Ex-Colored Man And Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In An Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie and the Narrator live very different lives and experience very unfortunate things while their story is being told. Luckily, some of these things create positive outcomes that is hard to predict in the beginning of each of their stories. Nevertheless, both of them have a rather positive outlook on their situation no matter what circumstances they are involved in. No matter the difference in gender, what they pass as, or their financial situation, they both have some of the same struggles that make their stories interesting. Even though their lives may be harder from other people, it gives them the opportunity to become stronger people once they start to either overcome

or embrace the situations that they once were in.
The Narrator in An Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is, perhaps, the more alienated out of the two characters, and this is understandable given his ethnic background and the time and place he was alive. Being mixed in the early 1900’s was probably worse than being fully black because of the opinions others had on you. The white people didn’t like him because he was colored, and the black people didn’t like him because he wasn’t as dark as them. Either way, he was outside of everyone else’s circle and couldn’t find a place to fit in. Even though he could pass as white, he still felt alienated from the fact that he couldn’t let a whole lot of people really know who he was because that would mean telling them his secret. Luckily, near the end of the novel, he was able to worry about it less and focus on the things that made him who he was. He was a strong minded man with many goals under his belt from all the things that he had accomplished. Such as getting married, having kids, and making a living for himself.
Like the Narrator in the first novel, Janie went through some alienation herself. For instance, while she was with Jodie, he wouldn’t allow her to talk to her friends in the town. By him creating this gap, she had a very small amount of people who she could have conversations with. While this was happening, her hatred for her husband grew significantly, which left her with practically no one she could be real friends with. Sadly, she went through this alienation for roughly twenty years before she could have an enjoyable life again. Another example would be the alienation she experienced after starting a relationship with Tea Cake. Most of the townspeople judged her harshly and even spread rumors about her while she was hanging around him, leaving her, again, with a very small amount of people to talk to. Even though she goes through these times of alienation, she overcomes this by the end of the novel by realizing that she has finally had the life she had always wanted for herself. Freedom was her main goal, and it took nearly more than forty years, but she fought through it and that made her a very strong woman.
Repression was one of the major problems that both characters went through in their lives. The Narrator’s repression was caused by both his skin color and the secret that he kept from his friends. From the beginning, the Narrator tried to hide his true ethnicity from his friends and acquaintances. No matter what he did right, he would always be held back because he felt like he couldn’t let his secret out. The underlying bit of guilt that he felt would never let him live a completely happy life because he was held back from doing many things that he had originally dreamed about. For instance, he had always wanted to be a pianist, but couldn’t because he felt as if his passing as white meant that he wouldn’t be inspirational enough. The only reason for him to be a musician, he thought, was to be a motivation to the African American people, and since he passed as white, he never tried to give it a chance. His ethnicity also put him in a few bad situations, mainly the fight he had with his wife before they were married. This just goes to show that it would have been a harsh life to live if he had completely come out about his race. Just the thought of the wrong person overhearing the conversation between him and a friend could get him sent to jail, or worse, lynched.
Janie, on the other hand, wasn’t held back as much for her skin color as she was for the men she married. The first marriage she was a part of was at a very early age, so, naturally, she wasn’t able to have a very good life from the beginning. Even though she wanted to find true love, her nanny believed that it would be better if she married Logan, which was good for financial stability, but terrible when it came to living her own life the way she wanted. After some time with Logan, she met Jodie, who at first was a very pleasing man to be with. There was a very short time period there that allowed her to be happy and enjoy life, but that ended soon after she and Jodie moved to the new town. After becoming mayor, Jody became controlling and jealous, which led to the destruction of their love. This left Janie trapped because she would have no wear to turn if she would have left, and she was getting rather old and didn’t know if she could maintain a job to support her enough to live. Both of these men repressed her by not allowing her to live the way she wanted to live. All she wanted was freedom and true love, and they were certainly not the ones who would give her that. Things did get a lot better after Jodie died, though. Tea Cake was also an important stepping stone for her when it came to becoming a free woman. He helped her by allowing her to be in true love for the first time in her life, and without him it would be hard to say that she would have ever had that.
Lastly, the two main character’s dreams differ fairly significantly because of their different situations. The Narrator’s dream is fairly simple, yet hard to achieve because he decides to pass as white at such an early age, and goes back and forth a few times during his lifetime, never truly being able to make his final decision as to which he will choose until later in his life. While he was a younger man he was an amazing pianist and organ player. He played for his church as a kid and moved on to teaching and playing as a young adult. Without a doubt, he was gifted at an early age and would have succeeded at his dream of becoming an inspirational pianist if he had chosen that path like he had previously dreamed. Even though he would have been great, he ultimately decided to turn away from the idea of becoming a musician because of his family. This was mainly because his kids would have a better life if he passed as white. The reasoning he had behind not playing as a white musician was a respectable one. This would be that as a white musician he wouldn’t be able to motivate and inspire the African American community as much as he would like to. Sadly, he did not achieve this dream, but life changes and in return, so did his dreams. Near the end of the novel his main dream is for his kids to live a nice and happy life.
Janie’s dreams differed greatly from the Narrator’s from An Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and as stated before, the reasoning behind this were their different situations.

The two things Janie wanted were freedom and true love. While she accomplished both of these by the end of the novel, it took some time and a lot of struggle to get there. Going through years of abuse and repression from her first and second husbands would be enough to make anyone crack under pressure, but not Janie. She managed to stay strong through all of it, and near the end she was rewarded with Tea Cake and the love he and she shared with each other. Needless to say, relationships aren’t perfect, and their relationship was not excused from this, but they were in love and made things work out. From the beginning to end, Tea Cake and Janie treated each other the way they deserved to be treated, and things were fine until the day he caught rabies from a dog while saving Janie’s life. Sadly, she did have to shoot him, but that’s OK because she started to realize that she had finally “been to the horizon and back with Tea Cake.” Her second goal was freedom. This was achieved after Tea Cake had died, and she was by herself thinking about her life and everything she had gone through. It’s somewhat sad to think about what she had to go through in order to fully achieve her dream. Three husbands and one death would take a toll on the average person, but she managed to come out of everything

happily.
In conclusion, it is fair to say that these two have a few things in common because of their race and the way they hold themselves together through sticky situations. The opposite can also be said in some ways because of the life they lived as a whole. It is hard to speculate which one had a better life, but if it were important to choose, it would have to be the Narrator. He lived a very adventurous life, and even as a kid, he was looked up to by a lot of the other boys and musicians. His trips with the millionaire and all of the different people he had helped along the way make up for the secret that he had to keep to the majority. Aside from that, he is a very kind and bright person, which is not as easy to say about Janie because she rarely showed any interest in helping others.