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Their eyes were watching god theme essay pdf
Their eyes were watching god critical analysis
Their eyes were watching god critical analysis
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Times of reflection symbolize a person’s need to place previous situations in a correct perspective. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston introduces Janie Mae Crawford as a woman of mystery and then uses a flashback to unravel the intrigue surrounding Janie. As Janie arrives at her house in Eatonville, her best friend Pheoby joins her to discuss the circumstances concerning recent events which brings Janie back to her old house. When Janie begins her tale, memory takes over to relay the important aspects of her life’s adventure. Life experiences are shared which had impacted Janie’s journey of finding love. Hurston comments that “women forget all those things they do not want to remember and remember everything they do not want to forget” (Hurston 1). In the details of the search for true love, memory recalls the entrapment for love, the blinding aspirations for love, the fulfillment of love, and the loss of love which weaves itself into Janie’s recollection. …show more content…
As a teenager, Janie dreamed of love and compared it to blossoms of a pear tree. Since Janie’s grandmother insisted that she marry for security, Janie agrees to marry Logan Killicks with the promise that love will develop over time. Times passes on with no change of feelings, and Janie is trapped into a loveless marriage with the conditions of that arrangement deteriorating. Memory recalls that period of time as one of anger toward her grandmother for forcing Janie to give up her dream of true love. To Janie, security does not replace love. When Janie realizes that those feelings of love will never come, she begins to look for a means of
In the beginning, the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s yearning to find within herself the sort of harmony and simplicity that nature embodies. However, that idealized view changes when Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks, a wealthy and well-respected man whom Janie’s Nanny set her up with. Because Janie does not know anything about love, she believes that even if she does not love Logan yet, she will find it when they marry. Upon marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for what he did, not for that infallible love every woman deserves. After a year of pampering, Logan becomes demanding and rude, he went as far to try to force Janie to do farm work. It was when this happened that Janie decided to take a stand and run away with Joe. At this time, Janie appears to have found a part of her voice and strong will. In a way, she gains a sense of independence and realizes she has the power to walk away from an unhealthy situation and does not have to be a slave to her own husband.
In the beginning years of Janie’s life, there were two people who she is dependent on. Her grandmother is Nanny, and her first husband is named Logan Killicks. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, “Janie, an attractive woman with long hair, born without benefit of clergy, is her heroine” (Forrest). Janie’s grandmother felt that Janie needs someone to depend on before she dies and Janie could no longer depend on her. In the beginning, Janie is very against the marriage. Nanny replied with, “’Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, its protection. ...He done spared me...a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life” (Hurston 18). Nanny is sure to remind Janie that she needs a man in her life for safety, thus making Janie go through life with that thought process.
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.
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
At age sixteen, Janie is a beautiful young girl who is about to enter womanhood and experience the real world. Being joyous and unconcerned, she is thrown into an arranged marriage with Logan Killicks. He is apparently unromantic and unattractive. Logan is a widower and a successful farmer who desires a wife who would not have her own opinions. He is set on his own ways and is troubled by Janie, who forms her own opinions and refuses to work. He is unable to sexually appeal or satisfy Janie and therefore does not truly connect with her as husband and wife should. Janie's wild and young spirit is trapped within her and she plays the role of a silent and obeying wife. But her true identity cannot withhold itself for she has ambitions and she wills to see the world and find love. There was a lack of trust and communication between Logan and Janie. Because of the negative feelings Janie has towards Logan, she deems that this marriage is not what she desires it to be. The pear tree and the bees had a natural att...
In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Sweat,” Hurston uses the characters Janie Crawford and Delia Jones to symbolize African-American women as the mules of the world and their only alternative were through their words, in order to illustrate the conditions women suffered and the actions they had to take to maintain or establish their self-esteem.
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.
In the movie “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Janie Mae Crawford Killicks Starks Wood starts off as a poor women living with her ex-slave
The conflicts in Their Eyes Were Watching God fall under the ‘character vs character’ and ‘character vs self’ categories. Character vs character conflicts occur between Janie and Logan Killicks, and Janie and Joe Starks; the conflicts with both men were of the same nature – arguments and dissatisfaction with Janie’s behavior. Character vs self occurs during Janie’s marriage to Logan. Janie wants to obey her grandmother, but she also wants to marry for love. On page 25, Hurston writes “[Janie] knew now that marriage did not make love…[her] first dream was dead…” This quote shows the resolution of Janie’s emotional battle with herself. The struggle between good and evil in the main conflict is obscure rather than immediately perceptible – second example of character vs self, the main conflict is Janie struggling to find her identity amongst numerous people who want to control her life instead of letting her do so herself.
Traditions pertaining to gender and class greatly affect the the characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Kite Runner; both Janie and Amir better themselves by rebelling against traditional roles in their cultures. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a book which follows Janie Starks through three marriages. Their Eyes Were Watching God examines how African-American women were greatly oppressed during the early twentieth century. The story is set in Florida during the early 1900s. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini follows an Afghan man named Amir from childhood to adulthood. The book deals with many dark subjects such as rape and terrorism. The Kite Runner allows the reader to see how Amir’s living in war-torn
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...
Janie had many turning points in her life which led her to womanhood. The first came when she figured out that marriage was not the key to love. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Hurston 25). After being married to Logan Killicks, Janie said he was not lovable. She described him as an ugly, soulless human being. There was not enough substance to him; therefore she had to leave him. Furthermore, the only reason Logan wanted Janie was so she could help him in the fields. After leaving Logan, Janie met another man, Jody Starks. At first, she was immediately attracted to him because he offered her a new life. The two went on to settle in Eatonville, Florida, where Jody became the mayor.
What defines a good writer? In Zora Neale Hurston’s psychological fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the writer tells the story of a woman by the name of Janie and her multiple marriages. Describing her romances and her endless struggle to try and find love. Ms. Hurston describes all of this in a dialect of the African Americans living in the south during the time period in which the story is based. This is an amazing accomplishment for a writer because it is extremely difficult to accurately and consistently portray a certain dialect of a language. Even though this was a great accomplishment, certain flaws were discovered and brought to light. An acclaimed author and literary critic by the name of Richard Wright read and evaluated Ms.
Janie’s first attempt at love does not turn out quite like she hopes. Her grandmother forces her into marrying Logan Killicks. As the year passes, Janie grows unhappy and miserable. By pure fate, Janie meets Joe Starks and immediately lusts after him. With the knowledge of being wrong and expecting to be ridiculed, she leaves Logan and runs off with Joe to start a new marriage. This is the first time that Janie does what she wants in her search of happiness: “Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie’s new outlook on life, although somewhat shadowed by blind love, will keep her satisfied momentarily, but soon she will return to the loneliness she is running from.
We have read multiple books throughout this semester and they all are tied together in many ways. They all have themes of family, lying, switching at birth etc. We did not read the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston but it fits into many of the themes we have seen in the books we read this semester. This book has many themes such as love, power, and language. I will be comparing how the different themes connects this book with many others we have read throughout this semester.