The Growth of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God Human beings love inertia. It is human nature to fear the unknown and to desire stability in life. This need for stability leads to the concept of possessing things, because possession is a measurable and definite idea that all society has agreed upon. Of course, when people begin to rely on what they know to be true, they stop moving forward and simply stand still. Zora Neal Hurston addresses these general human problems in her novel Their
Janie Crawford’s Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie Crawford, the main character of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, strives to find her own voice throughout the novel and, in my opinion, she succeeds even though it takes her over thirty years to do it. Each one of her husbands has a different effect on her ability to find that voice. Janie discovers her will to find her voice when she is living with Logan. Since she did not marry him for love, tensions arise
Janie Speaks Her Ideas in Their Eyes Were Watching God In life to discover our self-identity a person must show others what one thinks or feels and speak his or her mind. Sometimes their opinions may be silenced or even ignored. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie would sometimes speak her ideas and they would often make a difference. The author, Zora Neale Hurston, gives Janie many chances to speak and she shows the reader outcomes. When dealing with all
Janie Crawford’s School of Hard Knocks in Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie Crawford evolving selfhood through three marriages. Fair-skinned, long haired, dreamy as a child, Janie grows up expecting better treatment than she gets. Living life as one man's mules or another man's adornment. Janie is one black woman who does not have to live in lost sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, for Janie has learned "two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh
Janie and the Pear Tree in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the image of a pear tree reverberates throughout the novel. The pear tree is not only a representation of Janie's life - blossoming, death, metamorphosis, and rebirth - but also the spark of curiosity that sets Janie on her quest for self-discovery. Janie is essentially "rootless" at the beginning of her life, never having known her mother or father and having been
Zora Neale Hurston "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). When Janie was a teenager, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longs for something more. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if this is what she looks for. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character
the author’s theme of a search for true love. The setting of Eatonville, Florida, where main character Janie experiences life as the mayor’s wife, is contrasted with the Florida Everglades, where Janie lives with Tea Cake in a much more relaxed atmosphere. Hurston describes Eatonville not in a negative way, but more as a place that is not beneficial to an independent woman like Janie. Janie Starks, the wife of the mayor, is sentenced to spend her days as a worker in the town store, hair tied up
different names," Janie innocently expresses (Hurston 9). The nickname "Alphabet" is appropriate in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God because she is indefinable to others and herself. From her early childhood, Janie Crawford searches for self-knowledge and grows through her relationships with men, family, and society. The main character continually seeks autonomy and self-realization, but her quest cannot continue as long as she is the object of others. Janie must find her own
character named Janie who is raised by her grandmother on a white plantation in Georgia, and until seeing a photograph of herself, she has always assumed that she is white. She loves her grandmother, but after her grandmother's death, she realizes that she resents her as well. Her grandmother has been strict with her and has taught her that love is obtained only through marriage. Janie feels that her grandmother has taken all of her dreams away. Although she is independent, Janie marries three
Their Eyes Were Watching God In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the life of Janie is presented as a journey. Janie survives a grandmother, three husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout this journey, she moves towards her ideals about love and how to live one's life. Hurston chooses to define Janie not by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie undergoes many changes throughout her journey, but the imagery in her life always conjures positive ideas
Were Watching God, Janie discovers herself through her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. Each marriage brings her closer to that one thing in life she dreams to have, love. Janie is a woman who has lived most of her life the way other people thought she should. Her mother abandons her when she is young, and her grandmother (Nanny), raises her. Nanny has a very strict moral code, and specific ideas about freedom and marriage. As the novel opens Janie creates a visual demonstration
main female characters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Seraph on the Suwanee, move from oppression to liberation throughout the course of the novel. Their journey to find their own “niche” in life occurs via their relationships with men. For Janie, her relationships with dominant male figures stifle her identity as well as her ability to achieve self-actualization. For Arvay Meserve, her personal background and relationship with her authoritarian husband cause miscommunication and thus prevent
of life cycles. The experiences that Janie faces and struggles through in her life represent the many cycles that she has been present for. Each cycle seem to take place with the start of each new relation ship that she faces. Each relationship that Janie is involved in not just marriages, blooms and withers away like the symbol of Janie's life the pear tree from her childhood. Janie's Grandmother is the first bud on her tree. She raised Janie since she was a little girl. Her grandmother
way, she is a minor character with effects on the major character. This makes Nanny important. The reader learns a lot about Nanny in last paragraph of chapter two, mainly from her dialogue, including unique syntax and diction, and imagery. "And, Janie, maybe it wasn't much, but Ah done de best Ah kin by you. Ah raked and scraped and bought dis lil piece uh land so you wouldn't have to stay in de white folks' yard and tuck yo' head befo' other chillun at school. Dat was all right when you was little
(1890’s), her father gave much attention to her sister, and she was jealous of her; Janie also felt “unloved” by Nanny, her grandmother. When Hurston was young, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, where her dad became the mayor. Her experience parallels Janie’s life, when she moved to Eatonville with Jody, her second husband. Jody is much like Hurston’s father John that he is unaffectionate towards Janie, and gives her no freedom. Hurston’s mother Lucy had encouraged her to continue reading
ignored in the big picture. Janie realized what she didn’t want and not to settle and that helped her accept Teacake later on in the book. Jody’s ideals did not mesh with a Janie and caused a lot of conflict. Throughout their twenty-year marriage, three events symbolized the rift between Jody and Janie; The first was his refusing to allow Janie to speak at the towns opening ceremony, Janie’s public response to Jody’s ridicule of her, and Jody’s rejection of Janie while on his deathbed. After
the racial ties that would affect Janie all the way through this life long search. Janie's search for identity actually started long before she was born. Because Janie's search is her family's search. Nanny and Janie's mom gave Janie a reason to search. They were always held back by their owners, and their owners took advantage of them, and raped them. They raped them of their identity. Nanny signifies to evade the realities of her life and the life of Janie. When Nanny says, "Thank yuh, Massa
in lifestyle as well as their relationship with Janie, they all shared certain similarities. Janie's first husband was a poor old soul named Logan Killicks. He was an ugly, dirty farmer whose prime concern for Janie was that she do her share of the work in order to keep the farm up and running. Janie was simply another pair of hands to do some work. When compared with Janie's second husband, Logan seems uncaring and rude. When Janie first met her second husband, Joe, he was very caring
entertainer. Janie was not a good match for him. She saw his house and sixty acres as “a stump in the middle of the woods.” Janie didn’t value working as much as Killicks does. She doesn’t value her independence enough to work as hard as he does for it. Further, Killicks was happy just with the company of her, the farm animals, and the land. Janie needed a large group of other people to cheer her on and support her. Killicks never provided the audience that Tea Cake later did. Finally, Janie didn’t choose
Their Eyes Were Watching God In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie battles to find Individualism within 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