My re-covering of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is not your usual cover of a book. I was trying to incorporate a school math book type of cover onto a regular book cover, what I mean by that is that I used important details from the book and scattered them across the cover. The important details were four symbols that I found throughout the book; Janie’s hair, the mule, checkers, and the hurricane. These symbols give an interesting look at the book. Throughout the book Janie’s hair goes from being tied up to having her hair flow. This is symbolic because when Janie feels free her hair is down and when she feels restricted her hair is up. “Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist. That was the only change people saw in her” (Hurston 89). “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store” (Hurston 55).These quotes show that when Janie is with Jody or when she is affiliated with Jody she is restricted to what she is able to do and how she looks but once Jody dies …show more content…
While married to Jody, Janie was never able to play checkers, she was told it was not natural for her to play. Once Tea Cake comes along and asks Janie to play, Janie feels stronger and more connected to Tea Cake than she was with Joe so the game of checkers symbolizes strength and connections. “He set it up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. 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 95-96). The way she feels about Tea Cake once he begins to set up checkers is stronger and has more connection than she ever did
Zora Neale was an early 20th century American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. In her best known novel Their eyes were watching God, Hurston integrated her own first-hand knowledge of African American oral culture into her characters dialogue and the novels descriptive passages. By combing folklore, folk language and traditional literary techniques; Hurston created a truly unique literary voice and viewpoint. Zora Neale Hurston's underlying theme of self-expression and search for one’s independence was truly revolutionary for its time. She explored marginal issues ahead of her time using the oral tradition to explore contentious debates. In this essay I will explore Hurston narrative in her depiction of biblical imagery, oppression of African women and her use of colloquial dialect.
In today’s world, many people find it difficult to see the difference between idealistic and realistic love. Idealistic love and realistic love can remain challenging to see when two people lose themselves in the moment. In a realistic relationship the two companions become a team, they work together for each other rather than themselves. This comes through as a challenge when you can’t always tell if they other person does it for themself or the relationship. On the other hand, when you look back or watch from the sidelines, it can show through easily in many ways. In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Hurston does a really great job of showing the differences between realistic and idealistic
Throughout the movie of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Oprah Winfrey alternates Zora Neale Hurston’s story of a woman’s journey to the point where nobody even recognizes it. The change in the theme, the characters, and their relationships form a series of major differences between the book and the movie. Instead of teaching people the important lessons one needs to know to succeed in this precious thing called life, Oprah tells a meaningless love story for the gratification of her viewers. Her inaccurate interpretation of the story caused a dramatic affect in the atmosphere and a whole new attitude for the audience.
Tea Cake's courtship was different from that of Logan and Jody. Janie's first marriage was more of a contract of sale between Nanny and Logan than anything else. Janie's second marriage was an escape from the first one. Moreover, it was based on disappointed dreams. Jody courted her by talking about himself and his dreams. Tea Cake, on the other hand, pursued Janie with a more romantic flair. Also, he allowed her equal footing in negotiating the terms of their relationship.
Janie finds her way out when Joe Starks appears. The first thing Joe does after asking for a drink of water is to name himself: "Joe Starks was the name, yeah Joe Starks from in and through Georgy" (47). Hurston's naming of Starks is ironic for several reasons. The word stark is often used as a synonym for barren, and Joe Starks and Janie never have any children. Hurston hints at sexual problems that develop between the pair because of their separate beds and Janie's eventual verbal "castration" of Joe in the store. Starks's name is also ironic because of his focus on capitalistic pursuits. Starks's wealth gives him a false sense of power because the townspeople resent him and the things he does to gain his wealth. Starks's name could also be seen as a comment on his desire to be a "big voice." As Janie eventually finds out, there is not much behind the big voice; it is a facade for the starkness inside Joe.
With Tea Cake, Janie was freer of playing both gender roles. She had the money from Joe so she didn’t need him financially but she did need him emotionally. She was finally in love. He made her feel valuable, gave her love and security. He treats her equal to him, something that her other husbands didn’t do. First thing he does is teach her to play checkers because he believes in her intelligence and that makes her feel valuable. “He set it up [checkers] and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice.” (Hurston 95-96¬) Tea Cake shows his pride and strong masculinity for providing financially for his women when the tells Janie to “put dat two hundred back wid de rest, Janie. Mah dice. Ah no need no assistance tuh help me feed mah woman. From now on, you gointuh eat whatever mah money can buy uh and wear de same. When Ah ain’t got nothin’ you don’t git nothin’” (Hurston 128). Tea Cakes breaks the gender boundaries when he ask Janie to work on the field with him and he “would help get supper afterwards” (Hurston 133). This marriage is different because they become a team rather doing the work based on their gender roles. Although Tea Cake seem like the perfect husband for Janie, he took the abusive trait from Joe of showing that he was Janie’s owner:
Jody requires that Janie hold her hair in a head rag because it didn’t make sense for her to have it down. In reality, Jody was jealous about how the other men looked at Janie when she had her hair down. In fact, “one night he had caught Walter standing behind and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing” (Hurston 55). This infuriated Jody and he ordered Janie to always have her hair tied up when she was in the store because, “she was there in the store for him to look at, not those others” (Hurston 55). Janie’s hair can be seen as a symbol of her independence, but with Jody’s demands, her independence is lost. This inequality only exists for Janie, because she is a woman. She could not make similar demands from Jody, or else she would be punished. However, in her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie is allowed to be somewhat free of gender bias. Tea Cake was the only person that treated her as an equal. It begins with the game of checkers, which Tea Cake sets up himself, a sign that he wanted to play with her and saw her as an
In the book Their Eyes Where Watching God By; Zora Neale Hurston Janie the main character always has a man by her side. Throughout this book she was married three times to three different men. Janie all her life always had a man with her treating her poorly, or well she was never able to be happy alone, or achieve anything alone. Janie always has a man powering over her. We might think that Janie is a powerful women, because as described in the beginning of the book her goals are like the goals of men. She doesn't adjust their dreams like women tend to do, but rather she achieves her dreams one by one and stays hungry for the next.
