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Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God
The novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" contains beautiful imagery that conveys the thoughts of the author towards the antagonist of this story, Janie Crawford. Through her four distinct lives as Janie Crawford, Janie Killicks, Janie Starks, and Janie Woods she realizes that each day the sun rises a new change is apparent in her life. The experience of each distinct life makes her realize more about herself than she ever knew before. She comes to a self-revelation about herself. Even though it takes her the entire novel to realize her sexual awakening from the blossoming pear tree to experience unadulterated love, she does so as the sun falls and rises past the years of her maturing life.
The novel starts out with Janie at the ripe age of sixteen realizing her sexual peak. "She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her." (Hurston: 11). Nanny realizes that Janie has become ready for marriage, after settling for a kiss from a tall and lean, yet poor boy by the name of Johnny Taylor. So, Nanny arranges a marriage between Janie Crawford and Logan Killicks to start Janie's new life as Janie Killicks before she would be able to get entangled in the humble life of a poor black man like Johnny Taylor. She was a former slave, so Nanny believed in the value of financial security and respectability. Therefore, she forced Janie into marrying Logan Killicks when she was still in her teens. A year passed by with Janie realizing that she did not love Logan and would never love him, so she felt it was time for a change. Janie left...
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...ruel journey towards a true self-revelation of herself. Starting with her teen years, she was hassled by her Grandmother to marry for stability and money, not love. She would then follow a man with a big voice to escape the laborious and unaffectionate life with Logan to marry Jody. Realizing that Jody was an even bigger nuisance for a much longer period of time, she would then go on to marry Tea Cake. Janie has returned to her own place, as her own woman, with her own memories to guide and comfort her. Although she grieves Tea Cake's unfortunate death, she has come back a wiser person and is stronger because of it. She will keep Tea Cake alive in heart to keep her company and live joyfully in the next stage of her life knowing that Tea Cake helped her realize her capacity to mature into a loving adult and actually love a person to the fullest extent possible.
They have their hair up due to the immense heat and are sweating. Carmen and Pancha are older than the other women while Ana is the youngest with an elder sister (Estela since she owns the factory). Since Carmen is the mom, she would sound strict and would voice her opinion on all matters. Meanwhile Ana can sound like the regular teenager that is stubborn and doesn’t care of other people’s thoughts. Estela is mature and sounds hopeless of one day meeting the man that will like her for her intelligence in the same for Rosali, who is truly insecure with her appearance and has curves. Pancha would sound similar to Carmen and be blunt. All the actors must be capable of speaking the Spanish language and sound with imperfect
Janie’s first marriage was to Logan Killicks, an accomplished middle aged farmer. Her grandmother wanted Janie to be financially set and be protected, so she pretty much forced Janie into marrying Logan. With her grandmothers rough past of being a slave and all she did not wa...
Janie’s grandmother was a slave. She was raped by one of her owners, that is how she got pregnant with Janie’s mother. Janie’s mother, Leafy, was raped by a teacher, which made her pregnant with Janie only at age 17. Their whole background is men taking advantage over the women, and then not caring about them, mainly because they don’t care to see them again. When Janie is 16, she is gradually beginning to learn things about sex. Her grandma pronounces her a woman, and when an older man named Logan Killicks is interested in marrying Janie, “Nanny” marries them at their house, and then they
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). When Janie was a teenager, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longs for something more. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if this is what she looks for. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character, is involved in three very different relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie learns some valuable lessons about marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
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.
Every novel has a protagonist and an antagonist of the story. There has to be a "good guy" and "bad guy" in order for there to be some sort of an interesting plot. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, my most and least favorite characters happen to be the protagonist, Janie, and the antagonist, Jody Starks. There are many things that symbolize these characters that are both comparable and contradictory of my personality. Symbols, objects or characters that are used to represent abstract ideas or concepts, play a major role in this novel. Janie is represented by her hair and Jody by his power, wealth and status of the town. Janie Jody and the symbolic representations are the three most appealing fundamentals of the story.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, constantly faces the inner conflicts she has against herself. Throughout a lot of her life, Janie is controlled, whether it be by her Nanny or by her husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Her outspoken attitude is quickly silenced and soon she becomes nothing more than a trophy, only meant to help her second husband, Joe Starks, achieve power. With time, she no longer attempts to stand up to Joe and make her own decisions. Janie changes a lot from the young girl laying underneath a cotton tree at the beginning of her story. Not only is she not herself, she finds herself aging and unhappy with her life. Joe’s death become the turning point it takes to lead to the resolution of her story which illustrates that others cannot determine who you are, it takes finding your own voice and gaining independence to become yourself and find those who accept you.
