The Harlem Renaissance was a period of time when African Americans formed their identity by stressing their true character and creating their music and literature. Zora Neale Hurston contributed to this evolution with her unique works that inspire subsequent authors. However, From Their Eyes Were Watching God can be considered one of her most prominent works because it has a captivating story, an in-depth analyses, and one’s personal reaction. I. The story begins by illustrating a mysterious woman walking down a road. The local residents, sitting and gossiping in their front porch, began maliciously talking about her as she passed by them. It is revealed that the woman’s name is Janie Starks and that she disappeared with a younger man named “Tea Cake.” After hearing the people’s conversation, Pheoby Watson (a friend of Starks) criticizes them and later visits Starks’s house to …show more content…
The analysis of From Their Eyes Were Watching God provides a more detailed in-sight of the social position of African Americans in rural surroundings. Janie Starks is portrayed as a free-willed woman who is misunderstood by her community. Immediately after she returned to her home in Chapter One, her own race questioned and gossiped about how she is dressed and that she should not have marry a younger man. For example, some of the things that Starks’s community commented about her was her dirty overalls, lack of wealth, and so forth. In addition, the principles of colored people were reflected when in a flashback, Starks’s grandmother tells the protagonist to marry an older man for protection and financial support. Figuratively, this action represents the dependency of a rural colored women during the time. Additionally, one of the main themes in the story was the moment under the pear tree. This experience symbolically relates to the bond and contrast between the two genders, which is experienced during the main character’s quest for love throughout the
What is one’s idea of the perfect marriage? In Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has a total of three marriages and her best marriage was to Tea Cake. Janie’s worst and longest marriage was to Joe Starks where she lost her dream and was never happy. The key to a strong marriage is equality between each other because in Janie’s marriage to Joe she was not treated equally, lost apart of herself and was emotionally abused, but her and Tea Cake's marriage was based on equality and she was able to fully be herself.
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.
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.
Zora Neale was an early 20th century American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. In her best known novel Their eyes were watching God, Hurston integrated her own first-hand knowledge of African American oral culture into her characters dialogue and the novels descriptive passages. By combing folklore, folk language and traditional literary techniques; Hurston created a truly unique literary voice and viewpoint. Zora Neale Hurston's underlying theme of self-expression and search for one’s independence was truly revolutionary for its time. She explored marginal issues ahead of her time using the oral tradition to explore contentious debates. In this essay I will explore Hurston narrative in her depiction of biblical imagery, oppression of African women and her use of colloquial dialect.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, struggles to find herself and her identity. Throughout the course of the novel she has many different people tell her who she should be and how she should behave, but none of these ideas quite fit Janie. The main people telling Janie who she should be is her grandmother and Janie’s 3 husbands. The people in Janie's life influence her search for identity by teaching her about marriage, hard work, class, society, love and happiness. Janie's outlook on life stems from the system of beliefs that her grandmother, Nanny, instils in her during her life.
Zora Neale Hurston once said, “Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.” In post-slavery African American society, this statement was unusual, as society was focused on materialistic values. The “veil” Hurston mentions is a lens used to sift through one’s beliefs; to help one understand that what they have is more important than what they don’t. Hurston alludes the veil in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in the form of a fish-net, saying “She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it in from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulders" (193). Just like the veil, the “fish-net” allows one to sift through one’s beliefs, deciding what is important and what is not. Essentially, Hurston
The Harlem Renaissance was all about freedom of expression and the search for one's identity. Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, shows these goals through the main character Janie and her neighbors. Janie freely expressed what she wanted and searched for her identity with her different husbands. Even though Janie was criticized by everyone except her friends, she continued to pursue. She lost everything, but ultimately found her identity. Hurston's writing is both a reflection and a departure from the idea of the Harlem Renaissance.
The novel shadows the life of Janie Crawford pursuing the steps of becoming the women that her grandmother encouraged her to become. By the means of doing so, she undergoes a journey of discovering her authentic self and real love. Despise the roller-coaster obstacles, Janie Crawford’s strong-will refuses to get comfortable with remorse, hostility, fright, and insanity.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, constantly faces the inner conflicts she has against herself. Throughout a lot of her life, Janie is controlled, whether it be by her Nanny or by her husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Her outspoken attitude is quickly silenced and soon she becomes nothing more than a trophy, only meant to help her second husband, Joe Starks, achieve power. With time, she no longer attempts to stand up to Joe and make her own decisions. Janie changes a lot from the young girl laying underneath a cotton tree at the beginning of her story. Not only is she not herself, she finds herself aging and unhappy with her life. Joe’s death become the turning point it takes to lead to the resolution of her story which illustrates that others cannot determine who you are, it takes finding your own voice and gaining independence to become yourself and find those who accept you.
For this duration of her life, there is little that furthers Janie’s development as an individual. The extent of her growth is learning that marriage does not always produce, and is not always a product of, love. The fact that she had “waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time” for something to become of her own marriage only adds to her lack of development (Hurston 25). She waited an entire year before she realized that her expectations would not be fulfilled. For that reason, Janie’s youth has ended and the death of the blossoms represents her transition into womanhood. However, her confinement to Logan’s farm prevents her from experiencing the rest of the world; experiences that would continue to shape her into a woman. In this sense, Janie has entered a prolonged period of winter. She is like a seed in the ground, waiting for the frost to thaw so she can sprout and blossom once more. Supporting this idea is the fact that seeds--rather than just dead petals--are falling to the ground suggests that there will be another springtime for Janie, and this time of her life is in preparation of that. Janie believes that she is approaching her next springtime when Joe Starks appears, for she considers him to be a possible “bee for her bloom” (32). However,
Racine, Maria J. "African American Review." Voice and Interiority in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God 28.2 (1994): 283-92. Jstor. Black's Women Culture Issue, Summer 1994. Web. Dec. 2013.
It’s a shame that even to this day in the African American community, dark skinned people try to bleach their skin to look more “appealing.” It’s a shame that as a whole, the African American community continues to fight for justice against police brutality and the white man. It’s also a shame that over the span of 400 years, only 6 decades were put forth to get rid of segregation alone. Racism and prejudice still poisons this country and the communities within it.
An effective figure in the era of the Harlem Renaissance was known as Zora Neale Hurston. In 1937, the respected author, anthropologist, folklorist, and activist published her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel that only took a total of seven weeks to write while visiting Haiti. Unfortunately her novel was criticized by many and liked by few. In 1960, Hurston would seemingly only mirror the same nonexistent appearance of her unmarked grave in which she had been laid to rest. Hurston had remained in her unmarked grave with her unknown “Identity” until African American writer Alice Walker possessed an interest in Hurston and her novel Their Eyes, becoming known as one of the most regarded works in African American and Women’s Literature.
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.
This novel is about an African American woman, Janie Crawford, who goes, as she says, “to the horizon and back,” finding her selfhood and the unconditional love that she had sought her whole life. The story begins in present time, but after the first chapter evolves into a flashback for almost the rest of the book. This flashback, one of the most powerful elements of structure in the book, takes the reader back through her life. From her first two husbands, who stifled her independence and didn't love Janie for who she was, to Tea Cake who showed her maybe not the most perfect love, but a real love with the independence that she was never granted. This flashback doesn't even