According to Mary Helen Washington, there are three notable types of recurring female characters in African American women´s writing (Tyson, 390), which can be used to analyse the female characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
The first is the “suspended woman,” referring to the woman who is the victim of men and society as a whole, and is catatonic because she cannot change her situation. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie´s Nanny is appearing as the “suspended woman”. Nanny was born into slavery, later on liberated after the American Civil War. Despite being freed from slavery, she was still working for white people and was reliant of the white community, as she described it: “Ah was born back
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She loves Janie and hopes the best for her, through her own experience she introduces the harsh realities of racism and sexism to Janie. …show more content…
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie appears as the emergent woman. In the book, we follow Janie through several obstacles in search for her authentic self and for real love. In the beginning of the book, she recalls the first time she discovers that she is “colored,” she had regarded herself equal to white before then, the society rather saw her as inferior. Janie first marriage was arranged by her Nanny, Janie became privileged and lived a leisure life. However, Janie longed for love, when she realized that love does not automatically appear when you marry she felt deceived by her Nanny. When Janie meets charming Joe Starks that is planning to move to an all-black govern town, Janie leaves her husband to go with Joe Starks. Janie takes initiative to change her own situation. In Joe Starks she thought she had found love : “From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.“ (p32). Her second marriage starts passionately, but later on she becomes aware of psychological oppression her second husband has over her. Joe Starks demises Janie´s presence among others “..mah wife don´t know nothin´´bout no speech-makin´. Ah never married her
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses colloquial language to show readers exactly why Nanny raised her granddaughter, Janie Crawford, the way she did. When Janie is sixteen years old, her grandmother wants to marry her off. The teen pleads to her grandmother with claims of not knowing anything about having a husband. Nanny explains the reason she wants to see Janie married off is because she is getting old and fears once she dies, Janie will be lost and will lack protection. Janie’s mother was raped by a school teacher at the young age of seventeen, which is how Janie was brought into the world. Nanny has many regrets about the way her daughter’s life turned out after Janie was born. She resorted to
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.
People are constantly searching for their voices. A voice gives someone independence and the ability to make her own decision. The First Amendment ensures that all United States citizens possess the freedom of speech; however, not all people are given the ability or opportunity to exercise that right. When a person has no voice they rely on others to make their decisions. Throughout Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Are Watching God, Janie constantly struggles to find her voice. Her marriage to Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake help her discover and utilize her voice in different ways. During Janie’s first marriage to Logan she has no voice, Joe silences Janie’s tiniest whisper and controls her similar to a slave; in contrast to Logan and Joe, Tea Cake encourages Janie to use her voice and make her own decisions. Janie cannot express her voice until she discovers happiness and independence through her final marriage.
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
From the beginning of society, men and women have always been looked at as having different positions in life. Even in the modern advanced world we live in today, there are still many people who believe men and women should be looked at differently. In the work field, on average women are paid amounts lower than men who may be doing the exact same thing. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston brings about controversy on a mans roles. Janie Crawford relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake each bring out the mens feelings on masculine roles in marital life.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the journey of Janie Crawford as an African American woman who grows and matures through the hardships and struggles of three different marriages. Although Janie is an African American, the main themes of the novel discusses the oppression of women by men, disregarding race. Janie gets married to three different men, aging from a young and naive girl to a mature and hardened women near the age of 40. Throughout the novel, Janie suffers through these relationships and learns to cope with life by blaming others and escaping her past by running away from it. These relationships are a result of Janie chasing her dreams of finding and experiencing true love, which she ultimately does in the end. Even through the suffering and happiness, Janie’s journey is a mixture of ups and downs, and at the end, she is ultimately content. Zora Neale Hurston utilizes Janie’s metaphorical thoughts and responses of blame and escape, as well as her actions towards success and fulfillment with her relationship with Tea Cake, to suggest that her journey
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford confronts social and emotional hardships that shape who she is from the beginning to the end of the novel. Living in Florida during the 1900s, it was very common for an African American woman to face discrimination on a daily basis. Janie faces gender inequality, racial discrimination, and social class prejudice that she is able to overcome and use to help her develop as a person.
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” follows the life of Janie Crawford from a young teenage girl to a old woman who is searching to find true love. Janie story is told through her three marriages. Janie faced many struggles in her marriage like abuse, disrespect and belittlement but doesn't let that stop her. In the end after everything Janie had faced she finally found her self-worth and true independence. This story could be considered a feminist novel through the way their is a big emphasis on gender roles, male dominancy and the way Janie chooses to be happy with her life.
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. Hurston’s Nanny has seen a lot of trouble in her life.
The differences of the human race are unfathomable; Therefore, it goes without saying that arguments will arise, how we handle these situations reveals our character. The physical abuse implored on Janie in Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, reveals true aspects of gender roles and marital relationships in the twentieth century. Hurston shows no hesitation when broaching such topics; I presume this is because of the conventional view upon male and female relationships shown in the past. The novel opens with a gender slander right off the bat, "Ships at a distance... act and do things acordingly.", (pg. 1) clearly hinting at the pugnacious nature regarding the differences between men and women. Hurston continues to reveal the incredulous thoughts of men superiority by exploring the admiration that the co-workers of Tea Cake share upon the fact that he has such dominance over her. Yet both examples fall to the way-side once the indiscriminate literal abuse, that two out of three of her lovers inflict upon her, begins. All of these factors serve as evidence supporting generalizations of relationships in the 1900s.
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). When Janie was a teenager, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longs for something more. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if this is what she looks for. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character, is involved in three very different relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie learns some valuable lessons about marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
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.
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.
Works Cited:.. Appiah, K. A. & Co. and Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., eds. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993. Bond, Cynthia. A. A. "Language, Sign, and Difference in Their Eyes Watching God."