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Their eyes were watching god oprah winfrey
Their eyes were watching god oprah winfrey
Their eyes were watching god oprah winfrey
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Whose Eyes Were Really Watching? Oprah Winfrey’s movie version of Their Eyes Were Watching God depicts Zora Neale Hurston’s books true meaning. The movie and book display several differences between each other. The movie altars the book's version of Janie’s relationships with other characters in which implied, while also changing Janie’s image. Oprah made her movie with so many differences than Zora Neale Hurston’s book. In Oprah’s movie she puts her own spin on what Janie and Pheoby’s relationship truly means, and makes it the complete opposite. Oprah revised Janie and Pheoby’s relationship from close friends who could tell one another anything and they could trust that they would tell their business just as they would say it “ Dat’s just …show more content…
Zora Neale Hurston made Tea Cake use Janie’s money to throw a party in the book while the movie said he gambled it away, ironically the money belonged to Janie which Tea Cake stole so he stole his “ woman's money”. Janie also supposedly got hit by Tea Cake in the book so he could show he owned her, but the movie never showed him doing that action “ Also absent from the film is the beating that Tea Cake gives Janie, his “ brainstorm “ that “ relives the awful fear inside him” (Hurston 1990, 140 ). This giving the impression that Oprah wanted their relationship seen as nothing involving hate. The book made Janie out to seem jealous over another woman as for Tea Cake also; yet in the movie no form of jealousy showed, again showing Oprah’s intention to just show their relationships purity. She has changed the audience’s whole outlook on Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship from not the perfect couple to the perfect couple stereotype. Oprah’s movie also left out one relationship that Zora Neale Hurston’s book had, consisted between Nanny and Janie. In the book their relationship consist of Nanny telling Janie what to do and making all of her life decisions. Janie back talks her grandmother several times and the book states that Nanny would have never hurt Janie yet she slapped Janie across the face. Yet in the movie this relationship and all the situations did not show in Oprah’s movie. The audience never sees Nanny which becomes a letdown in the
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.
Phoeby is Janie’s best friend, and the narrator of the story. Throughout the story Phoeby is a friend Janie can lean on, and defends her choices to the other
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Throughout the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, Oprah Winfrey alternates Zora Neale Hurston’s story of a woman’s journey to the point where nobody even recognizes it. The change in the theme, the characters, and their relationships form a series of major differences between the book and the movie. Instead of teaching people the important lessons one needs to know to succeed in this precious thing called life, Oprah tells a meaningless love story for the gratification of her viewers. Her inaccurate interpretation of the story caused a dramatic affect in the atmosphere and a whole new attitude for the audience. During the movie, Oprah makes a shift in Janie’s character by strengthening her mental and physical state.
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.
Oprah explored the reason behind Kim’s divorce. She questioned if there was something drastically terrible that happened, Kim responded “No”. Oprah then clarified by rephrasing her own question, “there wasn’t, he didn’t hit you, tried to beat you...?” Another example is when Kim stated, “I started to see things that I wasn’t aware of before” and then Oprah asked by saying, “Like” but Kim denied to answer that further by stating, I wouldn’t, I think it is little too personal.’ Oprah respected Kim’s personal feelings and she didn’t ask for further
When Oprah made Their Eyes Were Watching God into a movie, she changed the story beyond what Zora Neale Hurston intended it to portray. During the movie, the characters and their relationships changed. The directors portrayed Janie as a more confident, independent women. Unlike the submissive, docile Janie the readers would come to know. The unnecessary modifications made for the movie took something from the readers of an amazing book.
They sometimes went to jook joints, and other times stayed at home where Tea Cake played his guitar and people gathered together. “The house was full of people every night. That is, all the doorstep was full. Some were there to hear Tea Cake pick the box; some came to talk and tell stories, but most of them came to get into whatever game was going on or might go on… outside of the two jooks, everything on that job went on around those two” (Hurston, 133). Like Eatonville, “The men held big arguments here like they used to do on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” (Hurston, 134). The way she now lived her life, at least to her, seemed simpler. “Clerkin’ in dat store wuz hard, but heah, we ain’t got nothin’ tuh do but do our work and come home and love” (Hurston, 133). Tea Cake, shortly before his death, said to Janie, “You’se uh lil girl all de time. God made it so you spent yo’ old age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo’ young girl days to spend wid me” (Hurston,
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
Path to Finding True Love “True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together.” This quote by Ricardo Montalban tells us that true love simply has to develop and it doesn’t happen right away. Janie is the main character from the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and she struggled on the concept of true love. This quote explains exactly why Janie never found true love.
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.