Danique Rouse
Greene
American Literature
20 April 2015
A Voice in the End: Janie’s Journey of Self Discovery Common ideas in literature and the tangible human life often center on a type of journey or trip. The protagonist of these journeys venture out into a world that is unknown to them, yet this same world holds the ultimate destiny that they have been searching for. This is what Janie, the protagonist from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, does throughout the early years of her life. Zora Neale Hurston expresses Janie’s journey from a gender oppressed woman into a strong female character at the end of her story where she finally blossoms. Many of Hurston’s most famous novel centers on the idea of self-discovery. In this
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The thought is that Janie did not find her empowerment through choices made on the whim, but that she found a voice through the process of cognition. The protagonist, Janie, found her voice by analytically thinking about her life and the choices she makes (Bernard 1). Throughout the novel, Janie had to have established a thought process to find her inner voice and empowerment and relied on past experiences to get to the next phase of her life. The reflection process implies that Janie learned how to deal with inner conflicts while also taking on the conflicts of the environment around her. This is a plausible thought being that humans are a type of species that use their cognitive thought process all the time. Janie seems highly aware of herself and Bernard suggests that, “... Janie claims a dialectical understanding of the self when she asserts that the goal of self-formation is for her to find herself in others and vice versa” (Bernard 3). This derives from actions in the novel Janie takes that involve the environment around her. For example, Janie exemplifies her use of self-cognition when she speaks about the pear tree. She is well aware of how the meaning of true love relates to the pear tree and how to find it in the people around her. Hurston also shows other instances where Janie is aware when she is speaking to …show more content…
There was evidence of Janie using his process as she thought about love and compared it to a pear tree; however, many of her relationships with men heavily influenced her journey to find her voice. Whether the relationship was healthy for her or not, Janie felt the oppression of men was weighing her down leading her to find Tea Cake and finally her own voice. Writing her most famous novel, Hurston’s use of these relationships, symbols, and personal life experiences are what led to Janie’s journey and also what ultimately helped Janie find that strength. Embarking on this journey, Janie ventures out of her small life to pursue her idea of love and happiness. She goes through many years of her life being oppressed by a number of men, even those who are not her husband. Ultimately, Janie uses that experience of male dominance in her life to breakout on her own and find the strong female voice she always searched
that they can spend more time together because she missed him when he was at work and he missed her when he was away from home.
In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author takes you on the journey of a woman, Janie, and her search for love, independence, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit seems to constantly be disregarded, yet Janie continues to hold on to the potential of grasping all that she desires. In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Hurston illustrates the ambiguity of Janie’s voice; the submissiveness of her silence and the independence she reclaims when regaining her voice. The reclaiming of Janie's independence, in the novel, correlates with the development and maturation Janie undergoes during her self discovery.
Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white
One strong characteristic that Janie did not seem to show as much, is pride. Janie showed pride in some chapters, which I enjoyed because it was her turn to put herself first. The realization of questions that was once thought about, could be answered in the years she continued to find herself. Janie also had sympathy. Sympathy became a detail in chapter three, where the reader stated “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”(Hurston 25). That quote showed so much because she never married Tea Cake, but she married the man that she no longer loved. Janie had sympathy and having that trait helped her become a
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the character of Janie Crawford experiences severe ideological conflicts with her grandmother, and the effects of these conflicts are far-reaching indeed. Hurston’s novel of manners, noted for its exploration of the black female experience, fully shows how a conflict with one’s elders can alter one’s self image. In the case of Janie and Nanny, it is Janie’s perception of men that is altered, as well as her perception of self. The conflict between the two women is largely generational in nature, and appears heart-breakingly inevitable.
Janie Crawford, the main character of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, strives to find her own voice throughout the novel and, in my opinion, she succeeds even though it takes her over thirty years to do it. Each one of her husband’s has a different effect on her ability to find that voice.
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.
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...
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.
Janie represents all of the independent women of her time because she never gave up her happiness. The one moment that brought the whole story together and the one moment that really showed Janie as one strong woman, was the moment she let down her hair. After many years and multiple men burdening her of societal expectations she finally became a woman that she wanted to be. The moment quoted when she became herself was, “She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there”(Hurston 86), was the climax of the story, and the beginning to Janie’s
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.
For Hurston's heroine, Janie, self-discovery and self-definition consist of learning to recognize and trust her inner voice, while rejecting the formulations others try to impose upon her. Increasin...
Hurston uses the power of language and different narrative techniques to show Janie's transition throughout the novel. It is important to notice that in Janie's journey from object to subject, the narration of the novel shifts from third person to a mixture of first and third person; thus, the shift shows the awareness of self within Janie. Language becomes an instrument of injury and salvation and of selfhood and empowerment. The use of powerful language is exemplified well in the text when Janie is asked to say a few words as the new Mrs. Mayor. Joe, her second husband, quickly cuts in and says, "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for not...
... Janie is free-spirited and unconcerned about what others think of her. When she returns to Eatonville after Tea Cake’s death, she shows no shame for what she has done or where she has been, because she is finally able to live the life she always wanted to lead. Hurston’s own struggles in life for individuality and an outlet for her suppressed spirit clearly contribute to the development of Janie’s character. Just as Hurston struggled for recognition, equality, and purpose in the literary world during the Harlem Renaissance, Janie’s struggle for the recognition, equality, and purpose in her relationships.
Zora Neal Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, reveals one of life’s most relevant purposes that stretches across cultures and relates to every aspect of enlightenment. The novel examines the life of the strong-willed Janie Crawford, as she goes down the path of self-discovery by way of her past relationships. Ideas regarding the path of liberation date all the way back to the teachings of Siddhartha. Yet, its concept is still recycled in the twenty-first century, as it inspires all humanity to look beyond the “horizon,” as Janie explains. Self-identification, or self-fulfillment, is a theme that persists throughout the book, remaining a quest for Janie Crawford to discover, from the time she begins to tell the story to her best friend, Pheoby Watson. Hurston makes a point at the beginning of the novel to separate the male and female identities from one another. This is important for the reader to note. The theme for identity, as it relates to Janie, carefully unfolds as the story goes on to expand the depths of the female interior.