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Their eyes are watching god research essay
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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a profound novel, which shows the journey of what a strong beautiful woman went through to find her happiness. This novel starts off with Janie coming back from burying the dead. Her journey starts of from her grandmother’s house to a huge farm land then Eatonville to the Everglades. It isn’t until the Everglades when Janie found true happiness in the love she had for Tea Cake. The central theme of this novel is love and happiness. This theme is portrayed when Janie shows love to her grandma by doing what would make her happy. The theme is also shown when Janie still comforts Joe in his deathbed even after all the stuff he did to her she still showed him love till the end. Another way this theme is showed is when Janie seeks her happiness with Tea Cake without caring what anyone thought of her.
When Janie starts telling us her journey she starts off by saying how she used to live in a plantation with her grandmother. Janie was a young girl when her grandmother caught
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Her hair is one of the main things that represented Janie. She always wore her hair loose and she liked it down, she liked it free. And that’s exactly how Janie was; she loved being free and wild she didn’t like to be tied down. Another symbol in this story is the horizon always mentioned in the novel of the pear tree and a sundown. She was on a journey to find her horizon. The horizon symbolizes hope and beauty for Janie. Another symbol in this novel is the pear tree that was on her grandmother’s plantation. The tree represented how Janie had become a woman and it also encouraged her to start he free-spirited journey on love.
Love and happiness are seen in this novel in many ways. That was what Janie’s journey was all about and what always kept her going. He journey thought Janie to be independent and showed her freedom and true love and
Janie's first marriage was to Logan Killicks when she was just a young girl at the age of seventeen. Janie?s wardrobe mainly consisted of aprons and work clothes. Logan was very demanding and controlling over Janie, he made her work in the field and cook all day. Most of her time was spent cooking and she almost always wore her apron. ?That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road an walked on??(page 32). Janie threw off her apron while she was leaving Logan, symbolizing how she was no longer under his control and she was now back on her journey for love.
Over time Janie begins to develop her own ideas and ideals. In Their Eyes Watching God. Each principle character has their own perceptions. towards the end of marriage. & nbsp;
In the beginning, the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s yearning to find within herself the sort of harmony and simplicity that nature embodies. However, that idealized view changes when Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks, a wealthy and well-respected man whom Janie’s Nanny set her up with. Because Janie does not know anything about love, she believes that even if she does not love Logan yet, she will find it when they marry. Upon marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for what he did, not for that infallible love every woman deserves.
..., she found her identity. It did not come easy for Janie. It took her years to find out who she really was.
Zora Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” depicts the journey of a young woman named Janie Crawford’s journey to finding real love. Her life begins with a romantic and ideal view on love. After Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, soon grows fearful of Janie’s newfound sexuality and quickly marries Janie off to Logan Killicks, an older land owner with his own farm. Janie quickly grows tired of Logan and how he works her like a slave instead of treating her as a wife and runs away with Joe Starks. Joe is older than Janie but younger than Logan and sweet talks Janie into marring him and soon Joe becomes the mayor of an all African American town called Eatonville. Soon Joe begins to force Janie to hide not only her
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’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
In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Sweat,” Hurston uses the characters Janie Crawford and Delia Jones to symbolize African-American women as the mules of the world and their only alternative were through their words, in order to illustrate the conditions women suffered and the actions they had to take to maintain or establish their self-esteem.
Janie goes from a naïve, vulnerable girl, to a mature adult who finds individuality, spirit, and love. This is the perfect example of a happy ending because one girl is able to find herself and complete her quest after a long and difficult journey.
She managed to leave her Nanny’s grasp and use the opportunity to seek out her dreams, but at the same time, she had to suffer through her relationships with Logan Killicks and get emotionally and physically abused by Joe Starks. Janie achieved her dream of love by being with and loving Tea Cake, although at the end she had to kill him (since he was trying to kill her). Although she is alone yet again at the end of the novel, Janie’s journey was a triumphant one since at the end, she managed to achieve her dream of falling in love. Janie’s journey in Their Eyes Were Watching God teaches that the journey of life is a series of ups and downs and one’s resilience through
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 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie had a defining moment that helped shape her future. In the second chapter, she saw a pear tree and ever since she became obsessed with the idea of love. She spent every bit of free time she had to be with the tree. Many people have these defining moments which lead them on through life. For example, it could be an art set that one received at a young age that made them want to be an artist. Whatever the case may be, we all have our own passions. In this passage, the author uses personification and imagery to show how Janie’s curiosity for love affects her future relationships by giving them something to live up to.
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...
Through her three marriages, the death of her one true love, and proving her innocence in Tea Cake’s death, Janie learns to look within herself to find her hidden voice. Growing as a person from the many obstacles she has overcome during her forty years of life, Janie finally speaks her thoughts, feelings and opinions. From this, she finds what she has been searching for her whole life, happiness.
In the novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Janie discovers much about herself and the people around her. She learns about the people around her with her marriages, her moving with Joe, and her being wife of a mayor. Janie's major self-discovery is when she is young sitting out in her yard looking at the tree, thinking about how she is changing.