The American Dream addressed in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God through the character Janie Crawford, the dream of finding true love. In her search for love she experienced different aspects of love through her three different marriages. Her biggest influence was her old grandmother. She lived life based off of her grandmother’s perceptions of how a black women should live. Janie’s grandmother dream was the dream of many women in their town which was to be married, have a home, and land as stated in the novel, "Heah you is wid de onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks, in yo' parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road and...Lawd have mussy! Dat's de very prong all us black …show more content…
Dis love! Dat's just whut's got us pullin' and uh haulin' and sweatin' and doin' from can't see in de mornin' till can't see at night." Janie’s Grandmother believed that was the American Dream for them and Janie has to be willing to work, haul, and sweat to have that lifestyle. Janie’s grandmother wanted her to find a man that she loved and could depend on so that she could have someone other than her before her grandmother passes away. One man in particular that her grandmother thought best suited Janie was Logan Kellicks which Janie was against the marriage in the beginning, ‘’The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree, but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor’’ (Hurston 13), but continued to stay with him because she depended on him. After her grandmothers death Janie thinks over the dreams her grandmother installed in her and think about her own dreams now that her Grandmother is gone. As stated, "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman’’, meaning that she had a purpose in life when her grandmother was alive but she now realizes that that’s not the dream she wanted and now she searches to find what dream she
Scene: Janie’s loneliness, desire for marriage and naive nature leads her to an ill-advised, and as a result brief, marriage to an older man named Logan Killicks. This demonstrates both her love longing and her lack of experience with love. Still, terrible as the marriage is, it is a learning experience.
In the beginning years of Janie’s life, there were two people who she is dependent on. Her grandmother is Nanny, and her first husband is named Logan Killicks. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, “Janie, an attractive woman with long hair, born without benefit of clergy, is her heroine” (Forrest). Janie’s grandmother felt that Janie needs someone to depend on before she dies and Janie could no longer depend on her. In the beginning, Janie is very against the marriage. Nanny replied with, “’Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, its protection. ...He done spared me...a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life” (Hurston 18). Nanny is sure to remind Janie that she needs a man in her life for safety, thus making Janie go through life with that thought process.
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
Janie gained this experience in love as she discovered that the promises of love are not always true. Janie was promised many things in her life and most of them were the promise of finding love and obtaining it. Janie’s grandmother promised her that even if she did not like Logan Killicks that she would find love in her marriage with him, but Janie discovered that no love was to be found in her marriage and that those more elderly than her would think she was wrong for her values (Hurston 21-25). Then after her marriage with Logan, her luck did not change with her next husband Joe who promised her nothing, but lies. Yet again promises persuaded her into another marriage where she was not happy as Joe went back on the words he promised her
While Janie’s Nanny forces her into marrying Logan Killicks for security; Logan also lacks love and compassion for Janie and silences her. Janie cannot use her voice when she marries Logan Killicks because of her Nanny. Although Janie knows “exactly whut” she wants to say; expressing her voice is “hard to do” (Hurston 8). From the beginning, Logan does not resemble her perfect pear tree love, which to Janie means a man who instills confidence into his wife and listens to her voice. Logan falls short of fulfilling that dream as he isolates her from the community, leaving her with no voice whatsoever. Realizing her marriage lacks love and compassion which she longs for, Janie comes to understand that her relationship with Logan will not last long .Not only does Janie’s marriage to Logan stifle any hopes of exp...
The American Dream is a set of your ideals in which your freedom involves the prosperity and success of your life. In “Lucinda Matlock” that was written by Edgar Masters, the point of the story is that a woman who enjoys life has to face a tragedy and she accepts it. This poem defends The American Dream because the poem is about a woman who lives a happy a fulfilling life before she has to face death. After the woman lives her lives as she pleases she meets a man by the name of Davis. “Driving home in the moonlight of middle June, And then I found Davis.” The woman is glad
Of least significance to Janie is her first husband, Logan Killicks. Hurston uses pathos to show that Janie and her first husband are not meant to be even though society thinks otherwise. Nanny thinks that Logan is really made for Janie, but Janie doesn’t love Logan. Janie tells Nanny, “Cause you told me Ah
The concept of the American Dream has always been that everyone wants something in life, no matter if it is wealth, education, financial stability, safety, or a decent standard of living. In addition, everyone will try to strive to get what they want. The American Dream, is said to be that everyone should try and get what they hope they can get in life. In the play A Raisin in the Sun the author Hansberry tells us about a family where each has an American Dream, and Hughes in the poem “ Let America be America Again “is telling us to let America be the America that was free for us to obtain The American Dream. Hansberry and Langston see America like as a place to find the dream desired, although they also see limitation to obtain the American Dream, such as poverty, freedom, inequality, racism and discrimination.
Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the careless nature of American society during the Jazz Age. The American Dreams seems almost non-existent to those whom haven’t already achieved it.
First, Janie’s failing love endeavors with her first two husbands. The first ideas about love that Janie was exposed to was those of her grandmother, Nanny. Her grandmother saw that Janie was entering womanhood and she didn't want Janie to experience what her mother went through (getting pregnant without being married). So Nanny went out to marry her as soon as she can. When Janie asked about love, Nanny told her that marriage makes love and she will find love after she marries Logan which was the old man that has been interested in Janie for a long time. Nanny believed that love was second to security and stability.
... Dream, by many is a dream of wealth and prosperity that is easily achievable in America; however, not everyone thinks of it this way. Janie Crawford and Jay Gatsby both display different views on the American Dream and how it affects them in their lives. Neither Janie or Gatsby dreams for wealth. Instead they dream for a place of equality and individualism. Both characters want to be able to express themselves in their own way without having to conform to society. This shows that societal norms of the era in which both novels were written take different effects for different people, thus suggesting that there is no single American Dream.
Janie’s first attempt at love does not turn out quite like she hopes. Her grandmother forces her into marrying Logan Killicks. As the year passes, Janie grows unhappy and miserable. By pure fate, Janie meets Joe Starks and immediately lusts after him. With the knowledge of being wrong and expecting to be ridiculed, she leaves Logan and runs off with Joe to start a new marriage. This is the first time that Janie does what she wants in her search of happiness: “Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie’s new outlook on life, although somewhat shadowed by blind love, will keep her satisfied momentarily, but soon she will return to the loneliness she is running from.
When people think of the American Dream, they usually picture a wealthy family who lives in a big house with a white picket fence. They see the husband being the breadwinner for the wife and kids, by supporting and providing the best way that he can. They also picture the wife catering to her husband 's every need. The protagonist Janie Crawford lives this American Dream but soon comes to a realization that this life isn’t her destiny. Crawford learns that love does not involve money but rather being joyful. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie breaks the American Dream myth by living a non-traditional life through belief, happiness, and freedom.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston are both pieces of American literature that have main characters who venture to achieve their dreams and the American dream. According to James Truslow Adams, the pursuit of the American dream entails that, "Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" (Adams). This idea should not change depending on social class. The stories of Jay Gatsby and Janie Crawford both involve their dreams of love and their journeys to attain their dreams. Gatsby is under the delusion that he has found love with Daisy, but he can never truly be with her because their social classes are too different. Janie tries to find a sense of self and someone to value her as an equal while still finding love.
Nanny Janie’s grandmother disapprove the kiss between Janie and Johnny Taylor under the pear tree (11). Janie was only sixteen years old and naïve to think that was love. Nanny knew Johnny Taylor did not mean to cause no harm, but she felt Johnny was trying to mislead Janie to hurt and humiliate her by being sexual that can be dangerous (Hurston 12-15). Likewise, Janie was forced into marrying Logan an older man, Nanny approved of because Janie will have a husband that will love her. Same as, Hurston describe Janie emotions of unhappiness within the marriage not having affection and desire for Logan, Hurston implies, “Ah ain’t got nothin’ tuh live for.” (118) Hurston also describes Janie as confident that caught men attention as well as her physique, the women were jealous of Janie implying “Janie will never fit in the upper class of white men because of her appearance.” (Hurston 41) The women try to make Janie feel worthless and unattractive of not having enough sexually appeal. . Hurston writing engage the character from love to lust in a unhappy marriage that lead to a prolonged period of difficulty