In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie’s past actions affects her development throughout the novel. There are also positive and negative effects that impacted her life. Janie is influenced through the development of her relationships such as her Nanny’s advice to her as a child, Joe tries to control her, and before and after the hurricane causes Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship to become more tense, causing the outcome for her to free herself from the restrictions and make her own personal decisions. She becomes more confident, more self-aware , and discovers her capabilities .
Relating to Alvarez and her struggle is very easy and well known in every generation. Society puts a ridiculous high standard on outer appearances, especially for girls and women. Women grasp the perspective of the standards that are set and put them into drive. Women become stressed, emotional, and nutcases because they want to please others instead of pleasing themselves. In some cases, women have died trying to live up to these customaries, if not becoming dangerously ill. As a young lady, knowing what could happen, frightens but doesn’t phase me. Wi...
When Tea Cake enters Janie's life, Janie really starts to come out of her shell. She lets down her hair that was kept up the entire time with Starks. This symbolizes Janie letting all her inhibitions out. In finding Tea Cake, Janie has "completed her voyage" of self-discovery. Tea Cake allows her to feel exhilarated and young again. She makes more friends and becomes more social. During this time in her life Janie is an excellent role model for other black women. She does not give a second look at what other people think about her, which is very admirable. This is shown when Hezekiah Potts tells Janie that Tea Cake is too low of a man for Janie yet, she stills persists on seeing him. Many people also think that Tea Cake is courting Janie for her money only. Janie pays no regard to these onlookers though.
Through her three marriages, the death of her one true love, and proving her innocence in Tea Cake’s death, Janie learns to look within herself to find her hidden voice. Growing as a person from the many obstacles she has overcome during her forty years of life, Janie finally speaks her thoughts, feelings and opinions. From this, she finds what she has been searching for her whole life, happiness.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, she utilizes an array of symbolism such as color, the store, and her husbands to solidify the overall theme of independence and individuality. Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered by many a classic American Feminist piece that emphasizes how life was for African Americans post slave era in the early 1900s. One source summarizes the story as, 1 ”a woman's quest for fulfillment and liberation in a society where women are objects to be used for physical work and pleasure.” Which is why the overall theme is concurrent to independence and self.
Nanny Janie’s grandmother disapprove the kiss between Janie and Johnny Taylor under the pear tree (11). Janie was only sixteen years old and naïve to think that was love. Nanny knew Johnny Taylor did not mean to cause no harm, but she felt Johnny was trying to mislead Janie to hurt and humiliate her by being sexual that can be dangerous (Hurston 12-15). Likewise, Janie was forced into marrying Logan an older man, Nanny approved of because Janie will have a husband that will love her. Same as, Hurston describe Janie emotions of unhappiness within the marriage not having affection and desire for Logan, Hurston implies, “Ah ain’t got nothin’ tuh live for.” (118) Hurston also describes Janie as confident that caught men attention as well as her physique, the women were jealous of Janie implying “Janie will never fit in the upper class of white men because of her appearance.” (Hurston 41) The women try to make Janie feel worthless and unattractive of not having enough sexually appeal. . Hurston writing engage the character from love to lust in a unhappy marriage that lead to a prolonged period of difficulty
The movie Real Women have Curves gave insight to a first generation Latina girl Ana Garcia who struggles to balance her family's culture and heritage. Ana is expected to work in her sister's dress warehouse, find a husband, and have children while forgetting her dreams of a college education. However, one of her high-school teachers Mr. Guzman tries to convince her parents to give her an opportunity allow her to attend college. Both parents' refuse point blank. Her mother Carmen states that Ana's sister Estela is a spinster and she'll never marry, so it was Ana's duty to give her grandchildren. As this film is evaluated through the lens of human behavior, it is important to define the word family and what this meant to Ana throughout
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