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Their Eyes Were Watching God is a Zora Neale Hurston's’ most famous literary work, and was published in 1937. The novel is narrated by Janie Crawford, who is the main character and is telling her life story to her best friend, Pheoby. Janie Crawford relates her life story entirely from memory. Through Janie’s retelling of her life’s story, we are able to see how she, her dreams, her life, and those around her changed as time goes on. Janie’s entire life seemed to be focused on thing, finding true love and freedom, so that she could be happy. Her dream is never really achieved, because of the people in her life she seems doomed to have to go without her original dream and find happiness within herself. Janie's entire life could be reduced …show more content…
to her most important goal, she was always in search of the feelings and ideas presented to her by the blossoming pear tree that she sat under when she was young. The pear tree represents a life well lived to Janie, “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.
Dawn and doom were in the branches” (Hurston 8). Janie Crawford’s experience under the pear tree awakens something inside her, and she begins to realize what she wants from her life, happiness, love, fulfillment, “Oh to be a pear tree—any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!... She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?” (Hurston 11). The blossoming pear tree is a recurring symbol of Janie’s desire for love and happiness, and it is mentioned many times throughout the novel, and is contrasted to the current experience she is remembering and telling …show more content…
Pheoby. Logan Killics is Janie Crawford’s first husband, and the antithesis of everything she wanted when it came to romance, love and life. Janie was very young when given to Logan Killicks in marriage by her grandmother, and although she did not think he was attractive or care about his large land plot, she did wonder if marrying him would make her love him and fill in the gaps, “Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun the day?” (Hurston 21), she wondered to herself, hoping the answer would be yes.
She was sadly mistaken, however. Once Janie and Logan had settled in together, she began to see that the answer to the questions posed by her earlier was in fact no, she would not be made happy by marrying just anyone. Logan Killicks was unable to offer the passionate, sweet, caring love that Janie desired, instead giving her the opposite. While lamenting her unhappy marriage, Janie says, “Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think." (Hurston 24). The pear tree comes up again, and this time, to show that Janie was very unhappy with her marriage, so when Joe Starks, or Jody comes along, she runs of with
him. Joe Starks is a much better alternative to Logan, but he is not perfect, “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon” (Hurston 29). He was not everything she wanted, but he had great potential and she liked him enough to run off with him and leave Logan Killick behind. Once they get to Eatonville, Joe Starks begins to show some of his flaws, he is a proud man, jealous, and controlling. He made Janie work in the store despite her hating it, he yelled at her when she messed up in the store, and he forced her to wear a head wrap to cover up her pretty hair. To Joe, Janie was an object, not a human with dream, thoughts, and worthwhile opinions, “somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves." (Hurston 71). Eventually Jody gets sick and dies. Janie later meets a much younger man named Tea Cake, who gets her on her next love adventure. Tea Cake represented everything Janie wanted from love and life, her one true love ,“she couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. [Tea Cake] looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.” Janie was totally fulfilled in Tea Cake, until he tragically dies.
In the beginning, the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s yearning to find within herself the sort of harmony and simplicity that nature embodies. However, that idealized view changes when Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks, a wealthy and well-respected man whom Janie’s Nanny set her up with. Because Janie does not know anything about love, she believes that even if she does not love Logan yet, she will find it when they marry. Upon marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for what he did, not for that infallible love every woman deserves.
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
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.
It had called her to come and gaze at a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously" (10). Gazing across the garden, Janie "was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers. [she longed] to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!...
Through her use of southern black language Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how to live and learn from life’s experiences. Janie, the main character in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a woman who defies what people expect of her and lives her life searching to become a better person. Not easily satisfied with material gain, Janie quickly jumps into a search to find true happiness and love in life. She finally achieves what she has searched for with her third marriage.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a good place to start examining the roles of African-American women. It is written by a woman, Zora Neale Hurston, and from a woman's perspective. This book examines the relationship between Janie and...
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” From the moment one is born, one begins to form their identity through moments and experiences that occur throughout the years. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s identity of independence arises through her past marriages through the words and actions of her husbands.
When thinking about the novels that are read in high school, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby come to mind for most people. The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston usually is not thought of. Throughout the years, critics believed Hurston’s novel to be just fiction and that it pose no meaning. In spite of the novel not having much politics, it does contain many social issues from the past that are still somewhat relevant today. Above all, Their Eyes Were Watching God deals with the way people are unequally treated in society based on their gender, race, or anything that makes them diverse from others. It is probable that Hurston brings up the controversial issues of her time era in the hope to cause a transformation in the world.
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.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was written in 1937 during a time when both African Americans and women were underappreciated in the United States. Both being victims of unequal treatment by the supreme white men of the time, these two groups suffered when trying to advance through society and life in general. They struggled daily to find adequate and equal-paying jobs, have the same ownership rights as white men, and have an equal opportunity to voice their opinion in the government, especially through voting, along with other things. The common restrictions put on these minorities were highlighted in Hurston’s novel through the symbolism of Janie’s weakness as a female, teenager, and a dreamer.
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
Love, is what people always find for when they look for in a relationship with any particular individual. They seem to sacrifice for what they feel for a special someone, and it’s just a bond that makes you want to die for. In the fiction novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie the protagonist seems to pursue a quest for true love. With the lessons she experiences throughout her life, she uses the knowledge she has to move forward and finally feels free for once.
Janie struggles with her marriages with Logan Killicks and Joe Starks throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, but finds a good man and husband in Tea Cake. Logan goes to marry Janie because Janie’s grandmother forces her to marry him because Nanny wants her to have a good marriage and thinks Logan can give it to her. While Joe comes in and shows Janie he has authority and is loving, but later tries to control her and what she does. Tea Cake on the other hand show Janie love and is willing to let Janie be herself and do the things she likes to do. Janie doesn’t love Logan or Joe because they try to change and control her, while Tea Cake loves her for who she really is.