“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 by death by Time. That is the life of men. 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 act and do things accordingly.”
I think that this quote from the book describes how every man/woman has a dream, or a wish that they hope will come true one day. Furthermore, for those who make their wildest desires come true, they work hard and compile together their tunneling vision of success. On the other hand, people
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whom have watched their ships “sail forever on the horizon” have not made their fantasies a reality, and have helplessly observed their desires in aspiration, grasping for the hope that such fantasies will descend into actuality. Further, this quote expresses how dreams are truths that can only be unlocked by achieving the goals required to attain such a wish/wishes. “The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark , but their eyes were watching God.” I believe that this quote from the book expresses the drivin detail of the storm to come and how rudimentary Tea Cake, Janie and Motor Boat are, compared to the robust power of God.
Furthermore, this quote provokes the idea of the characters looking towards the sky in meer hopes that the storm ahead will bring good fortune rather than horrendous disaster to their town. Continuing on from that statement, Tea Cake, Janie and Motor Boat are also anticipating God’s will to corrupt their perfect town with a wallowing storm that could bring them crumpling to their knees in agony of the massive destruction left behind. In this case, Tea Cake, Janie and Motor Boat are preparing for the …show more content…
worst. Discuss the idea of the horizon in Their Eyes Were Watching God. What does it symbolize for Jaine? In my opinion, I consider that the horizon in Their Eyes Were Watching God symbolizes that after every ending, there is a new beginning. I reckon that this is an example of Janie because towards the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake dies, but Janie expresses her love for him by saying that “Tea Cake has shown me the horizon.” This is a clear representation of my statement because it shows how Janie is beginning her new life apart from her involuntary relationships and how she is commencing a new journey. Compare and contrast Janie’s three marriages. What initially pulls her to each of the three men? How do they differ from one another? What does she learn from each experience? Dependent on my own judgement, Janie’s three marriages have all taught her valuable lessons.
For example, after being ushered into her first relationship in of which she did not fancy, Janie came to the conclusion that she had to follow her heart and mind in order to find true love. Janie composed of this thought due to her unfortunate upbringings relating to the rude actions of her first husband Logan Killicks, who was a pestering man that didn’t treat Janie with any respect. Secondly, her next relationship was associated with a man by the name of Jody. Towards the mere beginnings of Janie’s marriage with Jody, she felt respected and loved. Janie believed that she had found her true love. This was until Jody became obsessed with losing Janie to the men in town. Since then, Jody is overprotective and swaying over Janie’s life, which in return leads to a relationship full of disrespectful actions and derogatory motives aimed towards Janie. Lastly, Janie’s final relationship was with Tea Cake. In my opinion, this was Janie’s most superior relationship because of how much they care about each other. During this relationship, both Teacake and Janie had high respect for each other, whereas in many of Janie’s other relationships weren’t as meaningful. Although Tea Cake and Janie had their ups and downs, such as Tea Cake beating Janie to show is possession and control over her, their bond consists of mutual respect. All together, these relationships have taught Janie how to be
herself and ignore the hate of the real world. Janie has grown as a character and continued to push onward in search of a new life.
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. In summary, she married Logan because of her grandmother, Jody because she wanted to escape from Logan, and Tea Cake because they had true love. The marriages were different in that Logan treated Janie like a Slave, Joe was moulding her into what he wanted her to be, and Tea Cake just wanted to be with her. As a result, Janie learned many things from each marriage Tea Cake taught her to be herself and do what she wanted to, her marriage with Logan taught her to make changes in her life, and her marriage with Joe taught her to stand up for herself. In conclusion, her experiences in her marriages shaped her into the person she became, and were an important part of her life.
As Janie has said, she has “been tuh de horizon and back” (191) — she has experienced both the societal gender role mindset of Nanny and the feminist mindset of Tea Cake. Whenever Janie interacts with a new character, her feelings toward that person seems to be determined by their belief in conformity or feminism. Characters who represent the conformist view in society seem to become despised in Janie’s mind, whereas she falls deeply in love with those who encourage her free will. This is evident throughout the novel in many cases including Nanny and Logan against Tea Cake. Joe, however, is an exception as he deceives Janie as representing her freedom from Logan, but ultimately still acts misogynistic towards her.
Hurston uses ethos to show that Tea Cake was Janie’s best husband even though society thinks other wise. Tea Cake thinks that he will treat and show Janie a better time in life than any man has ever did. “Ah tell you lak you told me--you’se mighty hard tuh satisfy. Ah betcha dem lips don't satisfy yuh neither(page.103).” Tea Cake was telling Janie that she put on the show that she is hard to please but truly it only takes the right things to make her pleased. He felt that most of the things that Janie was doing was a show. Society felt that Tea Cake was playing Janie and Janie was taking chances falling in love with Tea Cake. “You doin right not tuh talk it, but Janie, you’se takin’ uuh mighty big chance(page.115).” Janie was having a discussion and they were telling her that she was taking a chance running off with Tea Cake. Phoebe feels as if Tea Cake is just a bomb ready to explode in Janie face. Janie felt that Tea Cake was the true love that she was always looking for in her life. “He done showed me where it’s de thought dat makes de difference in age(page.115).” Tea Cake changes janie’s whole train of thought around , so there had to be some love somewhere to make someone change their mind. Janie was really in love with Tea Cake.
