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Imagine living in the life of a girl who is searching for her dreams or what she wants in life and what she has to go through. In the book “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie is a strong woman who went through a lot when things didn’t turn out to be what she wants it to be. This book mainly tells how Janie has been searching for love throughout her whole life and she’s usually involved with sexuality. Sometime she doesn’t think before she makes decisions. Also, this book consists of mortality which deaths seem to occur one after another. The author use some themes to help us understand more about what Janie is going through and what she’s looking for in life. The themes that the author uses are love, sexuality, and …show more content…
mortality. First of all, the author use the idea of love in order to help us readers understand how Janie went searching for love throughout her lifetime.
She believes that love is an essential part of life. Without love, she won’t have faith in herself and she will slowly start to lose confidence in herself. Love make Janie feel like she can live her life the way she always wanted. At first, Janie’s grandmother says to her that “husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage was meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore.” (20). At first Janie didn’t love Logan but she somehow feels lonely at that time. She suddenly feels that Logan may be able to love and take care of her for the rest of her life. She decides to give him a chance. However, Logan treats her badly and he couldn’t give her the love she is looking for. Another example would be when she met up with Jody. Janie fell in love with his sweet talks and later on they decide to marry. Before they marry, the author say that “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance.” (28). Janie might’ve known that Jody might not be the one who might make her happy and provide the kind of love she is looking for. She still gives him a chance due to the fact that she is desperate for love and tries to find the …show more content…
right person to love. Second of all, another idea that the author display in this book is sexuality. In the beginning, many men were attracted to Janie’s appearance. The author said “The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume; then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt” (2). This indicates a sexual idea of how the men try to go after her and they would remember her appearance to give them pleasure later. The author wants us to know that her look is what made her attractive to guys; when it comes to her appearance, it often leaves the men to have sexual thoughts about her. Another example would be when she was by the blossom tree. “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! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid” (10). This describes how Janie suddenly feels gratitude and it relates to how people would feel after intimacy. It somehow leaves her feeling satisfy or overwhelm. Sex is what makes her interest in love. She gets fascinated by the body pleasure that is cause by fulfilling her intimate desires. She sees sex as something that expresses love and it can help her become strongly attach to love. Another thing that the author mentions was when she says “Where were the singing bees for her? Nothing on the place nor in her grandma’s house answered her. She searched as much of the world as she could form the top of the front steps and then went on down to the front gate and leaned over to gaze up and down the road. Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made” (11). The author wants us to understand that Janie is always seeking for true love. She usually let herself in the sexual world and experience what it’s like. She tends to sit under the pear tree and make her think about finding her true love. As for Janie, she thinks that love and sexuality should come as one. Last but not least, another idea the author uses is mortality. Janie have experience many deaths in her lifetime. Deaths usually occur one after another. It kind of resembles an ending of something and that something new is happening. Which means it’s the start of a new beginning. An example that Janie have experience a death in her lifetime is probably when her grandmother passed away. Nanny will always force Janie to do stuff she didn’t want to do. Before Nanny left, she says to Janie "Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do." De rest is left to you" (23). Nanny must’ve feel bad for forcing Janie to marry Logan. Soon after Nanny passes away, Janie feel like it’s time to move on and do what she wants. She decides to leave Logan because he didn’t love her. Also, she didn’t want to marry him in the first place. This often means that it’s time for her to start a new beginning and search for a new lover. Another example is when Janie’s second husband Jody passes away.
“He had seen Death coming and had stood his ground and fought it like a natural man. He had fought it to the last breath. Naturally he didn’t have time to straighten himself out. Death had to take him like it found him.” (56). This quote foreshadows Jody’s death. Jody have always treat Janie bad and she isn’t satisfy with what she has been through with him. Janie feels relieve after Jody dies because she feel like she is free again. She moves on with her life to start a new journey. The author wants us to understand that sometimes when deaths occur, it can either be good or bad. It’s a meaning that something is ending and it’s time to move on in life to start
fresh. Overall, Janie has been through a lot in her life to find out what she wants to do and what she needs in life. Janie slowly learns from her past mistakes. The author use love to let us understand that Janie would search for the love she had always wanted. Love is what keeps her life going. Another idea that the author use is sexuality in order to explain that Janie have an interest in fulfilling her ultimate desires. She usually thinks about it as a way to make her become more attach to love. Also, the author use mortality to explain how deaths tend to occur in her life which it usually means a new beginning. Therefore, the author use the themes love, sexuality, and mortality to let us readers understand more about what Janie wants in life and what she’s actually going through.
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.
