Our quester is a woman named Janie Mae Crawford, who experienced life at a youthful age, in the book "Their eyes were watching god" by Zora Neale Hurston. Everyone she encountered misunderstood her, no one expected her to be worthy of something significant. Until one day, she took a leap of faith and followed her heart. She viewed the nature and the struggle of people through each of her three husbands and people that surrounded her. Janie was forced to marry at a young age to a man whom she did not love. Then, she stumbles upon Joe Sparks, a young man who is a dreamer and who saved up enough money to conquer his dream. In the process of her encounters with Joe, Joe captured her heart and asked her to be his wife. So, she took flight with her new husband Joe Sparks in search of new life not knowing what the future hold. They went to Maitland in search …show more content…
Within a few years married to joe, Janie saw his reign of power, of being the mayor overtook the man she loved. Joe held her every being. She was bound to a store every day. She could not let her lustrous hair shine, so she kept it hidden. She could not speak to anyone but attend the duties to the store. Then, she finally stands for herself to Joe, and that weakens his manhood. On his death bed, Janie describes to Joe herself and what could have gone differently. Because of what Joe had established for her, everyone expects her to stay a widow and not find love. So, When she caught eyes for Mr. Vergible Woods, as well known as Teacake, the town disapproves of her selection. Janie, on the other hand, was not concerned about what they thought because she felt free with Teacake. Janie became Mrs. woods, and they went on to find life on the Much. One forsaken day, while trying to save Janie, Teacake got bitten by a Mad dog. On his last day on earth, he pointed a pistol at Janie but was shot with a
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
It’s no wonder that “[t]he hurricane scene in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a famous one and [that] other writers have used it in an effort to signify on Hurston” (Mills, “Hurston”). The final, climactic portion of this scene acts as the central metaphor of the novel and illustrates the pivotal interactions that Janie, the protagonist, has with her Nanny and each of her three husbands. In each relationship, Janie tries to “’go tuh God, and…find out about livin’ fuh [herself]’” (192). She does this by approaching each surrogate parental figure as one would go to God, the Father; she offers her faith and obedience to them and receives their definitions of love and protection in return. When they threaten to annihilate and hush her with these definitions, however, she uses her voice and fights to save her dream and her life. Hurston shows how Janie’s parental figures transform into metaphorical hurricanes, how a literal hurricane transforms into a metaphorical representation of Janie’s parental figures, and how Janie survives all five hurricanes.
...d feels that she is lucky to have him. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, seems to be her singing bee when they first meet but she realizes that he is not. When Joe becomes what he strived to be, he tried to control Janie and change her into what he expected and thought for her to be. Only Tea Cake, Janie's final husband, truly cared for the person that she really was and treated her as his equal. He encouraged her to speak her mind and tell him her opinion so that they can gain a better understanding of each other. In the course of these marriages, Janie is lead toward a development of self and when she arrives back in her hometown she has grown into a mature, independent woman who was still left with the warm memories of love and laughter with Tea Cake.
I believe Janie depended on her past husbands for financial security, and protection from the outside world that she could not make a mends with. Janie's dependence on Tea Cake was a dependence on love, Tea Cake treats her the way she has always wanted to be treated, like the blossom to the bee. When Joe died, he left Janie with money and the store, but she had no one to love nor anyone to keep her company. She needed Tea Cake to fill this void in her life, I believe Janie realizes this when she says, "Tea Cake ain't no Jody Starks...but de minute Ah marries `im gointuh be makin' comparison. Dis ain't no business proposition...
