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.
Hurston’s use of diction illustrates that Janie Crawford believes if she listens to her grandmother’s advice to get her marry to Logan Killicks, she would be financially supported and not be lonely anymore. As she finally gets married, she asks her grandmother why she hasn’t loved him and her grandmother responds how he “Got a house bought and paid for and sixty
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acres uh land right on de big road..Lawd have mussy! Dat’s de very prong all of us black women gits hung on. Dis love!” (Hurston 23) Janie realizes that marriage isn’t going to accomplish her dream of love which leads the internal conflict of whether she should stay for the financial stability or leave and pursue her happiness. She leaves Logan and decides to be with another man named Joe Starks. This is a turning point to the story, which sets a comfort mood for Janie as she leaves her negative past. After leaving to gain affection, she marries Joe and moves to Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town just north of Orlando. Joe seems to open new doors to Janie, and spoils her to represent how she was supposed to be treated. However the details in the story ironically depicts Joe treating Janie badly as Logan. Jody orders Janie to wear a head-rag…”Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn’t seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was.” (Hurston 55) Janie realizes Joe’s power limits her dreams and ties how gender roles may be implied due to Joe’s control over Janie, while she has to obey. Janie stays with him until he passes away and feels no remorse toward his death. It’s been awhile and everyone in town was in a ball game and this charming young man came in searching for the wrong town. Soon enough Janie and the man later known as Tea Cake foreshadows the reader that Janie will either fall in love with this man or have another failure of love. This causing a mood of futile as it becomes a routine for Janie to feel devastation when she thinks she found the one. Janie starts going out more with Tea Cake, and for once she is happy on how things are.
This brings visual imagery to the deep care of their love for one another. The way Tea cake treats her is with “kissing her breath away. Holding her and caressing her as if he feared she might escape his grasp and fly away.” (Hurston 107) Tea cake seen as a good example of symbolism for being Janie’s comforter and protector. He makes her want to take risks and encourage her to try new things. He’s the reason that motivates her to be the person she always needed and wanted to be. Which makes Janie a dynamic character to not overlook in the past and turns into a free spirited woman. Midway of the story, Tea cakes as well turns into a dynamic character because he becomes violent when he gets bitten by a rabid dog. After Janie waited so long to find her one true love, she says he will not die until she does. Janie’s first two failed marriages stole her innocence, which she achieved by completing maturity and her adulthood. Within what she went through, it provides such a heart-rending tone that accentuates the feeling of what Janie can
feel. Endearment is what people want to find in order to satisfy their relationship, it’s such a strong bond which Janie does get a chance to move from the destructiveness from it. Hurston uses several literary devices to get through her point which Janie Crawford moving on from the pain with the lessons she had to challenge in.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford the main character goes through some big changes. Throughout this book Janie struggles to find her inner voice and purpose of love. She looks high and low for a sign of what love really is and she finds it as being the pear tree. The pear tree is very symbolic and ultimately shows Janie what love is and how it should be in a healthy relationship. This tree, with the bees pollinating the blossoms, helps Janie realize that love should be very mutual and each person needs to provide for the other equally. Janie tries to find this special kind of love through her three husbands, but she comes to realize it is going to be much harder then she expected. Each one of Janie’s husbands are a stepping stone for her finding her voice.
If Ah ever gits tuh messin’ round another woman it won’t be on account of her age. It’ll be because she got me in de same way you got me—so Ah can’t help mahself." Tea Cake professes his love to Janie by saying that she is the only woman he thought of marrying. Tea Cake knows that he will be loyal to Janie, but can not control other women's urges to flirt with him. When Tea Cake tells Janie that he is the man in her life he says:"You don’t have tuh say, if it wuzn’t fuh me, baby, cause Ah’m heah, and then Ah want yuh tuh know it’s uh man heah." (Ch.18). Tea Cake wants Janie to know that he is nothing like her other husbands, but is perfect for her. Tea Cake is essentially perfect for Janie because he helped her accomplish her her ultimate dream of love. Janie and Tea Cake’s marriage is the key to a good marriage because they treat each other with equality and
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, everyone has different ideas of what marriage is. In the end Janie learned marriage is what you make of it. Love can only be found when your beliefs match with an others idea. Even today people find out the hard way that they are not compatible and that one’s view of marriage is different. This can be seen every day between couples who separate and among others whose marriages last the rest of their lives. Life is a learning process and we must take the bad with the good. Instead of searching for a nourishing life, Janie searched for someone to rely on. Although they were different types of reliance, she jumped from person to person so that she would not have to face life alone.
