Janie´s Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Towards the end of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, takes an interesting twist when Tea Cake demonstrates an unusual act of violence and behavior. Most Readers agree that the character Janie is trying to create and discover her real identity through all the trials and tribulations she goes through in the novel. I am going to provide helpful insight toward the details of Janie’s quest to discover and create her own self-identity.in the novel, the main character Janie is in the process of discovering her self-identity. The identity she has never had because of her grandmother Nanny.

Nanny took away any chances of Janie having an identity when 0she arranges the marriage with Logan Killicks. After this, the self-identity that she was going to find through growing up as a normal girl was lost. This caused a chain reaction of bad relationships with men for Janie. At this point she is at a very vulnerable stage of her life and can be easily taken advantage of. The man that Nanny arranged her to be with was Logan Killicks. Janie does not feel any love connection with Logan. She tries to wait and see if any type of love develops between them. She only waits because she does not want to hurt her grandmother Nanny. Nanny constantly suppresses Janie’s self-identity because she is scared. Nanny is scared because she has been through many things in her life and does not want Janie to go through it. Nanny also instills a strong sense of being secured and finding security. The theme of security follows Janie throughout her relationships and the novel. When Nanny dies Janie has no reason to stay with Logan and Hurston writes**”… marriage did not make love. Jamie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” this was Janie’s first step in ...

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...ything else in life has led her to become a complete. She has reached appoint in her life where what people say do not affect her. She has developed her own code of morals to live from the lessons she has learned. This given her a heighten sense of freedom and a powerful control over herself that no one can take away. The sunlight in the end of the novel has great meaning. When she says “Tea Cake, sun for a shawl.” Hurston is making to let us know how Janie still feels about Tea Cake even though their relationship ended similar to all the others. The use of the horizon is also another important theme that ties into her self-actualization. In the real world, the horizon is close enough to see but is impossible to reach. Through the theme of the horizon, Hurston is trying to tell her audience that Janie has reached a point in her life that almost no one else reaches.