Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie faces many struggles in her life. As the offspring of rape in the south, she never really had a choice in who she was or wanted to be. She became trapped within the social ladder where she, as a black woman, hung at the very bottom. Also, her aspirations are shaped by her grandmother, Nannie, who only wanted her to have a life of money, security, and protection, a life she never got to have. However, as Janie moves from one marriage to the next, she begins to discover her independence, voice, and conscience as she moves from one marriage to the next.
The first quality Janie reveals is her independence. This occurs after she decides to take charge of her life and happiness

by leaving her first husband, Logan Killicks. By leaving Logan, Janie has the first experience of control and decision making. She describes this as “A feeling of sudden newness and change [that] came over her. [She] hurried out the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good” (32). Although this decision goes directly against what her grandmother, Nannie, wanted. Nannie, because she believes her choices will benefit Janie’s life, disregards her desire for affection, in order to live vicariously through her granddaughter, when she states, “Heah you got uh prop to lean on all yo’ awn days, and big protection, and everybody got uh tip day hat uh you ad call you Mis’ Killicks, and you come worrin’ to me ’bout love” (23). This reveals to the readers the overbearing nature of Nannie in Janie’s life which caused her to have no sense of independence and intensifies the significance of Janie’s departure. Even when she was with Logan, Janie had little control of her life. For example, she had to cook in the kitchen and work outside in the manure even though Logan loved her. The work in the manure signifies how low Janie feels at this point in life. On the same rung as animals on the social ladder, she becomes the mule of the world, overworked, controlled, and disregarded. Therefore, as Janie adventures into the next phase of her life, she discovers that instead of others controlling her future, she can make decisions for herself and not conform to society's standards of what women of color should be.
In her next marriage, Janie finds herself with a severely jealous man, Joe Starks, who always makes an effort to stifle her thoughts and opinions.

When they were together, Joe would not allow her to speak after he became mayor, or with the other people in town as he kept her alone inside their store. However, when Joe is dying and unable to restrain her, Janie releases all of her pent up thoughts and defies the common behavior of women who will not stand up for themselves. She finds the courage to voice her opinion where before “[her] own mind had duh be squeezed and crowded out duh make room for [Joe’s] in [her]”(86). This reveals how the women in that time period were not thought to have a mind of their own, so the men would take the liberty to fill women’s heads with the opinions and thoughts of others. However, in Janie’s case, she had opinions and ideas pent up inside her, but she could not release them into the world. This continues until, like releasing a caged animal, she vents to Joe on his deathbed, “You done lives with me for twenty years and you don't half know me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin’ de works of yo’ own hands, and cuffin’ folks around their minds till you didn’t see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have” (86). In this release of pent up emotion, Janie reveals how she felt for the twenty years she was married to Joe while also discovering her voice. After Joe’s death, Janie symbolically releases her hair from its wrap and

into the world. This is synonymous to the release of her mind where now, she can defend herself and no longer has to comply to the notions of others.
Later in her life, Janie finds herself married to her “pear tree,”the love she has always aspired to have, Tea Cake.

Unfortunately, the relationship is short lived as Tea Cake falls ill to a disease contracted during a massive hurricane and flood. In his final moments, Janie learns when to let someone or an idea go. She had hope that her love would survive until “[She] saw the ferocious look In his eyes and went mad with fear as she had done in the water that time” (184). At this point, Janie recognizes that he was no longer the Tea Cake she loved, but just a shell of something that once was human in a state of madness. Love is madness, but not this kind. As she fires the bullet that saves her life, Janie ultimately decided to let go of the love for which she had been searching, and the idea that he would survive. “She wanted him alive so much and he was dead”(184). The love she felt for him was so strong that she pulled the trigger to not only save herself, but also rescue him from his delirium. Up until this point in her life, Janie has either wanted to control her own life or was controlled by others. The loss of Tea Cake taught her that sometimes there is no control and that letting go is necessary for

survival.
By the end of her journey, Janie has discovered many aspects about herself that she would never have without the ending of all three of her marriages. Without this loss, she would have never been able to grow. Most likely, she never would have been truly happy with the life Nannie wanted for her. Without the discovery of her independence, voice, and the ability to let go, Janie would have never have regarded her journey as an adventure, and would not have been satisfied with the decisions she made. Therefore, what would have normally been negative events in her life actually became positive as they lit Janie’s pathway towards self-discovery and happiness.