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
In Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie discovers herself through her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. Each marriage brings her closer to that one thing in life she dreams to have, love. Janie is a woman who has lived most of her life the way other people thought she should. Her mother leaves alone when she is young, and her grandmother , raises her. Nanny has a very strict set of rules for right and wrong, and clearly stated/particular ideas about freedom and marriage. Janie then sees the same restrictions put on her by her later husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Only the fact she catches
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.
Hurston uses ethos to show that Tea Cake was Janie’s best husband even though society thinks other wise. Tea Cake thinks that he will treat and show Janie a better time in life than any man has ever did. “Ah tell you lak you told me--you’se mighty hard tuh satisfy. Ah betcha dem lips don't satisfy yuh neither(page.103).” Tea Cake was telling Janie that she put on the show that she is hard to please but truly it only takes the right things to make her pleased. He felt that most of the things that Janie was doing was a show. Society felt that Tea Cake was playing Janie and Janie was taking chances falling in love with Tea Cake. “You doin right not tuh talk it, but Janie, you’se takin’ uuh mighty big chance(page.115).” Janie was having a discussion and they were telling her that she was taking a chance running off with Tea Cake. Phoebe feels as if Tea Cake is just a bomb ready to explode in Janie face. Janie felt that Tea Cake was the true love that she was always looking for in her life. “He done showed me where it’s de thought dat makes de difference in age(page.115).” Tea Cake changes janie’s whole train of thought around , so there had to be some love somewhere to make someone change their mind. Janie was really in love with Tea Cake.
As much as Tea Cake had the qualities Janie was looking for she found a greater understanding of herself as a women besides her love. Janie was inexperienced at the start of her adventure, learned that love will not always come from promises, and had major reflection when she finished her first marriage with Joe that she went into with assurance. Janie was able to get a glimpse of independency after Joe died which is conveyed through the quote “Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine” (Hurston 90). Before meeting, Tea Cake Janie was able to understand that she was comfortable with not searching for love. However, Tea Cake was a reminder to her that her ideals of love were still out in the world. He was able to make Janie happy from doing things fun and childish and these activities like fishing during the knight, or playing chess were the things that society would not accept for a women like Janie. The first major instance when Tea Cake helped Janie go against society was when he played chess with her. While a small act to some readers, Janie found the act enormous in her eyes as it showed her that Tea Cake was a man able
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 explains that, “love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT). Author Zora Hurston takes this definition of love and applies it to young Janie as she struggles to find her identity in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. As Janie experiences three juxtaposing marriages, she recognizes that love doesn’t exist to appease a third party, requires respect, and truly “endures through every circumstance,” which aids her development into an independent woman (1 Corinthians 13:7b).
“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.
True love is something that Janie, the main character in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, spends her entire life looking for. Ultimately her primary goal is to be happy and live her life how she wants to instead of how everyone else thinks that she should. Throughout her journey to find true happiness she meets three men, Logan, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake each of whom had a different effect on her as a person. When comparing these relationships, Janie was happiest when with her last husband Tea Cake. Although one could argue the opposite, given the way their relationship ended, it was actually a perfect representation of true love because of the freedom, security, and respect that Janie was given.
...out what is for her and how she wants to live. So in the end, she is where she wants to be. Janie pulls in the horizon that she has spent her whole life searching for. She calls her soul to come in and see. Where once her soul was separate from her, it is now a part of her. Janie grew throughout the novel into a strong and independent woman. Although Janie cared for Tea Cake, she needed to kill him in order to keep him from suffering. Janie shows the reader that she has lived her life fully the way she wanted too and is now able to die having no regrets in life. Although Janie did recognize that most men were obsessed with power and thrived for complete control, she did discover a man who helped push her to her goals. Tea Cake helped Janie a lot, but he made sure she did not rely on him because from the moment they met, he knew how strong of a woman Janie truly was.
In Zora Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie Crawford was an attractive, confident, middle-aged black woman. Janie defied gender stereotypes and realized others cruelty toward her throughout the novel. Behind her defiance was curiosity and confidence that drove her to experience the world and become conscious of her relation to it. Janie’s idealized definition of love stemmed from her experience under a pear tree, an experience that was highly romanticized and glamorized in her sixteen year old eyes. Janie’s ability to free herself from the confining, understood, stereotypical roles enforced upon her allowed her to not only find true love but define true love as well.