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Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay
“You may shoot me with your words,/ You may cut me with your eyes,/ You may kill me with your hatefulness,/ But still, like air, I’ll rise.” were the words written by Maya Angelou in her famous poem “Still I Rise”(Poets.org). She felt the need to express her life motives to the world and hopefully be able to convince others to follow this ideology. These very same words can be reflected in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, where a round character, named Janie Crawford, yearns to live her dreams, but is trapped by life obstacles that try to bring her down. She had to suffer deeply for most of her lifetime in order to break the chains of expectations from others. Throughout Janie’s life she always fought the expectations put on her by Nanny, her husbands, and
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“In the last stages of Nanny’s sleep, she dreamed of voices. Voices far-off but persistent, and gradually coming nearer. Janie’s voice. Janie talking in whispery snatches with a male voice she couldn’t quite place. That brought her wide awake. She bolted upright and peered out of the window and saw Johnny Taylor lacerating her Janie with a kiss.” (Hurston). Nanny grew angry and distressed to see her Janie kissing a “trashy nigger” which leads her to propose Janie to marry her off to Mr. Logan Killicks. Nanny tells Janie, “youse uh ‘oman, now,so-” and Janie immediately rebukes that idea by saying, “naw, Nanny, naw Ah ain’t no real ‘oman yet.” (Hurston). Janie tries to fight Nanny’s idea, but Nanny insists. Janie was not successful in her fight against marrying Mr. Logan Killicks, but later she decides to marry him and wait for love to come as it is explained by the narrator, “Yes, she would love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so”
What is one’s idea of the perfect marriage? In Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has a total of three marriages and her best marriage was to Tea Cake. Janie’s worst and longest marriage was to Joe Starks where she lost her dream and was never happy. The key to a strong marriage is equality between each other because in Janie’s marriage to Joe she was not treated equally, lost apart of herself and was emotionally abused, but her and Tea Cake's marriage was based on equality and she was able to fully be herself.
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
As Janie is growing up she has to learn to accept her Nanny’s belief of how a woman is supposed to live in society. Nanny grew up in slavery so she believes that the role of men is to support his wife financially. Nanny thinks Janie should marry a man according to how successful he is and Janie should keep up the household responsibilities. Janie’s grandmother said, “Ah been waitin’ a long time, Janie, but nothin’ Ah I
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.
Nanny pushed Janie into marrying him and made it seem like love did not mean anything as long as she lives life with somebody that can protect her. When nanny said things such as, “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection”, protection portrays as the key characteristic in a relationship (Hurston 15). When Logan and Janie’s relationship began, Janie had Nanny’s thoughts running through her head thinking she had the right views. So, she would end up loving Logan as the marriage continues. This obviously had no truth behind it because Janie never felt anything. The relationship between the two easily presented itself as idealistic, as they never had many discussions or even did much together. When reading, the author mentions many times how lonely Janie seemed. Later in Janie’s journey, when realistic love becomes introduced to her, the lonesome feeling
Zora Neale Hurston an early twentieth century Afro-American feminist author, was raised in a predominately black community which gave her an unique perspective on race relations, evident in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston drew on her on experiences as a feminist Afro-American female to create a story about the magical transformation of Janie, from a young unconfident girl to a thriving woman. Janie experiences many things that make her a compelling character who takes readers along as her companion, on her voyage to discover the mysteries and rewards life has to offer.
Janie who continually finds her being defined by other people rather than by herself never feels loved, either by her parents or by anybody else. Her mother abandoned her shortly after giving birth to her. All she had was her grandmother, Nanny, who protected and looked after her when she was a child. But that was it. She was even unaware that she is black until, at age six, she saw a photograph of herself. Her Nanny who was enslaved most of her lifetime only told her that a woman can only be happy when she marries someone who can provide wealth, property, and security to his wife. Nanny knew nothing about love since she never experienced it. She regarded that matter as unnecessary for her as well as for Janie. And for that reason, when Janie was about to enter her womanhood in searching for that love, Nanny forced her to marry Mr. Logan Killicks, a much older man that can offer Janie the protection and security, plus a sixty-acre potato farm. Although Janie in her heart never approves what her Nanny forced her to do, she did it anyway. She convinced herself that by the time she became Mrs. Killick, she would get that love, which turned out to be wrong.
