Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie had three marriages. “The three marriages and the three communities in which Janie moves represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice. Nanny, Janie's grandmother, had in fact been a slave and had borne a child to her master.” (Cathy Falk. Vol.61.). A young lady and her relationships with three guys. Over her life time she experiences love, hurt, and pain in the three relationships. Logan her first husband was way older than her. Jody dies at the end of their relationship. Tea Cake was the love of her life made her feel like she was more than just a house wife until he got bit by a wild dog.
When Zora Hurston wrote this novel, she wanted to explain how a young women search for her own identity. This young woman would go through three relationships that took her to the end of the journey of a secure sense of independence. She wanted to find her own voice while in a relationship, but she also witnessed hate, pain, and love through the journey. When Logan Killicks came she witnessed the hate because he never connected physically or emotionally to her. Jody Starks, to what she assumed, as the ticket to freedom. What she did not know was the relationship came with control and pain. When she finally meets Tea Cake she was in love, but had to choose life over love in the end.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God Logan Killicks was Janie first husband. He would hang around Janie’s house and ask her grandmother for her hand in marriage. Janie would ask "Nanny, who—who dat been askin' you for me?" "Brother Logan Killicks. He's a good man, too." "Naw, Nanny, no ma'am! Is dat whut he been hangin' round here for? He look like some ole skullhead in de gra...
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Crabtree, Claire. "The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'." The Southern Literary Journal 17.2 (Spring 1985): 54-66. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 61. Detroit: Gale Research, 1990. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Harris, Trudier. "Celebrating Bigamy and Other Outlaw Behaviors: Hurston, Reputation, and the Problems Inherent in Labeling Janie a Feminist." Approaches to Teaching Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works. Ed. John Lowe. New York: MLA, 2009. 67-80. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 285. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives, including happiness, overall quality of life, whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice, first to Joe sparks, and to Vergil Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and the pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
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...
From Janie’s first relationship with Logan Killicks, she learns about marriage. Janie is forced to marry Logan by Nanny, Janie’s grandmother. Janie was really young and she did not have any plans on getting married, but Nanny wants Janie to marry someone soon: “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. Ah ain’t gittin’ ole, honey, Ah’m done ole. One mornin’ soon, now, de angel wid de sword is gointuh stop by here. De day and de hour is hid from me, but it won’t be long. Ah as de Lawd when you was uh infant in mah arms to let me stay here till you got grown.
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.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is a beautiful African-American woman who wants to explore and find love with a real man. She goes through a few men trying to do this, but at the same time she is unwillingly forced with these men who don’t affiliate with the love she desires. However, when Tea Cake marries Janie she gains self-determination when he expresses his love and affection to her that is qualifying factors of her love expectations. Therefore, Janie learns the value of true love and proves herself as a brave woman.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses colloquial language to show readers exactly why Nanny raised her granddaughter, Janie Crawford, the way she did. When Janie is sixteen years old, her grandmother wants to marry her off. The teen pleads to her grandmother with claims of not knowing anything about having a husband. Nanny explains the reason she wants to see Janie married off is because she is getting old and fears once she dies, Janie will be lost and will lack protection. Janie’s mother was raped by a school teacher at the young age of seventeen, which is how Janie was brought into the world. Nanny has many regrets about the way her daughter’s life turned out after Janie was born. She resorted to
Appiah, K.A. and Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. eds. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993.
Hurston, Lora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990.
Janie marries three different men over the course of Their Eyes Were Watching God: Logan Killicks, Joe (Jody) Stark, and Tea Cake. Janie is able to preserve her agency in these marriages via an internal rebellion, she uses her thoughts to remain happy and outside the world her husband’s create. It is often the case that husbands expects a marriage where the female is subordinate to them and even Janie’s grandmother suggests Janie should abide by this expectation. However, Janie creates a space in her mind for an idealistic relationship and a place that her husband’s cannot touch. This ...
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she grows into a stronger woman through three marriages.
Nanny's intentions are only to make Janie's life better than hers was, but in an ironic twist she is the one who puts the shackles on Janie in the first place by marrying her off to the person, not of Janie's choice, but of her own. To give Janie a better life than a slave, Nanny would have done better to not be as controlling. Unfortunately, Janie seems only to remember this and not Nanny's love.
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight,” (11). The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching, God by Zora Neale Hurston, tells a story of a woman, Janie Crawford’s quest to find her true identity that takes her on a journey and back in which she finally comes to learn who she is. These lessons of love and life that Janie comes to attain about herself are endowed from the relationships she has with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
Zora Neale Hurston uses narrative structure to convey the theme and meaning of the Their Eyes Were Watching God novel. Throughout the novel, she utilizes an interesting narrative structure, splitting the presentation of the story between high literary narration and idiomatic discourse. The long passages of discourse celebrate the culturally rich voices of Janie’s world. These characters speak as do few others in American literature, and their distinctive grammar, vocabulary, and tone mark their individuality. Zora Hurston’s use of language parallels Janie’s quest to find her “voice.” Henry Louis Gates Jr. makes a remark about the novel, that it is primarily concerned “with the project of finding a voice, with language as an instrument of injury and salvation, of selfhood and empowerment” (Harper). This is demonstrated in the novel when Jody stifles Janie’s speech, when he prevents her from talking after he is named mayor. Her hatred of him stems from this conquest of her individuality (Hurston). On the other ...
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” is a distressing tale of human struggle as it relates to women. The story commences with a hardworking black washwoman named Delia contently and peacefully folds laundry in her quiet home. Her placidity doesn’t last long when her abusive husband, Sykes, emerges just in time to put her back in her ill-treated place. Delia has been taken by this abuse for some fifteen years. She has lived with relentless beatings, adultery, even six-foot long venomous snakes put in places she requires to get to. Her husband’s vindictive acts of torment and the way he has selfishly utilized her can only be defined as malignant. In the end of this leaves the hardworking woman no choice but to make the most arduous decision of her life. That is, to either stand up for herself and let her husband expire or to continue to serve as a victim. "Sweat,” reflects the plight of women during the 1920s through 30s, as the African American culture was undergoing a shift in domestic dynamics. In times of slavery, women generally led African American families and assumed the role as the adherent of the family, taking up domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, the males, slaves at the time, were emasculated by their obligations and treatment by white masters. Emancipation and Reconstruction brought change to these dynamics as African American men commenced working at paying jobs and women were abandoned at home. African American women were assimilated only on the most superficial of calibers into a subcategory of human existence defined by gender-predicated discrimination. (Chambliss) In accordance to this story, Delia was the bread victor fortifying herself and Sykes. Zora Neale Hurston’s 1926 “Sweat” demonstrates the vigor as wel...