In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston the author gives several examples of one’s quest for self identity. Throughout the story Janie's quest for self identity can be clearly seen as she keeps moving from one marriage to another. As time passes her search takes several bad turns, In the end she ends up finding her true identity. Through her marriages with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake she figures out she should do for herself and how she should live. In the end of the story she is where she finally wants to be and where she really belongs.
All her life Janie had lived with her grandmother Nanny, Nanny and Janie were lucky as they had the privilege to live in the yard of white folks. Ever since Janie was growing up she played with white children, It was later that she was confronted with disapproval and was bullied and given many names, so many that everyone started calling her alphabet, "'cause so many people had done named me different names”(68). Shortly she started putting together what she knew of her abnormal individuality. One day she saw herself in a photograph and noticed that she looked distinctive, That she had dark skin, and said, "before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest”(9). Ever since that day, Janie tumbled into somewhat of a descending spiral, setting her off of the path regarding her for own identity. Finally when she had grownup Nanny witnessed her doing something under the pear tree which she believed was distasteful, Nanny hastily prepared a marriage between Janie and a wealthy local man, Logan Killicks. Janie was against her grandmother’s decision. She felt as if she was losing her independence as well as her individuality, she wasn't Janie anymore she would now be ...
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... men. If women are unhappy in a marriage they should move on toward what pleases them. She also points out that women in the twentieth century hold their life in their hands and that there is not a single person out there that has full control of it. They should peruse to become equals of men because they are not the imprudent weaklings that should be obligated to fulfill a roll of subservience to men.
Janie had a difficult time finding her own identity. Through her infancy, her marriage to Logan, Joe, and lastly Tea Cake, Janie always hoped to have an identity unlike anyone else. Hurston's model for twentieth century women is a very distinct model. One which holds freedom, identity, and an equal level of stature to men, all of which Janie struggled to have.Overall Janie's identity is one that numerous women in the twenty first century struggle to behold.
Janie does so by choosing her new found love with Joe of the security that Logan provides. Hurston demonstrates Janie's new found ‘independence’ by the immediate marriage of Joe and Janie. Janie mistakenly chooses the pursuit of love over her pursuit of happiness and by doing so gave her independence to Joe, a man who believes a woman is a mere object; a doll. By choosing love over her own happiness Janie silences her voice. The realization of Janie's new reality is first realized when Joe states, “...nah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home()" Joe is undermining Janie, cutting short any chance for Janie to make herself heard. Joe continues to hide Janie away from society keeping her dependent and voiceless. As Janie matures, she continues to be submissive to her husband, “He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush (71).” Though Janie ‘learned to hush’, and suppress herself, Janie still urges for her voice. When the opportunity came for Janie to reclaim her voice, "But Ah ain’t goin’ outa here and Ah ain’t gointuh hush. Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo’ you die. Have yo’ way all yo’ life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo’self heah ‘bout
Of least significance to Janie is her first husband, Logan Killicks. Hurston uses pathos to show that Janie and her first husband are not meant to be even though society thinks otherwise. Nanny thinks that Logan is really made for Janie, but Janie doesn’t love Logan. Janie tells Nanny, “Cause you told me Ah
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 Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God describes the life of Janie, a black woman at the turn of the century. Janie is raised by her Grandmother and spends her life traveling with different men until she finally returnes home. Robert E. Hemenway has said about the book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God is ... one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for a satisfying life” I partially disagree with Hemenway because, although Janie is on a quest, it is not for a satisfying life. I believe that she is on a quest for someone on whom to lean. Although she achieves a somewhat satisfying life, Janie’s quest is for dependence rather than satisfaction.
Janie’s attempts at achieving her own pear tree and fails, nevertheless this is done so that she can find for herself that adventure and life experiences are more important than love alone. It didn’t take Janie long to learn her first lesson but after she left Logan “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead” (Hurston 25). Janie sought to have her own “pear tree” which meant that she wanted a perfect relationship with a man, defining her as a dependant early on. Once Logan began demanding more of Janie and stretching that thin fabric that is Janie’s loyalty she left him, Janie will experiment with Jody and learn the same lesson. Hurston personifies the extent of Janie’s dream by stating that it is “dead” showing that Janie chases her dreams extensively and she will do this continually until she achieves her own horizon. When Janie lives with Jody she is suppressed and her search for perfect love is shattered once more except this time she learns how to defend herself from this malice, “You ain’t tried tuh pacify nobody but yo’self. Too busy listening to yo’ own big voice.” (Hurston 87). We see once more that Janie is denied of her grand dream and is taught another valuable lesson, how to defend herself. Janie demonstrates her independence as a woman by living without a man for the
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie struggles to find herself and her identity. Throughout the course of the novel she has many different people tell her who she should be and how she should behave, but none of these ideas quite fit Janie. The main people telling Janie who she should be is her grandmother and Janie’s 3 husbands. The people in Janie's life influence her search for identity by teaching her about marriage, hard work, class, society, love and happiness.
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.
In Hurston's story, Janie symbolically represents the position of a woman in the South who is seen to be confused due to her nature as a woman. She is also married to three husbands at different stages, this represents her development from a dependent person who could not make her own choices and in her last marriage to the Tea Cake she makes her choice independently hence and indication that she has finally developed and gained independence. Also, when her last husband dies she shave her hair and goes backs home (Hurston, 2000), by shaving her hair she symbolized her rebirth from dependent to an independent woman and also it was a symbol of change and a new
The role of women in a black society is a major theme of this novel. Many women help demonstrate Hurston's ideas. Hurston uses Janie's grandmother, Nanny, to show one extreme of women in a black society, the women who follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. Nanny is stuck in the past. She still believes in all the things that used to be, and wants to keep things the way they were, but also desires a better life for her granddaughter than she had. When Nanny catc...
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
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.
herself. Janie, all her life, had been pushed around and told what to do and how to live her life. She searched and searched high and low to find a peace that makes her whole and makes her feel like a complete person. To make her feel like she is in fact an individual and that she’s not like everyone else around her. During the time of ‘Their Eyes’, the correct way to treat women was to show them who was in charge and who was inferior. Men were looked to as the superior being, the one who women were supposed to look up to and serve. Especially in the fact that Janie was an African American women during these oppressed times. Throughout this book, it looks as though Janie makes many mistakes in trying to find who she really is, and achieving the respect that she deserves.
One of the underlying themes Zora Neale Hurston put in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God was feminism. Hurston used each of Janie’s three marriages to represent Janie moving closer to her liberation and freedom from male dominance. She finally found her liberation and became truly independent after graduating from her final relationship with Tea Cake by killing him.
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.
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.