More handpicked essays just for you.
Janie's thoughts in the book their eyes were watching god
Gender role in literary
Gender roles in Literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Dale 1
Dominique Dale
Professor Adams
English 102-902
3 March 2014
The Reliance and Perception of Marriage of Janie Crawford
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.
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.
Dale 2
Janie sees Logan Killicks' perception of marriage. In the beginning, it seems like that Logan is a very nice man, who is always treating her well. “Janie felt glad of the thought, fo...
... middle of paper ...
..., she found her identity. It did not come easy for Janie. It took her years to find out who she really was.
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.
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.
The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard to provide for her.
One of the underlying themes Zora Neale Hurston put in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God was feminism. Hurston used each of Janie’s three marriages to represent Janie moving closer to her liberation and freedom from male dominance. She finally found her liberation and became truly independent after graduating from her final relationship with Tea Cake by killing him.
Of least significance to Janie is her first husband, Logan Killicks. Hurston uses pathos to show that Janie and her first husband are not meant to be even though society thinks otherwise. Nanny thinks that Logan is really made for Janie, but Janie doesn’t love Logan. Janie tells Nanny, “Cause you told me Ah
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.
(Feminism In Their Eyes Were Watching God). Instead of having to depend on a husband, for the first time Janie relied completely on herself (The Concept of Love and Marriage in Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God). With Joe gone, Janie was free to let her hair down and bring her voice back to life (Feminism In Their Eyes Were Watching God). After the way that Joe treated Janie throughout their marriage, she was not depressed over his death, and instead enjoyed her independence through being a widow (Feminism In Their Eyes Were Watching God). As Janie had said, “’Tain’t dat Ah worries over Joe’s death, Phoeby. Ah jus’ loves dis freedom” (Hurston 93). Logan and Joe did not compliment Janie through marriage, because they did not truly love her (The Concept of Love and Marriage in Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God). Due to Janie’s transformation in voice and independence over her first two marriages, she desired to have a loving marriage where she would be free to be
Zora Neale Hurston, an acclaimed African-American writer, wrote the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God during a time when women did not have a large say in their marriages. The novel follows the main character Janie in her quest to find what she thinks is true love and happiness. Hurston highlights the idea of healthy and unhealthy relationships throughout Janie’s three marriages. Each marriage had its advantages but they were largely overshadowed by their disadvantages resulting in Janie learning the hard truth about married life for a women of color in the 1920s. Ultimately the reader and Janie learn that in order to be happy in a marriage you must love, learn, and lose from past relationship experiences to figure out what truly makes you
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.
Throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston displays the development of Janie Crawford as an idealistic 16 year-old to a confident woman. Over the course of the novel, Janie attempts to define herself as a woman, first marrying for stability, then adventure, and finally for happiness within herself. Janie’s search for identity is complicated due to prior situations and influential expectations. Nanny’s trials and distorted view on the purpose of marriage lead Janie to an undesired relationship. At the beginning of the novel, Janie’s grandmother witnesses her indulging in her first kiss.
Janie was set up for her journey of self-discovery by her grandmother. Nanny set a goal for Janie’s life by saying, “Ah wanted you to look upon yo’ self. Ah don’t want yo’ feathers always crumpled by folks throwin’ up things in yo’ face.” ***SITE THIS?*** Janie’s grandmother pushed Janie into a marriage, which she considered a “safe” place for Janie. Though hesitant, Janie agreed to marry Logan Killicks. He was a farmer who married Janie shortly after she completed school.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford, the heroine of the novel is the first Black female character in African American fiction to embark on a journey of self discovery and achieve independence and self understanding (Novels For Students 303). She enters several marriages with many thoughts but of them all, she has universal expectations for each, those expectations are that she will be treated with the utmost respect and if it isn’t present at the beginning, "love will come" no matter what. Though she has three of her serious relationships, Janie does not ever have desires met, even with the one she loved most, Tea Cake. Janie spends much of her life in search of her happiness to find in the end that, she must first make herself happy before she can take enjoyment from others. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford goes through life as a young and spoiled child to a woman of deep endearment over the course of three marriages and relationships. She experiences three men whom are all flawed yet each gives Janie an important aspect of character. She takes from each man a sense of herself; from Logan Killicks, self-worth, from Joe Starks, self-respect, and from Tea Cake, her final husband, love and soulfulness.
True love is known to be one of the most desired things in the world. Subjects who try to find true love, face many complications along the way. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston established the difficulties within relationships through Janie’s personal experiences. Janie, the main charter, married three men in the story and never really found true love that lasted forever. Zora Neale Hurston is able to demonstrate the struggles of life and love beautifully in her novel, as Janie experiences a roller coaster of events. She is able to paint the reader a picture of Janie's struggles by using figurative language throughout the story. Through her forced relationship with Logan, being controlled by Joe, and the tragic
At the beginning of the novel Janie is forced into marrying Logan Killicks by Nanny who claims that, “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (Hurston 15). Janie’s dreams of falling in love are crushed and all she can do is hope that in marrying
While sitting under the pear tree, Janie notices a bee and a flower and the loving and gentle embrace that occurs between the two. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation” (Hurston 11). The revelation that Janie experiences capitalizes upon her immaturity and innocence. Without knowing anything about love, Janie bases her ideals that she wishes to see in a marriage on an interaction between a bee and a flower. Because Janie wishes to find this love, her gullibility leads her to kiss Johnny Taylor, something that her Nanny, detests. Nanny, who does not share the same vision regarding love, believes that marriage should be one where practicality is the most important aspect. To her the thought of emotional based decision, what Janie values in a marriage, is seen as unsuitable to the lifestyle of happiness that she wishes for her granddaughter to have. This directly connects to society because Logan, the man with land and a stable living, is seen as the practical and wise choice for Janie. However, Janie wants a marriage where love is the key component, not practicality. For her a commitment to Logan Killicks is something that deprives her of what she veiws as paradise, and therefore
The foundation of Hurston’s novel is built upon social inequality. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, was raped by her slave owner and experienced barbaric treatment after, because the wife of the slave owner became enraged that Nanny’s children were light skinned and threatened to have her whipped. The hardships Nanny faced created fears, fears that Nanny embedded into raising Janie. She encouraged Janie to marry a man, Logan Killicks, who could provide her with security and a social status. Janie married Mr. Killicks despite not loving him, because that was ideal that was raised with. In a conversation with Nanny about her potential husband, her grandmother encourages her to seek money so that her fate could different than