“True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together.” This quote by Ricardo Montalban tells us that true love simply has to develop and it doesn’t happen right away. Janie is the main character from the book Their eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and she struggled on the concept of true love.This quote explains exactly why Janie never found true love. At least not until she met Tea Cake and went through a lot with him. Janie is a biracial woman from the early twentieth century in the novel and goes through many life changing experiences. One experience that has helped her grow was finding love. Janie was married three times in the span of the novel and only found love with one person, Tea Cake. Much of the reason is because her grandma, Nanny. Nanny taught her to look for someone who can provide for her rather than what her heart felt was right.This concept stuck
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
Janie gained this experience in love as she discovered that the promises of love are not always true. Janie was promised many things in her life and most of them were the promise of finding love and obtaining it. Janie’s grandmother promised her that even if she did not like Logan Killicks that she would find love in her marriage with him, but Janie discovered that no love was to be found in her marriage and that those more elderly than her would think she was wrong for her values (Hurston 21-25). Then after her marriage with Logan, her luck did not change with her next husband Joe who promised her nothing, but lies. Yet again promises persuaded her into another marriage where she was not happy as Joe went back on the words he promised her
I believe Janie depended on her past husbands for financial security, and protection from the outside world that she could not make a mends with. Janie's dependence on Tea Cake was a dependence on love, Tea Cake treats her the way she has always wanted to be treated, like the blossom to the bee. When Joe died, he left Janie with money and the store, but she had no one to love nor anyone to keep her company. She needed Tea Cake to fill this void in her life, I believe Janie realizes this when she says, "Tea Cake ain't no Jody Starks...but de minute Ah marries `im gointuh be makin' comparison. Dis ain't no business proposition...
It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way… the dreams will come to you.” To me, this statement means something. After reading this book, I can say I agree with this statement. I believe that working hard toward your dreams, then achieving them, will lead your life in the right way.
This final image of Janie “pulling in her horizon” contrasts with the opening image of men’s “ships at a distance.” These metaphorical ships suggest that regardless of their ultimate success or failure, men dream of great accomplishments, of working on and changing their external worlds. Even if the ship comes in, it still originates as something external. Janie’s pulling in her horizon shifts the field of action to the interior. Her quest requires experiences of the world, of other people and places, but it is ultimately directed inward.
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” This quote from Walt Disney addressing the concept of achieving dreams is very accurate, and can be seen throughout literature today and in the past. Dreams can give people power or take away hope, and influence how people live their lives based upon whether they have the determination to attack their dreams or not; as seen through characters like the speaker in Harlem by Langston Hughes and Lena and Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.
Janie found what she was looking for. She searched all her life to find what was within herself, and one special person was all that was needed to bring it out in her. Even though her and Tea Cake’s relationship ended in a tragedy, she knew that he really loved her for who she was. She didn’t need to be with him for protection, or she didn’t need to be the leading lady of a town or a mayor’s wife, she just needed the right kind of love and affection to bring out what was best in her.
Dreams and hope are all worth while but in the book it shows how hard it is to get your dreams. In the book Of Mice and Men the first scene is of them fleeing from their job. The job was contributing to the dream but since there was conflict they had to run otherwise there would be no dream. When they get to there new job a worker over hears their dream and wants to get in on it. “you know a place like that?” said candy. Said on page 29 on the ipad. So they agree and they're way closer to their dream then they ever thought they would be. “George spat on the floor disgustedly. “We got ten bucks between us.” Then he said thoughtfully, “look, if me an’ lennie work a month an’ don’t spen’ nothing, we’ll have a hundred bucks. That’d be four fifty. I bet we could swing her for that. Then you an’ lennie could go get her started an’ i’d get a job an’ make up the res’, an’ you could sell eggs an’ stuff like
In the end, Janie found herself being defined by other people, so to say Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. During her marriage to Logan, Janie is viewed as a spoiled and non-hard working girl that needs to learn what it means to make a living. In her marriage to Joe, Janie is only needed for her outward appearance for him to define as his possession; never did he consult her about what she wanted. In both of these relationships she was forced to be something that she was not. Once Tea Cake came along everything had changed; going from following another man’s orders to being able to live a fun-loving life. Throughout the time she spends with him, finally free from being defined by someone else, Janie Crawford discovers who she is and what love is.
When she first meets him, she thought “he looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom - a pear tree blossom in the spring” (106). From the very start, Janie compares Tea Cake to her image of love under the pear tree. Janie would be the blossom, Tea Cake would be the bee, and the bee-tree interaction would represents their sex and marriage. This comparison is eventually proven true; right before they move to the Muck, Janie admits that she “felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (128). Jody’s treatment of Janie caused her to hide her desires of marriage, but with Tea Cake, Janie feels safe to pursue her desires. After Tea Cake's death, Janie returned to Eatonville and “pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder” (193). Now that she has found her horizon with Tea Cake, Janie has completed her quest and no longer searches for real love. Thus, her metaphorical fish-net that she used to find love can be pulled in. Janie attains her notions of marriage through her relationship with Tea Cake because he treats Janie as an equal and fulfills her sexual desires allows; and thus, by the end of the novel, Janie reaches her horizon and can end her quest for real