In this world, everyone aspires to be someone and everyone sets out on the ultimate journey of trying to find themselves within the chaos. Hurston beings the novel by says one’s dreams are ‘ships in the distance” and she goes on to say how for some, their dreams will forever sail in the distance and for some the swim is worth the work to reach their dreams. In “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Zora Neale Hurston uses this symbolic image of dreams along with several others to convey the abrupt truth that achieving our dreams is not always going to be easy and she uses Janie Stark’s several marriages to convey the truth that one's identity comes from inside oneself and the difficulty that comes with deciding who is here to hinder the discovery …show more content…
As the novel progresses, the reader begins to see just exactly what the tree means to Janie and how she connects to it. The tree represents the true sense of possibility for her life and the connection she can make between herself and the nature of the world and the feelings of desire and love. Janie first experienced this feeling of awakening under the pear tree right before her kiss with Johnny Taylor. While laying under the tree ‘soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze” (Hurston 10) she experiences her first encounter with this “inaudible voice” (Hurston 10). While Janie is processing this sexualized image of the pear tree blossoms she announces “So this was a marriage!” (Hurston 11). This idea that Janie has of marriage and sexual desires is eventually proven wrong with her marriage to Jody but is brought back to life threw her marriage with Tea Cake. Through Janie's marriage to Tea Cake, she discovers that it is indeed possible to have both sexual fulfillment and love in the same relationship and it is here that Janie feels she has finally reached that ship out on the horizon; she has found her true …show more content…
Janie decides that she has had enough of Logans entrapment and runs off with Joe who soon becomes her second husband. Soon after marrying Joe, Jaine quickly sees that this marriage is no less ensnaring then her last. Joe owns a local store in their town and puts Janie in charge of running it. Early on in the novel the reader learns that Janie is by no means unattractive and one of her most defining qualities is her hair. Her hair is part of her identity and Joe is quick to pick up on this as he notices all the townspeople talking of her long beautiful hair. Filled with jealousy, Joe demands that Janie keep her hair tied up and hidden from the public. The town starts to notice her head-rags and they ask “Whut make her keep her head tied up lak some ole’oman round de store” (Hurston 47)? People already know of her gorgeous hair and all of its identifying glory. It later becomes evident to the reader that the head-rags come from Joes need to control Janie and all that she does. It is a way for him to further control Janie and it is another jealous attempt to keep Janie under control and keep him all for himself. By Janie not being able to showcase her hair, it pushes that idea of true identity and pure love within a marriage even farther into the
Over time Janie begins to develop her own ideas and ideals. In Their Eyes Watching God. Each principle character has their own perceptions. towards the end of marriage. & nbsp;
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. After a year of pampering, Logan becomes demanding and rude, he went as far to try to force Janie to do farm work. It was when this happened that Janie decided to take a stand and run away with Joe. At this time, Janie appears to have found a part of her voice and strong will. In a way, she gains a sense of independence and realizes she has the power to walk away from an unhealthy situation and does not have to be a slave to her own husband.
Janie, lead character of the novel, is a somewhat lonely, mixed-race woman. She has a strong desire to find love and get married, partially driven by her family’s history of unmarried woman having children. Despite her family’s dark history, Janie is somewhat naive about the world.
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.
In the beginning years of Janie’s life, there were two people who she is dependent on. Her grandmother is Nanny, and her first husband is named Logan Killicks. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, “Janie, an attractive woman with long hair, born without benefit of clergy, is her heroine” (Forrest). Janie’s grandmother felt that Janie needs someone to depend on before she dies and Janie could no longer depend on her. In the beginning, Janie is very against the marriage. Nanny replied with, “’Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, its protection. ...He done spared me...a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life” (Hurston 18). Nanny is sure to remind Janie that she needs a man in her life for safety, thus making Janie go through life with that thought process.
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, 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.
Janie’s character undergoes a major change after Joe’s death. She has freedom. While the town goes to watch a ball game Janie meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake teaches Janie how to play checkers, hunt, and fish. That made Janie happy. “Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 96). Tea Cake gave her the comfort of feeling wanted. Janie realizes Tea Cake’s difference from her prior relationships because he wants her to become happy and cares about what she likes to do. Janie tells Pheoby about moving away with Tea Cake and Pheoby tells her that people disapprove of the way she behaves right after the death of her husband. Janie says she controls her life and it has become time for her to live it her way. “Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 114). Janie becomes stronger as she dates Tea Cake because she no longer does for everyone else. Janie and Tea Cake decided to move to the Everglades, the muck. One afternoon, a hurricane came. The hurricane symbolizes disaster and another change in Janie’s life. “Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature. Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie struggles to find herself and her identity. Throughout the course of the novel she has many different people tell her who she should be and how she should behave, but none of these ideas quite fit Janie. The main people telling Janie who she should be is her grandmother and Janie’s 3 husbands. The people in Janie's life influence her search for identity by teaching her about marriage, hard work, class, society, love and happiness.
In Hurston's story, Janie symbolically represents the position of a woman in the South who is seen to be confused due to her nature as a woman. She is also married to three husbands at different stages, this represents her development from a dependent person who could not make her own choices and in her last marriage to the Tea Cake she makes her choice independently hence and indication that she has finally developed and gained independence. Also, when her last husband dies she shave her hair and goes backs home (Hurston, 2000), by shaving her hair she symbolized her rebirth from dependent to an independent woman and also it was a symbol of change and a new
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
In order to show the changed nature of Janie and Jody, Hurston used descriptive diction to explain how Janie feels about the relationship she is in. She explicates Janie’s character as she describes how “she had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man” (Hurston 72).This image shows how Janie does not care about Jody anymore because of the way he treats her. She uses imagery to symbolize
The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by, Zora Neale Hurston is a book stretching extensively through the life of a woman named Janie. She is a black women living in the early 1900’s. Of course, this is a time where women are not as respected, especially those of color. This causes a lot of problems for Janie, as well as some of the people in her life because she is such a free spirit. During this period or the Harlem Renaissance the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by, Zora Neal Hurston reflects many similar patterns of the time, as well as many things that strayed from what was considered the norm for the time.
It is human nature to seek out answers and solutions to the unknown. Humans constantly create definitions for complex ideas in order to establish a sense of truth and understanding. However, not everything has one definite answer. Zora Neale Hurston proves this notion in her most popular narrative, Their Eyes Were Watching God. In her novel, Hurston uses Janie’s three husbands to reveal that happiness cannot be defined by a society nor a single individual; true happiness is different for everyone and must be sought out.
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.