Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston is an African-American novelist, writer of the famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story of Janie Crawford who has gone through so much to find love. From reading this novel, one discovers that it takes past relationships to fully understand what love is, which Janie shows us because she was able to find the love she envisioned as a youth, along with the necessary components needed in a relationship.

First off, one would like to know what is Janie’s view on love as a youth. While sitting under a pear tree one day, “she saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root

to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.

So this was a marriage!” (10). This is what Janie first sees as love. She sees the bee with its blossom, as they both need each other. The flower arches to meet the bee, which shows that it is not just the bee working in this relationship. They work together for their relationship of fulfillment for what they need. This is the love Janie sees. A love through mutualism to fulfill the needs of their partner. Also, when she sees the bee and the blossom, she thinks the love between them is related to marriage. It brings upon the idea that love equals marriage. Shortly after seeing this exchange between the bee and the blossom, she discovers how she wants this love. She wants to explore her possibilities. So that is what she does; she decides to go to the first boy she sees. “In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall

and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes” (11). The pollen, in relations to the bee and the blossom, changed her judgement on Johnny Taylor. He used to be this plain old guy, but now, with this realization of love, she sees him as a whole new guy. She goes up to him and they kiss. This is Janie exploring her possibilities that love brought. However, her grandmother sees this and Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks.

When Janie was forced to marry Logan, she barely had a chance to explore love. Now, she was expected to marry a man who she did not even know if she loved. However, because of her naïvety, she thought that “she would love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so. Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant” (20). She believed that after she married Logan, she would learn to love, because marriage would evoke love. Sadly, this does not happen. She does not love Logan, and will never love him. He did not even fit her idea of love. He does not respect Janie as he tries to make her work in the field, when she clearly does not want to. By doing this, he is limiting Janie on her choices and not letting her do what she wants. He wants to use her for his own selfishness, without actually giving anything back to her. This marriage destroyed her idea of love within marriage. “She knew now that marriage did not make love” (24). By Janie discovering this revelation, it changed how she viewed love. This is an idea from her youth that was changed. She thought that marriage and love will always go together, but she learned without love, there will not be a good marriage. She had to learn that her idea is not true, teaching her a valuable lesson about love.

After a few months of her loveless marriage with Logan, Janie meets Joe Starks, whom she calls Jody. Jody is an utterly different person from Logan. He sweet talks her, and says things like “ ‘You ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated lak a lady and Ah wants to be de one tuh show yuh’ ” (28). Janie falls in what she gathers as love immediately with this man. Jody tells her to leave Logan and come with him to be his wife. Janie, of course, agrees. She maybe even thinks that Jody is the one for her. However, this to not true. Rather than falling in “love” with Jody, Janie only liked him because he was her escape from Logan. He was someone who could accept her. She only has a few encounters with him, yet goes right to him. She still had time to explore the world, but choose Jody over doing that. So evidently, Janie must of thought that if she married Jody, she would achieve that love she saw as a youth. This would be her chance. However, the readers immediately notice that Jody will not bring forth his part of the mutual desire to fulfill their partners need in a marriage to the table. After Jody was elected to be mayor and Janie was asked to give a speech, he denies her. He says “ ‘mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de Home’ ” (40). Janie is instantly put off by that comment. This is the start of the controlling nature we see from Jody. He wouldn’t let her give a simple speech, and instead silenced her. He continuously does these things, such as making Janie cover her hair with a rag and telling her she cannot associate with the people on the store’s porch that show his controlling nature. He treats her like an object that he posses. It is very evident that this marriage does not fall within Janie’s ideas of love. He suppresses her biggest desire of just being herself. He is doing the opposite of fulfilling her desires. Luckily, Janie does come to this realization and knows that this marriage is not good. “She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be” (68). Going back to the bee and the blossom, the pollen in front of her eyes was finally gone and she saw Jody for who he really is. After this, Janie never really speaks up for herself anymore. Janie stays this way until Jody is on his deathbed. On the day he dies, Janie is finally able to speak up for herself and tell Jody everything that was wrong. Even though this marriage failed, Janie was able to once again able to learn from this marriage. She learned that both partners need to be equal and have a fair understanding of each other..

About eight months after Jody’s death, Janie meets Tea Cake.

Right away, there is a huge difference between Jody and Tea Cake. The first thing Tea Cake does when he meets Janie is asked her to play checkers with him. This is something Jody never let Janie do. Janie “found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play” (91). This was a new experience for Janie; this was the first time she was equal to a man she was interested in. After days of flirting with each other, Janie thinks that Tea Cake might be the one. Of course, she has her hesitations after her two previous marriages. Those marriages taught her what was needed for a relationship, and she needed that before she would she would do anything with Tea Cake. Despite her hesitations, she falls in love. Janie said that “he could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring” (101). Again going back to the bee and the blossom she saw as a youth, Janie calls Tea Cake the bee, implying that he will be equal with Janie; he will fulfil the needs of her. That was what Janie envisioned as love as a youth, and Tea Cake falls within that idea. Because Janie met Tea Cake, she was able to find the love she envisioned as a youth. However, Janie had to of had her past relationships with Logan and Jody to know that this is the right love. Her past relationships taught her that she needed to be in love before she married him, they needed to be equal, and they needed to

understand each other to be able to attain the love she saw as a youth. Janie’s idea of love is continuously seen throughout their marriage. Tea Cake fulfilled Janie’s desire to be herself. He does not care about appearance. He even lets her wear overalls, which is something Jody would never let her do. He also lets her do “manly” things, such as shooting a gun, which he teaches her. Tea Cake does many things to help Janie be herself in their marriage. This all demonstrates how much Teak Cake does for Janie. Janie truly loves him because of this. This is the love she envisioned as a youth.

Past relationships are what shape one’s idea about love. It takes the past relationships to fully understand what love is. This is demonstrated by Janie’s life. She had to go through two bad marriages before she was able fully love Tea Cake and get the love she envisioned as a youth along with the necessary components needed for a relationship. Without her past relationships, she would not have fully understood what love was, and her marriage with Tea Cake would not have been the same.