In Mary Helen Washington’s essay which denies Zora Neale Hurston’s efforts to create a liberated Janie, she focuses on Hurston’s failure to give Janie her own voice. Throughout the book Janie’s own “power of oral speech” is restrained by the men around her, such as Joe Starks. Janie becomes the object of conversation on the porch, which she wants to join but cannot take part in. After twenty years of oppression, Janie finally counterattacks Jody’s teasing by implying his lost of maleness in the presence of other men. Her first speech on behalf of herself and women, is ironically a “commentary on the limitations of a male-dominated society”. When Jody dies, interestingly, her first action is not to declare her freedom, but to appreciate her hair by looking in the mirror just like other men, who regard her as a “visual object”. Janie’s action of finding Hezihiah, who “is the best imitation of Joe” to manage the store further, demonstrates the dominating role Jody plays in her world and the agreement to the concept of the powerlessness of women. It seems like finally Janie has found he...
Before her confrontation with Tea Cake, Janie had been trapped in the store for years constantly being silenced by Joe and always reminded of what a woman’s proper place is. According to Joe, checkers was not an activity for a woman, one meant for common men. Tea Cake continues his feminist behavior when he takes Janie fishing late at night, to which she thinks, “it was so crazy digging worms by lamp light and setting out for Lake Sabelia after midnight that she felt like a child breaking rules” (102). Tea Cake's suggestion that he and Janie go fishing at midnight not only symbolizes his individuality but also highlights his desire to go against Janie’s original social norms. Janie has always wished to feel young and abandon her expectations as a wife.
In such cases, when he would usher her off the front porch of the store, when the men sat around talking and laughing, or when Matt Boner’s mule had died and he told her she could not attend its dragging-out, and when he demanded that she tie up her hair in head rags while working in the store, “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT shown in the store” (55). He had cast Janie off from the rest of the community and put her on a pedestal, which made Janie feel as though she was trapped in an emotional prison. Over the course of their marriage, he had silenced her so much that she found it better to not talk back when they got this way.
So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation-- they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston’s famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character’s natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
Jody believes that Janie has poisoned him, illustrating the magnitude of both of their unhappiness. Almost immediately after Jody dies, Janie “starches” and “irons” her face, which could also imply how the headrags represent a facade that she unwillingly dons in public. Janie goes to the funeral inundated in loneliness and grief. However, after she emerges from the funeral Janie burns all of her head rags. Hurston states: “Before she slept that night she burnt up everyone of her head rags and went about the house the next morning..her hair in one thick braid”(pg 89). Fire represents the destruction of something; by burning the very tool that was facilitating the suppression of her identity, Janie is making a vow to never sacrifice herself to others. The long, nimble braid the reader is introduced to in the first chapter reemerges. It is important to note that as she lets her hair down, her circumstances change for the better. Janie meets Tea Cake, her playful new husband. Hurston describes Janie as the curious, vibrant child she was under the pear tree similar to how she is presently with Tea Cake. Therefore, Hurston reveals the overarching theme that when one unwillingly enshrouds their identity, their circumstances become unpalatable. This theme is conveyed through JAnie: As she sacrifices herself to tie her hair up, her happiness devolved into loneliness. However, once she crosses the threshold to her true self, she fully exuded the vivacious Janie that she truly is. All of this is manifested through her
After years of surrendering her dignity in the name of a constructed love she is free to be and to find herself after the death of her second husband Joe Starks, or “Jody”. Her hair symbolising her woman-hood is let down to be free after she burns the head scarves that symbolically and literally hid a piece of herself from the world she wanted to be a part of. While janie sacrificed her dignity and her morals for Jody she was not sacrificing in order to live by what she values most, it was for survival more than want. However, we see her true need for real love when she begins seeing Teacake and risking multiple aspects of her life for him. Janie is a lighter skinned woman, putting her in a higher social rank due to the racism infringed on people even in the African American community. She has a good amount of money in the bank and she has a rather high social ranking due to her deceased husband Jody being the mayor of the town prior to his death. These factors all lead to Janie not only being an upstanding member of the community but also a very desirable woman for a number of men in the town. Teacake on the other hand is nearly the opposite. He is very dark skinned causing bias’ against him and his relations with Janie. While much of the town judged behind her back on this aspect one character, Mrs. Turner,