Zora Neale Hurston once said, “Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.” In post-slavery African American society, this statement was unusual, as society was focused on materialistic values. The “veil” Hurston mentions is a lens used to sift through one’s beliefs; to help one understand that what they have is more important than what they don’t. Hurston alludes the veil in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in the form of a fish-net, saying “She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it in from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulders" (193). Just like the veil, the “fish-net” allows one to sift through one’s beliefs, deciding what is important and what is not. Essentially, Hurston
The Harlem Renaissance was all about freedom of expression and the search for one's identity. Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, shows these goals through the main character Janie and her neighbors. Janie freely expressed what she wanted and searched for her identity with her different husbands. Even though Janie was criticized by everyone except her friends, she continued to pursue. She lost everything, but ultimately found her identity. Hurston's writing is both a reflection and a departure from the idea of the Harlem Renaissance.
Nanny took away any chances of Janie having an identity when 0she arranges the marriage with Logan Killicks. After this, the self-identity that she was going to find through growing up as a normal girl was lost. This caused a chain reaction of bad relationships with men for Janie. At this point she is at a very vulnerable stage of her life and can be easily taken advantage of. The man that Nanny arranged her to be with was Logan Killicks. Janie does not feel any love connection with Logan. She tries to wait and see if any type of love develops between them. She only waits because she does not want to hurt her grandmother Nanny. Nanny constantly suppresses Janie’s self-identity because she is scared. Nanny is scared because she has been through many things in her life and does not want Janie to go through it. Nanny also instills a strong sense of being secured and finding security. The theme of security follows Janie throughout her relationships and the novel. When Nanny dies Janie has no reason to stay with Logan and Hurston writes**”… marriage did not make love. Jamie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” this was Janie’s first step in ...
Hurston’s Nanny has seen a lot of trouble in her life. Once a slave, Nanny tells of being raped by her master, an act from which Janie’s mother was brought into the world. With a crushing sense of personal sacrifice, Nanny tells sixteen-year-old Janie of hiding the light skinned baby from an angry, betrayed slave master’s wife. Young Janie listens to Nanny’s troubles thoughtfully, but Hurston subtly lets the reader know that Nanny’s stern, embittered world view does not have much to do with Ja...
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.
On Janie's journey towards self discovery and expression, progress is suddenly halted when she encounters controlling men. In respect for Nanny, Janie attempts to live her life through her nanny's expectations and desires. Nanny has taken the hard road in life, and tries her best to help Janie avoid life's unnecessary turmoils: “Yo' Nanny wouldn't harm a hair uh yo' head. She don't want nobody else to do it neither if she kin help it” (Hurston 14). Nanny has all the best intentions by setting Janie up with Logan Killicks, an older man who owns sixty acres of land. The man of Nanny's dreams does not match up with Janie's expectations, for Janie wants to be in a blossoming relationship that she is comfortable being a part of. Logan turns out to be a man of labor and “refuses to hear the real meaning behind [Janie'...
It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than Wright. When she did write politically, she was very subtle about stating her beliefs.
The history of slavery and the oppression as a result thereof continues to linger within contemporary society. Colored women in the slave culture particularly felt the brunt of the social injustice against black people in the African American culture. Confining domestic tasks, sexual abuses and abuse in general left them in the savage web of oppression and of the oppressor. Zora Neale Hurston's Their eyes were watching God explores the effects that slavery has on women and the generational effects thereafter. Janie recounts the reasons of her absence in the community to her best friend Phoebe after Phoebe informs her that community members have been speculating about where she has been. Janie Crawford is raised by her grandmother who forces