Myles Munroe writes that “the greatest discovery in life is self-discovery”. Until you find yourself, you will always be someone else. Become yourself.” Similar to Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie goes on a journey to become confident in her identity as a Black woman living in a society where sexism is prevalent. All three of her husbands belittle and humiliate her until she is insecure about herself. Being torn down by these men causes Janie to be submissive, allowing her to endure the abuse she faces. However, near the end of Hurston’s novel, Janie finally gains respect for herself, not letting others take advantage of her any longer. This leads to the character development of Janie; she turns into a strong, independent woman. Hurston’s …show more content…
Jody Starks, Janie’s next husband, provides false hope, making her believe that she can achieve independence. When Janie first meets Jody, he represents change and chance, giving Janie the illusion of freedom. For instance, Jody tells Janie what she wants to hear, remarking that she has “no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog wid uh holiday.A pretty doll-baby lak [her] is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan [herself] and eat p’taters dat other folks plant just special for [her]” (Hurston 28). Starks thinks that he is a much better fit than Killicks, promising her a carefree life; he feels that Janie deserves much more than what Killicks has been contributing. Janie falls for this facade, being attracted to his wealth and power. However, in reality, he turns out to be equally as abusive as Logan, dehumanizing Janie until she breaks. Jody further flatters Janie, saying that “[she] ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated lak a lady and [he] wants to be de one tuh show [her]” (Hurston 28). Jody reassures Janie, vowing to never treat her as harshly as Logan did. …show more content…
Therefore, Janie is beginning to rebuild her self-esteem, finding her identity as a young Black woman. Tea Cake is the third and final man Janie marries, embodying new possibilities and independence. He teaches Janie how to live freely, allowing her to participate in activities (e.g., shooting guns, fishing, checkers) that she was restricted from doing with her past husbands. Thus, Tea Cake sets Janie “free” to an extent, seemingly having more respect for her than both Killicks and Jody. Unlike the other men Janie had married, she is reluctant to fall in love with him, as she is scared that Tea Cake might turn out like Jody and Logan; she does not want to get her hopes up as she did in her last relationship. However, soon enough, Janie finally submits to her feelings, describing Tea Cake as “the love thoughts of women’’ (Hurston 101). The overwhelming attraction Janie has to Tea Cake is mainly due to their age difference. Although this poses a concern for Janie since he might steal her money, her naivety shines through once more, ignoring the worries she has about Tea Cake’s true nature.
After years of surrendering her dignity in the name of a constructed love she is free to be and to find herself after the death of her second husband Joe Starks, or “Jody”. Her hair symbolising her woman-hood is let down to be free after she burns the head scarves that symbolically and literally hid a piece of herself from the world she wanted to be a part of. While janie sacrificed her dignity and her morals for Jody she was not sacrificing in order to live by what she values most, it was for survival more than want. However, we see her true need for real love when she begins seeing Teacake and risking multiple aspects of her life for him. Janie is a lighter skinned woman, putting her in a higher social rank due to the racism infringed on people even in the African American community. She has a good amount of money in the bank and she has a rather high social ranking due to her deceased husband Jody being the mayor of the town prior to his death. These factors all lead to Janie not only being an upstanding member of the community but also a very desirable woman for a number of men in the town. Teacake on the other hand is nearly the opposite. He is very dark skinned causing bias’ against him and his relations with Janie. While much of the town judged behind her back on this aspect one character, Mrs. Turner,
TeaCake makes no promises to Janie and has nothing to offer her except his love, making him different from his previous counterparts who promised to meet her every want and need but fails extremely short of their goal. Janie has low expectations for the relationship, and is proven mistaken when he gives her what she truly desires. TeaCake 's loving fidelity and simple but true love for her is a relief to Janie after her previous marriage confinements. She feels completely free to do as she pleases without losing her feelings of love as she did in her relationships with Joe and Logan. As Janie and Tea Cake bond, Janie sees that TeaCake, a younger man with no richness, knows, accepts, and values her as no one else has ever done. Tea Cake is the only man Janie marries who cannot does not claim or insist to protect or solely provide for her. But Joe still takes a great deal of responsibility in the relationship. Janie also rightfully believes that who a person is, is more important than what he has. Only after Janie starts to trust Tea Cake, does Janie begin to free herself, and in fact feel eager, to tell her friend Pheoby all that has happened since she left Eatonville. Tea Cake 's love, acceptance, and understanding frees Janie to reveal her uniqueness, through non restricted language, and with a mature, confident, real presence. Janie easily leaves her elevated position in the community to start a new life with TeaCake. Hurston hints that the pursuit of individual aspirations can bring mental freedom, much more valuable than wealth. Regardless of obvious differences in age and social status Janie finally seems to have found true love in
In the novel The Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston the main character, Janie goes through many events that shows her growing up. Also these events show her becoming an educated woman who finds herself. From her first kiss to her three relationships the author makes this change in Janie visible. Throughout the novel these events show Janie maturing and becoming educated about herself and the world around her.
