In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, there are many major points in the novel that reflect the meaning of the title. Hurston seems to relate God to love and life and this could be one reason why a book about love and self-realization would have a title relating to a higher power. The title also reflects a sense of lacking control over the outcome and direction of life. Through Janie's experience with Teacake and one of the major turning points in the novel, the hurricane, the reader can see the relevance of the title to the novel as well as the novelist.
Janie's relationship with Teacake is the area in the novel where references to God begin to emerge. Janie associates God with love as many people do, calling on religion only in the best and worse times of life. The first two thirds of the novel does not have many points in which God seems relevant to Janie's life. This all changes when Janie falls in love because she feels like she needs to thank God for bringing Janie and Teacake together. The hurricane scene is one area in the novel where love and the relationship between God and nature is brought up. When the hurricane is worsening in severity Teacake guiltily asks Janie if she wishes she were back in her big house instead of with him. Janie feels that "God opened de door" when He brought Teacake into her life (236). Janie also makes reference to God and love when Teacake starts to worsened from the rabies he contracted after getting bit by the dog in the hurricane. Janie tells an ill Teacake "Ah jus' know dat God snatched me out de fire though you" (267). Here it is obvious that Janie believes God is in control and brought Teacake to her to make her life better. It is interesting tha...
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...ly controllable without realizing God's influence over all of existence.
Through Janie's experiences and feelings regarding the love of her life, his death, and the hurricane, it is obvious that Hurston meant for the reader to relate self-realization with questioning God. Although God is not a dominant theme in the novel, it is likely that Hurston was mirroring the people she came into contact with throughout her endeavors as a folklorist. Perhaps God was not an everyday part of her people's lives, but when there was a problem with love or nature was impacting their lives God was certainly a significant and appropriate part of their lives. This title and the novel reflect one woman's journey to discover life and love while realizing God's presence through it all and immortalizes the way many people in Hurston's time must have felt regarding God and nature.
In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author takes you on the journey of a woman, Janie, and her search for love, independence, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit seems to constantly be disregarded, yet Janie continues to hold on to the potential of grasping all that she desires. In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Hurston illustrates the ambiguity of Janie’s voice; the submissiveness of her silence and the independence she reclaims when regaining her voice. The reclaiming of Janie's independence, in the novel, correlates with the development and maturation Janie undergoes during her self discovery.
Throughout the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Zora Neale Hurston uses colors and other symbols to describe the state of relationships, feelings, and even show a certain point of view. As Janie goes through relationships, she encounters different colors. Hurston also shows us Janie’s feelings within those relationships as well as the common view of the world on Janie. Next to the colors, Hurston uses other symbols to show the reader even more specific meanings.
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.
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.
“Tea Cake: What’cha doin’ Janie? Janie: Ah’m watchin’ God” (Their). Not taken into account by the movie, the other characters become unimportant to the plot as Janie watches God. Important characters such as Tea Cake and Joe Starks transform into minor characters. Even the residents of Eatonville and the muck have a forgotten hope for safety and a future, for they become cast aside.
The movie and the book of Their Eyes Were Watching God both tell the story of a young woman’s journey to finding love; however, the movie lacks the depth and meaning behind the importance of Janie’s desire for self-fulfillment. Oprah Winfrey’s version alters the idea from the book Zora Neale Hurston wrote, into a despairing love story for the movie. Winfrey changes Hurston’s story in various ways by omitting significant events and characters, which leads to a different theme than what the novel portrays. The symbolisms and metaphors emphasized throughout the book are almost non-existent in the movie, changing the overall essence of the story. While Zora Neale Hurston’s portrayal gives a more in depth view of Janie’s journey of self-discovery and need for fulfilling love, Oprah Winfrey’s version focuses mainly on a passionate love story between Janie and Tea Cake.
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 .
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.
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 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.
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.
Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
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.
The book revolves around one particular idea that God is nature and we should live close to nature, for it is our greatest teacher, and it is once again God. There is this idea in the book that God can manifest through nature, like when Janie was under the fruit tree, in nature, and was finally able to get her thoughts together, figuratively through God (11). Also in the text, Teacake, Janie and Motorboat were watching the hurricane up in the sky. The text directly restated the title, “Their eyes were watching God,” directly implying that the hurricane, a representation of nature, is God himself. This same hurricane puts the three through havoc and nearly kills them; also implying that it is God, himself, only this time, indirectly.
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.