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Their eyes were watching God critical analysis
Literary analysis journal they eye were watching god
Their eyes were watching God critical analysis
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In the society and world we live in we all want to be accepted and feel like we belong. Zora Neale Hurston goes through trials and tribulations as being a twenty-century African American such as slavery and feeling like she belongs. Imagine every time you think you are finally happy with whom you are and it turns out that wasn’t the case. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie embarks on journey in search for her own identity where each of her three husbands plays an important role in her discovery of who she is.
Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1891 to the parents of John Hurston and Lucy Hurston. According to Elaine J. Lawless “She first began lying about her age when she landed in Baltimore and could only get free schooling if she was sixteen or under.” (Lawless, Elaine J.)
Hurston often lied about things. She wasn’t born in Eatonville when she was younger her and her family moved to Eatonville. Eatonville is a small all black community. They moved to Eatonville when her dad became a preacher and then the mayor. Hurston mother died when she was fourteen Lucy Zora mother died. Hurston dad john had moved on and she began to living with her new step mother Mattie Mogue. Hurston and her step mother were constantly fighting and she decided she had to leave. Her dad john made her work for whit people in the neighborhood. None of it worked out so well for Hurston she said she "I wanted books and school.” (Lawless, Elaine J.)
In Their Eyes Were Watching God she lives in the headship of her grandmother and in the story her grandmother is referred to as Nanny. Her grandmother is a slave for this white family. The family her grandma works for name is the Washburn. They treated Janie as if she was a slave.
Janie began to question her ident...
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...f its hiding place . With Teacke , she finds spiritual sense of love tht had been absent in her first two marriages .” Janie finally finding her self worth and happiness and the love she needed from the beginning not worrying about how much money her last husband has .( pg170)
In Conclusion Zora Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie uses marriage to find her identity, but ultimately she finds independene and self worth on her own . I went into detail about my thesis statement and showed what Janie went through to find independence , happiness , and identity . Hurston is important to the American Literary trsdition by being the first African American to write books in her community . Her novels tell interesting stories . People should continue to read her books because they are in teresting and will keep your interesting and will entertain you .
In Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston creates two protagonists, Janie and Arvay, and depicts their rich relationships with Tea Cake and Jim, respectively. This brief paper compares these two women and their interaction with their husbands. Contrasting the similarities of these relationships helps underscore deeper themes that Hurston draws from two ostensibly different women.
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.
This excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were watching God, is an example of her amazing writing. She makes us feel as if we are actually in her book, through her use of the Southern Black vernacular and admirable description. Her characters are realistic and she places special, well thought out sentences to keep us interested. Zora Neale Hurston’s art enables her to write this engaging story about a Southern black woman’s life.
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.
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
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 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. Janie's outlook on life stems from the system of beliefs that her grandmother, Nanny, instils in her during her life.
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.
Zora Neale Hurston an early twentieth century Afro-American feminist author, was raised in a predominately black community which gave her an unique perspective on race relations, evident in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston drew on her on experiences as a feminist Afro-American female to create a story about the magical transformation of Janie, from a young unconfident girl to a thriving woman. Janie experiences many things that make her a compelling character who takes readers along as her companion, on her voyage to discover the mysteries and rewards life has to offer.
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.
Unlike The Odyssey or any other epic tales, Their Eyes Were Watching God has a different perspective of what a hero is. In this novel, Hurston writes a story about an African-American woman named Janie Crawford whose quest is to find her identity and desire as a human being to be loved and appreciated for who she is. Her quest to fulfill those desires is not easy since she has to overcome so many obstacles and challenges in her life. A superiority that her Nanny posses over her to determine Janie's own life when she was a teenager and being a beautiful accessory to the glory of Joe Starks' are some of the experience that she encounters. She also has to make some sacrifices. And yet, just like any other heroes, at the end, she returns to her home with a victory on her hands.
The Harlem Renaissance was all about freedom of expression and the search for one's identity. Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, shows these goals through the main character Janie and her neighbors. Janie freely expressed what she wanted and searched for her identity with her different husbands. Even though Janie was criticized by everyone except her friends, she continued to pursue. She lost everything, but ultimately found her identity. Hurston's writing is both a reflection and a departure from the idea of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston does not concern herself with the actions of whites. Instead, she concerns herself with the self-perceptions and actions of blacks. Whites become almost irrelevant, certainly negative, but in no way absolute influences on her
Zora Neale Hurston was born in Alabama on January 7, 1891. "In 1937, she published her masterwork of fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God (A&E Television Networks 2). Zora was a very energetic woman, she was so eager to learn even though she did not finish high school, but she prepared for college and got accepted to Howard University. She published her book Their Eyes Were Watching God, the story of a young girl named Janie looking for love and happiness in the south. "The book was criticized at the time, especially by black male writers, who condemned Hurston for not taking a political stand and demonstrating the ill effects of racism" (History 3). Zora was a very talented woman, she was given the scholarship to study anthropology at Barnard College, and she became the school's first known African American graduate in 1928. "Anthropologist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston was the most prolific Black woman writer in the USA between 1920 and 1950; the foremother of a
Zora Neal Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, reveals one of life’s most relevant purposes that stretches across cultures and relates to every aspect of enlightenment. The novel examines the life of the strong-willed Janie Crawford, as she goes down the path of self-discovery by way of her past relationships. Ideas regarding the path of liberation date all the way back to the teachings of Siddhartha. Yet, its concept is still recycled in the twenty-first century, as it inspires all humanity to look beyond the “horizon,” as Janie explains. Self-identification, or self-fulfillment, is a theme that persists throughout the book, remaining a quest for Janie Crawford to discover, from the time she begins to tell the story to her best friend, Pheoby Watson. Hurston makes a point at the beginning of the novel to separate the male and female identities from one another. This is important for the reader to note. The theme for identity, as it relates to Janie, carefully unfolds as the story goes on to expand the depths of the female interior.