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their eyes were watching god quiz
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their eyes were watching god quiz
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Throughout the movie of 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. She becomes much stronger physically because when the storm approached and flooded the town, she pulled herself and Tea Cake out of the water. However, in the book, Ms. Hurston has it completely opposite from the movie; Tea Cake kills a dog during the storm to save his and Janie’s life then, the cow gets Janie out of the water and Tea Cake pulls himself out of the water. “Tea Cake split the water like an otter, opening his knife as he dived. The dog raced down the back-bone of the cow to the attack and Janie screamed and slipped far back on the tail of the cow, just out of reach of the dog’s angry jaws… Tea Cake rose out of the water at the cow’s rump and seized the dog by the neck… Then Tea Cake finished him and sent him to the bottom to stay there. The cow relieved of a great weight was landing on the fill with Janie before Tea Cake stroked in and crawled weakly upon the fill again” (Hurston 194). Zora’s purpose of making Janie weaker physically tells the story of a woman who cannot hold herself up on her own; ... ... middle of paper ... .... 2013. . "Their Eyes Were Watching God: Race Quotes." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . "Their Eyes Were Watching God: Race Quotes." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . "Their Eyes Were Watching God: Race Quotes." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. . Their Eyes Were Watching God. Dir. Darnell Martin. Perf. Halle Berry. Harpo, 2001. DVD. Wilchek, Deborah. "Made for TV: Their Eyes Were Watching God." AP Central. The College Board, 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
In Their Eyes Were Watching God Logan Killicks was Janie first husband. He would hang around Janie’s house and ask her grandmother for her hand in marriage. Janie would ask "Nanny, who—who dat been askin' you for me?" "Brother Logan Killicks. He's a good man, too." "Naw, Nanny, no ma'am! Is dat whut he been hangin' round here for? He look like some ole skullhead in de gra...
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.
Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
In Eatonville, gossip spreads throughout the townspeople. Sitting on each other's porches will become a usual community assembly. In the movie, the men gossip rather than the women who gossip in the book because Oprah wants equally between the men and the women. Janie’s best friend, Pheoby Watson, sits and talks with the women of Eatonville when Janie returns. Oprah portrays Janie in the movie as friends with all the women on the porch, but in the book she did not speak to none of the women. Pheoby walks to Janie’s house and Janie knows that the women have talked about her. Janie makes it clear that what the women say does not affect her. "To start off wid, people like dem wastes up too much time puttin’ they mouf on things they don’t know nothin’ about […]" (Hurston 6). Janie shows she does not care about what the women on the porch think of her because she knows what occurred in her and Tea Cake’s relationship not the women. Pheoby walked to Janie’s house to understand her reasoning for coming home in worn out overalls with no shoes on her feet and to bring her dinner. Oprah wants a weaker relationship between Janie and Pheoby. Zora Neale Hurston made them closer because Pheoby had the comfort of walking through Janie’s back door whereas in the movie she walks in the front door. In the movie version, Janie and Pheoby argue and in the book they never did. Oprah made them argue to continuously display Janie’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a good place to start examining the roles of African-American women. It is written by a woman, Zora Neale Hurston, and from a woman's perspective. This book examines the relationship between Janie and...
"SparkNotes: Their Eyes Were Watching God: Themes, Motifs & Symbols." sparknotes. SparkNotes, 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
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.
Unlike The Odyssey or any other epic tales, Their Eyes Were Watching God has a different perspective of what a hero is. In this novel, Hurston writes a story about an African-American woman named Janie Crawford whose quest is to find her identity and desire as a human being to be loved and appreciated for who she is. Her quest to fulfill those desires is not easy since she has to overcome so many obstacles and challenges in her life. A superiority that her Nanny posses over her to determine Janie's own life when she was a teenager and being a beautiful accessory to the glory of Joe Starks' are some of the experience that she encounters. She also has to make some sacrifices. And yet, just like any other heroes, at the end, she returns to her home with a victory on her hands.
Their Eyes Were Watching God provides an enlightening look at the journey of a "complete, complex, undiminished human being", Janie Crawford. Her story, based on self-exploration, self-empowerment, and self-liberation, details her loss and attainment of her innocence and freedom as she constantly learns and grows from her experiences with gender issues, racism, and life. The story centers around an important theme; that personal discoveries and life experiences help a person find themselves.
An underlying theme in Their Eyes Were Watching God was the treatment of characters due to their race. The book, which was written in 1937, portrays elements of racism that were present during that historical time period. It is important to understand that history, for although the book didn’t directly address racism, its presence is obvious throughout the story due to character interaction and the setting.
Oprah changed the theme of Their Eyes Were Watching God giving the story less meaning. She changed the theme by converting the journey of a woman into a romantic love story. By focusing on the story being about love, Oprah took away from the actual theme self revelation. Zora Neale Hurston revealed her book as the journey of a woman finding herself through the asperity of life. “So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead” (Hurston 1). The journey Janie traveled gave her insight that love can never promised forever, money doesn’t create happiness, and life consists of experience. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 30). “Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh themselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin fuh themselves” (Hurston 226). This means that throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God everyone needed to find out about living their life for themselves, nobody could live it for them. Oprah displays a romantic rendition of Their Eyes Were Watching God giving it a false significance; this separates Zora Neale Hurston’s real meaning of the theme.
Walker, Kristen. "Feminism Present in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." 7 February 2007. Yahoo Voices. 27 January 2014 .
Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, revolves around the small town world of Janie, a vibrant yet oppressed woman. The reader is taken through Janie’s experiences, which elicit tremendous emotional growth in the heroine. Their Eyes Were Watching God is teeming with symbols; however, one of the most prevalent symbols is Janie’s hair. Her hair conveys far deeper themes that the novel is imbued with. Described as long and flowing, Janie’s hair symbolizes her vivacity and free will; however, it also conveys the theme of being ostracized from a community you belong in. Janie’s hair, although lauded, gives her an appearance that is of stark contrast to the rest of her community.
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.
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.