Having lived under Joe 's thumb for so long, Janie is cautious as Tea Cake pursues her. He is much younger than she is and does not live a reliable life. Janie still looks through the lenses of society pertaining to love although she claims she wants true love. Fortunately, Tea Cake persistently pursues Janie. He respects her and treats her as an equal:
After the marriage with Logan she met Joe a man she ran off with after an argument with Logan. Joe was the charisma type when you over with talk and charm that's how he won Janie, but little did she know Joe wasn’t who she thought he was. Joe was a controlling man who thought Janie place should be by his side when she is needed or working in the store. “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. It didn’t seem sensible at all”. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was.Joe loved Janie’s hair so much that he hated when other men would look at it, Joe was very controlling to the point he made Janie wear rags on her head to cover up her magnificent hair so other men couldn’t enjoy its beauty. Another instances were Joe took Janie individuality was when she had the chance to speak in public because of Joe becoming mayor “Janie had never thought of making a speech, and didn’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things. She had the chance to speak to the people of the town, but Joe didn’t give her the chance to speak because he felt like it wasn’t a woman's place to speak in public. Each of those time Joe took a piece of who Janie was.
In the end, Janie found herself being defined by other people, so to say Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. During her marriage to Logan, Janie is viewed as a spoiled and non-hard working girl that needs to learn what it means to make a living. In her marriage to Joe, Janie is only needed for her outward appearance for him to define as his possession; never did he consult her about what she wanted. In both of these relationships she was forced to be something that she was not. Once Tea Cake came along everything had changed; going from following another man’s orders to being able to live a fun-loving life. Throughout the time she spends with him, finally free from being defined by someone else, Janie Crawford discovers who she is and what love is.
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives including happiness, overall quality of life whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice first to Joe sparks, and to Vergile Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard to provide for her.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, constantly faces the inner conflicts she has against herself. Throughout a lot of her life, Janie is controlled, whether it be by her Nanny or by her husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Her outspoken attitude is quickly silenced and soon she becomes nothing more than a trophy, only meant to help her second husband, Joe Starks, achieve power. With time, she no longer attempts to stand up to Joe and make her own decisions. Janie changes a lot from the young girl laying underneath a cotton tree at the beginning of her story. Not only is she not herself, she finds herself aging and unhappy with her life. Joe’s death become the turning point it takes to lead to the resolution of her story which illustrates that others cannot determine who you are, it takes finding your own voice and gaining independence to become yourself and find those who accept you.
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston created a heroine in Janie Crawford. Janie overcame many obstacles of her time. Acceptance into the community, self-discovery, and courageousness are some of Janie's obstacles.
She was first brought down by her first husband that her nanny liked for her. He hid her true ambition by being a non-sanitized human being, who did not really care for her as a woman, and tried to get her to work on his land. The next man is the man she thought would give her youth, happiness, and joy to her life. The man Joe seemed to care for her inhibitions at first but as soon as she ran away with him to Eatonville, he became more self centered and only worried about being the mayor of the town. He is the one person who sustained her from the being the actual woman she wanted to be. He made her work in his store that he opened and made her tie up her hair. The moment where she lets her hair go is the moment her and Joe have an argument, and the moment he dies, the first thing she does is to look in the mirror to make sure she knows she is there. She realizes that she is still that woman. A woman’s hair represents her beauty and youthness. Making a woman tie up or hide her hair is impeccable. When Janie looked in the mirror and saw her beauty through the wrinkles. she knew that it was time for her to shake off the past from her shoulders, and find a life suited just for
Today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both African American literature and women's literature. TIME included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, to John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston a former schoolteacher. Hurston was the fifth of eight children. While she was still a toddler her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black incorporated town in the United States, where John Hurston served several terms as mayor. In 1917, Hurston enrolled in Morgan Academy in Baltimore where she completed her high school education. Three years later, she enrolled at Howard University and began her writing career. She took classes there intermittently for several years and eventually earned an associate degree. The university’s literary magazine published her first story in 1921.
Through her use of southern black language Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how to live and learn from life’s experiences. Janie, the main character in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a woman who defies what people expect of her and lives her life searching to become a better person. Not easily satisfied with material gain, Janie quickly jumps into a search to find true happiness and love in life. She finally achieves what she has searched for with her third marriage.