In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie wants to find true love. Janie must go through hardships to find true love, she believes true love should blossom like a pear tree. Janie’s grandma forced Janie into her first marriage. Logan treated Janie bad, Logan bought a mule for Janie to work alongside him in the fields, and threatened to kill Janie, too. Logan said, “Ah’ll take holt uh dat ax and come in dere and kill yuh” (Hurston 31)! Logan and Janie had an unhappy marriage, in the end, Janie learned she can not learn to love someone by marriage. Janie met Joe while married to Joe, Janie soon left Logan for Joe. Joe promised to treat Janie like the woman she deserved, Joe said, “You ain’t never knowed
soon puts Janie to work and treats her more like a mule than a wife. Logan
After moving to Eatonville and marrying Joe, Janie discovers that people are not always who they seem to be. While Joe at first seemed to be easy-going and friendly, she wa...
Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells about the life of Janie Crawford. Janie’s mother, who suffers a tragic moment in her life, resulting in a mental breakdown, is left for her grandmother to take care of her. Throughout Janie’s life, she comes across several different men, all of which end in a horrible way. All the men that Janie married had a different perception of marriage. After the third husband, Janie finally returns to her home. It is at a belief that Janie is seeking someone who she can truly love, and not someone her grandmother chooses for her. Although Janie eventually lives a humble life, Janie’s quest is questionable.
Zora Neale was an early 20th century American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. In her best known novel Their eyes were watching God, Hurston integrated her own first-hand knowledge of African American oral culture into her characters dialogue and the novels descriptive passages. By combing folklore, folk language and traditional literary techniques; Hurston created a truly unique literary voice and viewpoint. Zora Neale Hurston's underlying theme of self-expression and search for one’s independence was truly revolutionary for its time. She explored marginal issues ahead of her time using the oral tradition to explore contentious debates. In this essay I will explore Hurston narrative in her depiction of biblical imagery, oppression of African women and her use of colloquial dialect.
Oprah Winfrey mutilated the classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston by turning the movie into a story with no resemblance to the book. Throughout Janie Crawford’s life, love is a dream she wished to achieve. Oprah makes changes to Janie’s character, her marriages, and the differences of symbolism, the change of themes, and the significance of Janie’s childhood which will alter the entire moral of the story. Another difference is the way the townspeople gossip. Oprah changes the point of Janie’s life journey to find herself to a love story.
The next man that Janie confides in is Joe Starks. Joe in a sense is Janie's savior in her relationship with Logan Killicks. Joe was a well kept man who worked for "white-folks" all his life and had earned enough money to move himself to a town called Eatonville that was run completely by black people. Janie meets Joe while she is still married to Logan and she begins to lean on him ever so slightly. She has wanted to leave Logan, and she wouldn't have if Joe had not come along. Joe convinced Janie that he would be better off for her by telling her, "Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that presents a happy ending through the moral development of Janie, the protagonist. The novel divulges Janie’s reflection on her life’s adventures, by narrating the novel in flashback form. Her story is disclosed to Janie’s best friend Phoebe who comes to learn the motive for Janie’s return to Eatonville. By writing the novel in this style they witness Janie’s childhood, marriages, and present life, to observe Janie’s growth into a dynamic character and achievement of her quest to discover identity and spirit.
With Janie, there is an overwhelming conflict between her own will and the will of God. On one side of her reasoning, she feels the need to find and experience true love but on the other side, is God pulling the strings in her life. Janie's Nanny pushes her in the direction of marriage, even if there is no love between her and the man she marries. Janie desperately longs for love but is still unsure in her young womanhood if all it takes is a simple marriage to a man who will take care of her. This can be seen when Janie asks herself, "Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun the day?"(pg 21) Janie soon realizes that being taken care of is not the same as true love. Marriage is not what Janie wants. She wants love and her desire to get out of the marriage is clearly seen in all the references to animals. "She feels like a mule while she's with Logan. She knows she has the spirit of a stallion inside her but she is literally surrounded by a gate and can only stare towards her impossible dreams of love down the road" (pg 25-27). Logan puts a tremendous amount of un-needed stress on Janie with his demands as well as his verbal and physical abuse often seen through their marriage. Still in shock and confusion of the whole process, Janie gathers her courage and decides to run away with a man she barley knows, Joe Starks.
Janie married Logan Killicks for protection rather than love. He seemed to feel that he
Zora Neale Hurston uses many rhetorical devices to depict the relationship Janie has with Joe Starks in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In chapter 7 Hurston uses devices such as metaphors in three paragraphs to convey how Joe Starks role of a mayor has a tremendous weight on him and Janie. Also how he’s aging physically and mentally is affecting their relationship in a negative way.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford the main character goes through some big changes. Throughout this book Janie struggles to find her inner voice and purpose of love. She looks high and low for a sign of what love really is and she finds it as being the pear tree. The pear tree is very symbolic and ultimately shows Janie what love is and how it should be in a healthy relationship. This tree, with the bees pollinating the blossoms, helps Janie realize that love should be very mutual and each person needs to provide for the other equally. Janie tries to find this special kind of love through her three husbands, but she comes to realize it is going to be much harder then she expected. Each one of Janie’s husbands are a stepping stone for her finding her voice.
"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.
Horizons symbolize many different things in literature. They may symbolize goals or dreams. They may also symbolise the physical or imaginative limits a person has. Nonetheless, horizons have made an appearance in many famous works of literature. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is not an exception. The horizon has made many appearances throughout this novel, and like other works, carries meaning with it. Horizons convey the theme of searching for happiness through Janie’s attempts to find it using her three husbands, those being Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake.
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 the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was written by Zora Neale Hurston the story talks about a young woman named Janie find her “true love.” Nanny raised Janie Crawford, and she wanted her to get married to a safe and well of family, thus having her married to a middle-aged man farmer named Logan. After moving in with Logan, Janie seemed miserable because he was sensible, but unromantic, and he treats Janie like garbage. After some time, a smooth man named Joe Starks met Janie secretly, and he and Janie flirt in secret for a couple weeks before she runs off and marries him. “Jody”, as Janie called him, always dreamt of something bigger in life, for example his dream in life was to become a mayor. A few years later Jody becomes the