Zora Neale Hurston opens Their Eyes Were Watching God with an eloquent metaphor regarding dreams: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time (Hurston 1).” Hurston describes here how some dreams are achieved with time while others lurk out of reach until the dreamer gives up. Janie Crawford, protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, encounters numerous ambitions throughout her life, mainly concerning a desire to somehow achieve something in life, and to not just go through the motions. While Janie’s dreams and my own do not exactly correspond, we both aspire to discover a greater passion in life and find a voice that will enable us to make a difference. When Janie is growing up, she is eager to become a woman and is ready to dive into the strain, maturity, and exhilaration of adulthood. In the beginning of Janie’s life story, Hurston introduces the metaphor of the pear tree, a symbol of Janie’s blossoming, and describes how “she had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her,” which successfully captures her excitement and perplexity of entering the adult world (11). Janie’s anxiety of growing up is also articulated with the image of her “looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made” (Hurston 11). In her teenage years, it seems as if her life revolves around the anticipation of womanhood. Even as Janie grows older, she continues to hold on to her aspiration of living an adventurous, invigorating, and passionate life. In criti... ... middle of paper ... ...le. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006. Print. 4 Jordan, Jennifer. "Feminist Fantasies: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 7.1 (1988): 105-117. JSTOR. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. 464063>. 7 Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. “’Tuh De Horizon and Back’: The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black American Literature Forum 17.3 (1983): 109-115. JSTOR. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. . 8 Rosin, Hanna. “New Data on the Rise of Women.” Dec. 2010. TED Talks. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. . 2 “Their Eyes Were Watching God Reader’s Guide - Introduction.” The Big Read. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. .
The pear tree, the ocean, the horizon, the hurricane are how Janie views nature. Hurston uses spring as a sign of fertility, blossoming sexuality, and a new start. The pear tree represents Janie blossoming into womanhood. In Janie’s eyes the pear tree represents beauty and freedom because she is able to reflect on her life, and her future. No one is telling her what to do when she sits under t...
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 Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God packs the narrator and the authors view on the then unusual role in gender and how they are undertaken in the novel. The opening line sets the tone for the novel and the character Janie Crawford, can insinuate parallel worlds between her and the character of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby. If the parallels are being drawn respectively to the characters in the two novels, then the lines “Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men”, would relate to Jay Gatsby, in more ways than one, both literally and figuratively. The second part of the opening paragraphs in Their Eyes Were Watching God, would be closely tied to Janie Crawford, when the narrator says “Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” The quote could translate to, it is that when a man's dream is unattainable or far away, men are more realistic then woman. A man can differentiate between what his dreams are and what reality really is in their lives. The quote can also be broken down as saying that men never actually reach their dreams, or try to attain them, opting instead for accepting their fate and moving on with their lives, coming terms with the reality and living their lives. Jay Gatsby, although can be said to have reached some portion of his dream, never actually grabs ahold of them. For example, his goal for full acceptance i...
Janie’s adolescent reflects the main cause of her unhappiness. When Janie turns sixteen years old, she kisses Johnny Taylor over a gate. Zora Neale Hurston uses a gate to
Janie and the Pear Tree in Their Eyes Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the image of a pear tree reverberates throughout the novel. The pear tree is not only a representation of Janie's life - blossoming, death, metamorphosis, and rebirth - but also the spark of curiosity that sets Janie on her quest for self-discovery. Janie was essentially "rootless" at the beginning of her life, never having known her mother or father and having been raised by her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny even says to Janie, "Use colored folks are branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways" (Hurston, 16).
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.
...James Robert Saunders, "Womanism as the Key to Understanding Zora Neale Hurston's `Their Eyes Were Watching God' and Alice Walker's `The Color Purple'," in The Hollins Critic, Vol. XXV, No. 4, October, 1988, pp. 1-11. Reproduced by permission.
Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. " 'Tuh de Horizon and Back': The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God." Modern Critical Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Miller, JDove. "Movie vs Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God." Hubpages. N.p., 17 May 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...
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.
For Hurston's heroine, Janie, self-discovery and self-definition consist of learning to recognize and trust her inner voice, while rejecting the formulations others try to impose upon her. Increasin...
... Janie is free-spirited and unconcerned about what others think of her. When she returns to Eatonville after Tea Cake’s death, she shows no shame for what she has done or where she has been, because she is finally able to live the life she always wanted to lead. Hurston’s own struggles in life for individuality and an outlet for her suppressed spirit clearly contribute to the development of Janie’s character. Just as Hurston struggled for recognition, equality, and purpose in the literary world during the Harlem Renaissance, Janie’s struggle for the recognition, equality, and purpose in her relationships.
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.