Tea Cake, in this moment, takes the initiative for Janie allowing her to move forward in her life. Through his actions, Tea Cake breaks these boundaries set by Joe thereby creating a new impression of gender
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.
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 beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
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.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s powerful feminist novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” she tells the story of Janie Stark and her journey into becoming a powerful black woman during the time when those words were not spoken together. Hurston uses Janie as an archetype for what we should all aspire to be, because in Hurston’s eyes, and the eyes of many others, Janie is the only character in the novel that gets it right. The thing about Janie that set her apart from everyone else, the reason that she got it right, was not because she was just born that way, but it was because she used all of the trials and hardships in her life to her advantage. She never crumbled or quit, but she continued to move on and use her life experiences to help mold to her
After reading and unpacking the novel, Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, I do not believe that Richard Wright is correct in his assessments. Considering the historical time period and context of his assessment, one can notice somewhat of an envious tone from Mr. Wright. He proclaims that "Her dialogue manages to catch the psychological movements of the Negro folk-mind in their pure simplicity, but that’s as far as it goes". He then goes on to further confirm his envy by accusing Ms. Hurston of deliberately trying to make the "white folks" laugh by belittling the intellectual integrity of the characters within her novel. Furthermore, he states that "The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought".
herself. Janie, all her life, had been pushed around and told what to do and how to live her life. She searched and searched high and low to find a peace that makes her whole and makes her feel like a complete person. To make her feel like she is in fact an individual and that she’s not like everyone else around her. During the time of ‘Their Eyes’, the correct way to treat women was to show them who was in charge and who was inferior. Men were looked to as the superior being, the one who women were supposed to look up to and serve. Especially in the fact that Janie was an African American women during these oppressed times. Throughout this book, it looks as though Janie makes many mistakes in trying to find who she really is, and achieving the respect that she deserves.
“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's Values If you were a part of a huge, exponentially growing community and you wanted to express your true feelings about it, would you do it? Well, that’s what Zora Neale Hurston did when she created one of her most popular novels, Their Eyes Were Watching God during the Harlem Renaissance in 1937. Zora Neale Hurston is a Black American author, anthropologist, and documentary filmmaker who portrayed racial struggles in the Harlem Renaissance. When writing her famous novel Zora Neale Hurston makes a message out of Janie's life experiences on how she departs from the Harlem Renaissance value of community and reflects the value of self-expression in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The Value of Community is proven to
Janie steps down from her pedestal to enter a relationship with Tea Cake, but she steps into one built on reciprocity rather than hierarchy. In teaching Janie to play checkers, to shoot, and to drive, and in inviting her to work alongside of him, Tea Cake breaks down the rigid gender definitions that Joe sought to impose. Janie continues to use her voice and her relationship with Tea Cake progresses. Because she is in a give-and-take relationship and she has joined a community on the muck, Janie experiences the freedom of speaking her mind. Hurston emphasizes the joy of this ability to communicate by writing: "Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to" (Hurson,
She abandons Logan Killicks to marry the citified, innovative man by the name of Jody Starks. Janie’s naïve personality is evident during Jody’s pledge to attract Janie away from Logan and towards him, he tells her “Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong. Ah wants to make a wife outa you” (Hurston 29). This quote by Jody wins Janie over entirely. Janie’s innocence plays a pivotal role in this encounter because Janie falls for Jody after a quick ten minute conversation filled with promises from the man. Janie’s lack of experience when interacting with people increases her innocence, as she does not know when to believe in what is being said and when not to. She is immediately attracted to the soft-spoken, auspicious demeanor which Jody