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The life of zora neale hurston
The life of zora neale hurston
The life of zora neale hurston
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Self-esteem is confidence in one’s own worth or abilities or self-respect. Janie from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston and Jefferson from A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines both struggle with establishing a positive self-esteem or a sense of self-worth. Both characters get so overwhelmed by the supremacy of someone or something around them that they doubt their own power, thus, creating a feeling of doubt for themselves and the voice that they have. In order to gain a sense of high self-esteem, a person must endure points of self-doubt. The societal stereotypes associated with African Americans creates an unrealistic idea about how men and women of their race can think or act. Because Janie is an African American woman …show more content…
Logan Killicks, Janie’s first husband says to her in the midst of a fight, “You ain’t got no particular place. It’s wherever Ah need yuh” (Hurston 86). Logan does not think anything more of Janie than a helping hand. This goes to show African American women’s role in society, for it was to be in the background or in their husbands shadow in order to assist or give moral support. Janie is presented with overbearing husbands that believe nothing of her such as Logan Killicks. Because of this, she is given little to no freedom over what she can think or do. This contributes to the lost confidence the reader sees in Janie. Jefferson is presented with a similar problem. Jefferson is an African American man who is found guilty for a crime he did not commit in A Lesson Before Dying. In contrast to a gender stereotype as in …show more content…
Throughout A Lesson Before Dying Jefferson is compared to a hog while Janie is indirectly compared to a mule throughout many parts of Their Eyes Were Watching God. When Jefferson was on trial, his defense attorney, as stated previously, stated that he was not smart enough to plan anything. That Jefferson was not a man, he was only an animal or a hog. The reader sees this mentally break Jefferson. At a single point in the novel, Jefferson gets down on his hands and knees and eats out of a basket using only his mouth as a hog would. At this point, Jefferson is at his lowest mental state. The reader sees Janie at her lowest mental state when her husbands take away her voice. Janie deals with this for several years. She is not allowed to speak her mind but is allowed to work wherever and whenever her husband needs her. When Janie is accepting of this role as a mule, she become doubtful of herself and her voice, “the years took all the fight out of Janie’s face”. After a while she did not believe she had any fight in her soul. When Janie tries to break out of this and makes men in front of the store laugh, Joe gets angry and slaps her. Janie is now feeling useless and depressed. She is subject to the idea of a mule; she is to be silent but hard working. She was not directly identified as a mule as Jefferson was but the animal symbolized her role throughout the
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 novel The Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston the main character, Janie goes through many events that shows her growing up. Also these events show her becoming an educated woman who finds herself. From her first kiss to her three relationships the author makes this change in Janie visible. Throughout the novel these events show Janie maturing and becoming educated about herself and the world around her.
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
Janie Speaks Her Ideas in Their Eyes Were Watching God In life to discover our self-identity a person must show others what one thinks or feels and speak his or her mind. Sometimes their opinions may be silenced or even ignored. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie would sometimes speak her ideas and they would often make a difference. The author, Zora Neale Hurston, gives Janie many chances to speak and she shows the reader outcomes.
Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white
Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God describes the life of a black woman named Janie. Janie is raised by her grandmother and begins a close to life-long quest that can be viewed as a search for many things. Most scholars believe that this quest is for independence; on the contrary I believe that this quest is to find someone that she can be dependent on, the kind of dependency that "singing bees" have for pear blossoms.
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. Janie's outlook on life stems from the system of beliefs that her grandmother, Nanny, instils in her during her life.
In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie’s past actions affects her development throughout the novel. There are also positive and negative effects that impacted her life. Janie is influenced through the development of her relationships such as her Nanny’s advice to her as a child, Joe tries to control her, and before and after the hurricane causes Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship to become more tense, causing the outcome for her to free herself from the restrictions and make her own personal decisions. She becomes more confident, more self-aware , and discovers her capabilities .
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.
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
Janie refers to the African American people as “all against her”, and throughout the trial it is made clear the African Americans believe she is guilty. The most ironic part in the novel, near the very end, “The white women cried and stood around her like a protecting wall and the Negroes, with heads hung down, shuffled out and away.” (Their Eyes Were Watching God) The white women are there with Janie, crying and comforting her, while the African Americans leave, turning their back on
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks.While married to Killicks Janie didn’t make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. She always followed Killicks rules to being a good house wife. After getting tired of living life without love Janie took a brave leap and ran away form Killicks for Jody Starks. . When Joe came down the road, She saw things were different than what she had with Killicks. Jody stood for things she found fascinating. “…He spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance.” ;(29). And although Jody did not represent the Pear tree which symbolized Janie’s ideal complementary man, He was more than what Killicks offered. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who also never allowed Janie express her real self. He made it sound as if she would have been living the life she always wanted and the love she wanted so badly. Eatonville community looked at Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. She tried her best not to be the woman she was in her last marriage but when she started to fight back Killicks would hit her.”Ah thought you would ‘preciate good treatment. Thought Ah’d take and make somethin’ outa yuh. You think youse white folks by de way you act." (4.42) logan thinks that black woman aren’t supposed to demand any respect or good treatment and ought to be happy as her husband’s work and demands anything better. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife, but she quietly continued to be who she was not and ok killicks his death bed right before he dies, Janie expressed her suppressed anger. All this an...
In these two entrances, Janie starts to utilize her voice. In the principal, she stands up in acclaim of Jody before the townspeople, who are stunned that she is so great with her words. Jody has stifled her voice for so long that she has started to lose it, and nobody in the town has heard her talk since he doesn't as a rule let her discussion out in the open. Her short discourse after Jody purchases the donkey is a case of her basic, concealed voice turning out. This is the start of her recovering her voice from Jody, who had taken it
Hurston uses the power of language and different narrative techniques to show Janie's transition throughout the novel. It is important to notice that in Janie's journey from object to subject, the narration of the novel shifts from third person to a mixture of first and third person; thus, the shift shows the awareness of self within Janie. Language becomes an instrument of injury and salvation and of selfhood and empowerment. The use of powerful language is exemplified well in the text when Janie is asked to say a few words as the new Mrs. Mayor. Joe, her second husband, quickly cuts in and says, "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for not...
... Janie is free-spirited and unconcerned about what others think of her. When she returns to Eatonville after Tea Cake’s death, she shows no shame for what she has done or where she has been, because she is finally able to live the life she always wanted to lead. Hurston’s own struggles in life for individuality and an outlet for her suppressed spirit clearly contribute to the development of Janie’s character. Just as Hurston struggled for recognition, equality, and purpose in the literary world during the Harlem Renaissance, Janie’s struggle for the recognition, equality, and purpose in her relationships.