’t have tuh say, if it wuzn’t fuh me, baby, cause Ah’m heah, and then Ah want yuh tuh know it’s uh man heah." (Ch.18). Tea Cake wants Janie to know that he is nothing like her other husbands, but is perfect for her. Tea Cake is essentially perfect for Janie because he helped her accomplish her her ultimate dream of love. Janie and Tea Cake’s marriage is the key to a good marriage because they treat each other with equality and
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, everyone has different ideas of what marriage is. In the end Janie learned marriage is what you make of it. Love can only be found when your beliefs match with an others idea. Even today people find out the hard way that they are not compatible and that one’s view of marriage is different. This can be seen every day between couples who separate and among others whose marriages last the rest of their lives. Life is a learning process and we must take the bad with the good. Instead of searching for a nourishing life, Janie searched for someone to rely on. Although they were different types of reliance, she jumped from person to person so that she would not have to face life alone.
Janie then leaves Joe and doesn’t speak to him again until he is on his death bed. After Joe’s passing Janie meets a young man called Tea Cake. The town’s people feared that Tea Cake was only with Janie to attempt to steal her money. Janie ignored these warnings and runs away with Tea Cake anyway; Tea Cake soon gambles all of Janie’s money away. Not wanting Janie to provide for the two of them, Tea Cake moves the two of them to the everglades to harvest crops. Tea Cake allows Janie to be his equal and even lets her work in the fields with him. A hurricane rolls into Florida and instead of leaving with everyone else Tea Cake and Janie stay. During the storm while trying to protect Janie, Joe is bitten by a rabid dog and contracts rabies which eventually leads Janie to shoot him in self-defense. After buying an extravagant funeral for Tea Cake Janie returns to Eatonville to tell her story. Throughout Janie’s life her care takers/husbands have played four very different roles in molding Janie into the strong woman she becomes: Nanny wan an overbearing parental figure, Logan was her first husband that treated Janie like his slave, Joe was her second husband who held Janie as a trophy, and Tea Cake her third and final husband was Janie’s
In the beginning of the novel, Janie attempts to find her voice and identity; the task, of harnessing
Janie’s character undergoes a major change after Joe’s death. She has freedom. While the town goes to watch a ball game Janie meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake teaches Janie how to play checkers, hunt, and fish. That made Janie happy. “Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 96). Tea Cake gave her the comfort of feeling wanted. Janie realizes Tea Cake’s difference from her prior relationships because he wants her to become happy and cares about what she likes to do. Janie tells Pheoby about moving away with Tea Cake and Pheoby tells her that people disapprove of the way she behaves right after the death of her husband. Janie says she controls her life and it has become time for her to live it her way. “Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 114). Janie becomes stronger as she dates Tea Cake because she no longer does for everyone else. Janie and Tea Cake decided to move to the Everglades, the muck. One afternoon, a hurricane came. The hurricane symbolizes disaster and another change in Janie’s life. “Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature. Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the
Identity is something every human quests for. Individuals tend to manipulate views, ideas, and prerogative. Janie's identity became clay in her family and friends hands. Most noteworthy was Janie's grandmother, Nanny. Janie blossomed into a young woman with an open mind and embryonic perspective on life. Being a young, willing, and full of life, Janie made the "fatal mistake" of becoming involved in the follies of an infatuation with the opposite sex. With this phase in Janie's life Nanny's first strong hold on Janie's neck flexed its grip. Preoccupation with romantic love took the backseat to Nanny's stern view on settling down with someone with financial stability. Hence, Janie's identity went through its first of many transformations. She fought within her self, torn between her adolescent sanction and Nanny's harsh limitations, but final gave way and became a cast of Nanny's reformation.
As much as Tea Cake had the qualities Janie was looking for she found a greater understanding of herself as a women besides her love. Janie was inexperienced at the start of her adventure, learned that love will not always come from promises, and had major reflection when she finished her first marriage with Joe that she went into with assurance. Janie was able to get a glimpse of independency after Joe died which is conveyed through the quote “Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine” (Hurston 90). Before meeting, Tea Cake Janie was able to understand that she was comfortable with not searching for love. However, Tea Cake was a reminder to her that her ideals of love were still out in the world. He was able to make Janie happy from doing things fun and childish and these activities like fishing during the knight, or playing chess were the things that society would not accept for a women like Janie. The first major instance when Tea Cake helped Janie go against society was when he played chess with her. While a small act to some readers, Janie found the act enormous in her eyes as it showed her that Tea Cake was a man able
... Janie is a strong independent woman, who lives in a society that does not encourage that kind of behavior in women. During the novel she is told what to do, how to do it and at one point who to marry. She struggles with her growing unhappiness until she finally meets her true love. Bibliography Shmoop Editorial Team.
Nicholas Sparks once wrote, “ You can’t live your life for other people. You have to do what’s right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.” In other words, a person must live life in his favor because it’s his own happiness that truly matters. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Hurston uses many devices to illustrate that if one wants to truly achieve inner happiness he must live life for himself and no one else.
Hurston uses Janie and Tea Cake's relationship to establish the message that respect can do wonders in a marriage. When there is understanding and equality, a healthy relationship will surely form. Money and power will provide temporary happiness; whereas, Tea Cake makes Janie feel the type of happiness only true love can bring. She's finally getting to feel the idealized love she has always wanted.
Janie found what she was looking for. She searched all her life to find what was within herself, and one special person was all that was needed to bring it out in her. Even though her and Tea Cake’s relationship ended in a tragedy, she knew that he really loved her for who she was. She didn’t need to be with him for protection, or she didn’t need to be the leading lady of a town or a mayor’s wife, she just needed the right kind of love and affection to bring out what was best in her.
Recovering from an identity crisis that lasted most of her childhood, Janie realizes who she wants to be with the help of a pear tree, but her grandmother disapproves of her dissimilar feelings and forces her to cast away her horizon. With no parents there to raise her, Janie loses her sense of identity. She spends her childhood under the care of her grandma and the white people Nanny works for, and as a result, she spends all of her time playing with the Washburn’s four children. Janie does not realize that she is different from them until she turns six. When she sees a photograph of herself for the first time, she refuses to recognize her darker skin color. To compensate for her lack of self, she goes by the nickname “Alphabet” because she has so many different names. Both her connection to the Washburn family and her biracial ethnicity isolate her from the black and white communities. African-American children mock her for her nice clothes; vulnerable and frail, Jani...
In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora illustrates the importance of relationships throughout ones’ life. Through two very different relationships with two very different people, Janie’s self can be determined. When learning about individuality, it is a bare essential to look at their background. Janie’s and my individuality and independence are influenced by both our surroundings our relationships with the people around us.
Watching God is a narrative about Janie’s quest to free herself from repression and explore
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...