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Free response one page essay about zora neale hurston
Free response one page essay about zora neale hurston
Free response one page essay about zora neale hurston
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Oprah’s interpretation of Their Eyes Were Watching God sends multiple important details and significant events on a mass exodus, completely altering the story. With a different title, changing focus, unrecognizable characters, an altered theme, and the absence of symbolism, the entire meaning of the journey skews in this false interpretation of a classic novel. The elements of racial conflict and the purity of relationships are also replaced, removed, and distorted. All of the major details in the original story never reveal themselves in the movie, making the end product calamitous. One major insult to the book from the movie comes with the fact that the motion picture ultimately changes the title of the entire work and thus changes the focus. In the book, a hurricane draws closer to the muck while Tea Cake and Janie stay illustrated waiting in the dark of the shack they reside. “They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God” (Hurston 187). The title remains unscathed and the original focus on the story stays intact. However, the movie changes the entire meaning of the original name. “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. Instead, Janie becomes the center of attention and her hopes become the main focus. By doing this, the focus of the story changes making Janie the only focus and the inclusion of the other characters never reaches closure, making their expectati... ... middle of paper ... ...an Diego, 1 Apr. 2005. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . Grey, Katie. "Their Eyes Were Watching God: Analyzing Relationships." teenink. Teen Ink, Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . Hurston, Zora N. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York, NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000. Print. Miller, J. Dove. "Movie vs Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God." jdove-miller.hubpages. hubpages, 17 May 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . "SparkNotes: Their Eyes Were Watching God: Themes, Motifs & Symbols." sparknotes. SparkNotes, 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . Their Eyes Were Watching God. Dir. Darnell Martin. Perf. Halle Berry. Harpo, 2001. DVD.
The novel and movie “Their Eyes Were Watching God” both told the story of Janie developing through out life although they each showed it in similar and different ways. The movie was a depiction of Janie’s experience with her relationships and how they helped her grow while, the book focused on her relationships but also her knowledge of her what she wanted and thought of many of the things that were happining around her. I related more to the book since it was more decriptive and I actually got to picture how analyzed the story was played through my past experiences. The main point of the novel was for Janie to identify who she we find out she did when she killed Tea Cakes and picked her life over his.
"I think I was half prepared, in my dark, demented state, to see God, bearded and gray as geometry, scowling down at me, shaking his bloodless finger. (53)
Oprah Winfrey has twisted the whole book Their Eyes Were Watching God and made a movie which consists of some major changes. Janie’s character changed completely in the book than in the movie, also her relationship with friends and her companions. Oprah reiterates some major parts which also concluded how the hurricane happened which did not last long as it did in the book, symbolism also differed in the movie and some major symbols remained as noticeable as it was in the book. Winfrey changed the whole meaning of the title even though she did not change the title Winfrey made the meaning different when everybody watched God instead of just Janie. Zora Neale Hurston would have been disappointed if she still lived due to the fact that Oprah has remade her book and made it her own version which differed from Zora’s novel.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston in the year of 1937. In the novel, the main character is Janie Crawford. Janie has been treated differently by others during her life because of how she was raised and the choices she has made throughout her life. The community is quick to judge her actions and listen to any gossip about Janie in the town. Janie is known to be “classed off” from other members in her community in various ways. “Classed off” means to be separate or isolated from other people.
In Ethan Frome and Their Eyes Were Watching God, each character finds his or own way to overcome their suffering and pain due to the oppression of their desires and dreams. In Ethan Frome towards the end of the story, Ethan wants to drive Mattie into town to the train station so she can go home.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story about identity and reality to say the least. Each stage in Janie's life was a shaping moment. Her exact metamorphosis, while ambiguous was quite significant. Janie's psychological identification was molded by many people, foremost, Nanny, her grandmother and her established companions. Reality, identity, and experience go hand in hand in philosophy, identity is shaped by experience and with experience you accept reality. Life is irrefutably the search for identity and the shaping of it through the acceptance of reality and the experiences in life.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she grows into a stronger woman through three marriages.
As the high priest’s son he himself wanted to become a good priest but to become one he had to look at the place of gods with his own eyes.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford confronts social and emotional hardships that shape who she is from the beginning to the end of the novel. Living in Florida during the 1900s, it was very common for an African American woman to face discrimination on a daily basis. Janie faces gender inequality, racial discrimination, and social class prejudice that she is able to overcome and use to help her develop as a person.
Their Eyes were Watching God is set during a time period in the American history where African Americans were still segregated and suppressed by the white supremacist government. Janie Mae Crawford is shown to be born in a family with no male presence, and the women in her family are not married due to their past experiences with men. Her mother and grandmother have suffered and nursed many grievances caused by the men in their lives, such as the rape of the grandmother and Janie's mother. Thus, in order to prevent and eliminate this seemingly consecutive and bad generational history with men, and to ease her own worry about her granddaughter's future, the grand mother decides to marry Janie off despite her objections. This is shown with this quote:
Cofer, Jordan. "The "All-Demanding Eyes": Following The Old Testament And New Testament Allusions In Flannery O'connor's "Parker's Back." Flannery O'connor Review 6.(2008): 30-39. Literary Reference Center. Web. 19 Feb. 2012.
Through her three marriages, the death of her one true love, and proving her innocence in Tea Cake’s death, Janie learns to look within herself to find her hidden voice. Growing as a person from the many obstacles she has overcome during her forty years of life, Janie finally speaks her thoughts, feelings and opinions. From this, she finds what she has been searching for her whole life, happiness.
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.
Bond, Cynthia. "Language, Sign, and Difference in Their Eyes Were Watching God." Appiah and Gates 204-17.
This excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were watching God, is an example of her amazing writing. She makes us feel as if we are actually in her book, through her use of the Southern Black vernacular and admirable description. Her characters are realistic and she places special, well thought out sentences to keep us interested. Zora Neale Hurston’s art enables her to write this engaging story about a Southern black woman’s life.