Zora Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” depicts the journey of a young woman named Janie Crawford’s journey to finding real love. Her life begins with a romantic and ideal view on love. After Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, soon grows fearful of Janie’s newfound sexuality and quickly marries Janie off to Logan Killicks, an older land owner with his own farm. Janie quickly grows tired of Logan and how he works her like a slave instead of treating her as a wife and runs away with Joe Starks. Joe is older than Janie but younger than Logan and sweet talks Janie into marring him and soon Joe becomes the mayor of an all African American town called Eatonville. Soon Joe begins to force Janie to hide not only her
Though Janie had three marriages in total, each one drew her in for a different reason. She was married off to Logan Killicks by her Grandmother who wanted her to have protection and security. “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have baby, its protection.” (Hurston 15) says Janie’s grandmother when Janie said she did not want to marry Logan. Though Janie did not agree with her grandmother, she knew that she just wanted what’s best for her. Next, she married Joe Starks, Janie was unsatisfied with her marriage to Logan so Joe came in and swept her off her feet. Janie did not like the fact that Logan was trying to make her work, so Joe’s proposition, “You ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated like a lady and ah want to be de one tuh show yuh.” (Hurston 29) was too good to pass up, so she left Logan and married Joe. Janie’s last marriage was to Tea Cake. Fed up after having been treated poorly by Joe, Janie finally found someone who liked her for who she was. “Naw, ...
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.
In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author takes you on the journey of a woman, Janie, and her search for love, independence, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit seems to constantly be disregarded, yet Janie continues to hold on to the potential of grasping all that she desires. In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Hurston illustrates the ambiguity of Janie’s voice; the submissiveness of her silence and the independence she reclaims when regaining her voice. The reclaiming of Janie's independence, in the novel, correlates with the development and maturation Janie undergoes during her self discovery.
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
Janie gained this experience in love as she discovered that the promises of love are not always true. Janie was promised many things in her life and most of them were the promise of finding love and obtaining it. Janie’s grandmother promised her that even if she did not like Logan Killicks that she would find love in her marriage with him, but Janie discovered that no love was to be found in her marriage and that those more elderly than her would think she was wrong for her values (Hurston 21-25). Then after her marriage with Logan, her luck did not change with her next husband Joe who promised her nothing, but lies. Yet again promises persuaded her into another marriage where she was not happy as Joe went back on the words he promised her
... Janie is a strong independent woman, who lives in a society that does not encourage that kind of behavior in women. During the novel she is told what to do, how to do it and at one point who to marry. She struggles with her growing unhappiness until she finally meets her true love. Bibliography Shmoop Editorial Team.
Janie’s first attempt at love does not turn out quite like she hopes. Her grandmother forces her into marrying Logan Killicks. As the year passes, Janie grows unhappy and miserable. By pure fate, Janie meets Joe Starks and immediately lusts after him. With the knowledge of being wrong and expecting to be ridiculed, she leaves Logan and runs off with Joe to start a new marriage. This is the first time that Janie does what she wants in her search of happiness: “Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie’s new outlook on life, although somewhat shadowed by blind love, will keep her satisfied momentarily, but soon she will return to the loneliness she is running from.
For many people love comes easily or within a short time, but for Janie it took much longer. Love was always very important to Janie. With Janie’s first husband which Nanny arranged. Feeling unloved and used Janie decided to leave logan and keep going on her search for love. “The morning road air was like a new dress”. This quote is an example of a simile revealing all the hope Janie still had for herself after leaving Logan. Dealing with many restrictions put by people in her life Janie always just dealt with stuff and went on without complaining like most women did in that time. Jody Sparks played a major role in Janie’s quest of finding herself. “To my thinkin’ mourning oughtn’t tuh last no longer’n grief.” After Jody’s death Janie feels a quick feelings of independence. Jody being represented as a character who tries to be dominate of others and is cruel makes Janie understand that in a relationship there has to be equality in order to be happy. Being a man who saw Janie as an object makes Janie speak up and stop muting herself. She rebels against him and destroys his will. Showing women can gain equality for
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.
Zora Neale Hurston’s tour de force novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is told through the voice of Janie Crawford. Janie yearns to experience true love, as well has have a sense of self worth. In her early years these two ideas are intermingled, one cannot simply exist without the other. As she ages and goes through the trials and tribulations of love, she comes to find that the two are not mutually exclusive.
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.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, an intriguing novel written by Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of a young girl and journey in her early years of womanhood. The language used in this novel send a specific message to the audience which has received many positive and negative responses. People such as Richard Wright harshly criticized the book whereas people like Alain LeRoy Locke admired the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Critics like Richard Wright, who bash Hurston’s novel, fail to see the brilliance of the style and portrayal of the African-American culture.