Personal Response: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God This novel is about an African American woman, Janie Crawford, who goes, as she says, “to the horizon and back,” finding her selfhood and the unconditional love that she had sought her whole life. The story begins in present time, but after the first chapter evolves into a flashback for almost the rest of the book. This flashback, one of the most powerful elements of structure in the book, takes the reader back through her life. From her first two husbands, who stifled her independence and didn't love Janie for who she was, to Tea Cake who showed her maybe not the most perfect love, but a real love with the independence that she was never granted. This flashback doesn't even …show more content…
feel like one. The author does such a good job of retelling the story that I felt as if the events were taking point in real time and forgot, until the last few paragraphs, that Janie had already gone through and learned from all these experiences. This makes me think of how I remember the influential moments in my life that have led me to those I love and how I act. Even as a seventeen year old senior in high school, if I had to choose what to tell others what few experiences have led me to this point in my life, some memories stand out more than others. Those who I love are in them and also the most impactful ones would be as well. What about the future though? These flashback are what Janie used and what I will have to use to help lead me in how I live my life, showing how impactful this element is in the story, but also to the reader as well. Another very influential piece of structure throughout the book is dialect. The southern dialect used, stays the same as Janie moves from one home to the next. Whether her house with her nanny to the everglades to Eatonville. This similarity marks how there also wasn't much of a change around the areas Janie was around, impacting herself. The people around Janie had a similar background, and therefore that changed the way that they looked at things, the way they act, and the things they know. Even now dialects still play a part in showing people that listen to one another what kind of education a person may have, where they grew up, and even their social status. They are even one of the first things used to judge a person, whether to see if they are similar or are completely different to yourself. A passage that really made me think early on in the story was “Us colored folk is too envious of ‘nother.
Dat’s how come un don’t git no further than us do. Us talks about de white man keepin’ us down! Sucks! He don't have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down”(Hurston 39). Coker was saying this because Hicks was stuck on the mindset that colored people didn't belong in the white world of running a post office. This mindset, Coker said, was what was stopping colored people from taking advantage of their newfound freedom and getting the same rights as whites. So often I can relate to this passage, especially in my sports. While I know that I am a vital part of the team and so are all the rest of my teammates. Especially when I was younger, I would wish, for example in volleyball, for teammate to mess up. It would give me the pleasure of knowing that if they do, then I would be that much closer of going back in to have the glory for myself. This selfishness has gradually reduced over time, but kept me from being a supportive teammate. These wishes may have even caused losses in a way I couldn't have seen at the time, but stemmed from a selfishness …show more content…
within. Lee Coker realizes how many of these mindsets in colored people set them back. As shown in the book, though, the town incorporates white ways into their town. They realize how these ways help and that they use them on a daily basis. This is only one of many examples of how humanity keeps themselves down, blaming it on others, and leaving themselves stuck where they are. How many problems could be solved now, if everyone had an open mind? What new technology could be created if people could work together, trading ideas and talking with each other? Maybe no one will ever know or maybe we will. Jealousy is what these setbacks often stem from and while I don't think there is a way to end jealously, being aware of it, and fighting back against it starts the advancement again. And who knows, maybe my newfound awareness will impact others in ways I will never know. Another passage that impacted me was when Janie, Tea Cake, and others were holed up in their shanties in The Muck. There Janie retails to the reader how “They say 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.”(Hurston 160). This stuck out to me first off because the last five words of this are the title for the book. This book also heavily references God and how Janie looks up to him, which made this quotes stand out even more compared with that. Janie views God as a high power, who rules over everyone on the Earth. She and everyone else in their shanties know that their might will never be able to stand against the fury of God, which in this case is the hurricane. But why is it that they are looking at God? The answer to that lies in the previous lines. Just before this passage, Janie was saying because “Six eyes were questioning God”(Hurston 159). How come that changed though from questioning God to looking at God? The reason I think it changed is because of the change in the her attitude towards the storm.
It starts with her and Tea Cake huddled together questioning God for what he has in store for them, but then changes to looking to God because Janie sees how they need to trust in what God has in store for them instead. Even if there is something bad happening along the way Janie trusts that what will happen is meant to happen and looks to God for guidance. This also ties in with the book as a whole because of how it relates back to Janie’s love life. At first, her nanny makes the decision to marry her off and she questions her and even God, but doesn't complain. But after Jody’s death, she moves on from the questioning that she has had with love and what is really is and feels like and trusts that her independent lifestyle and God are the right path for her. Then when Tea Cake comes along, she starts questioning at first, but later trusts in him and that trust, just like this one she has in God during the hurricane, leads to her finding real love, just like how her trust in God gives her the strength to make it through the
hurricane.
What is one’s idea of the perfect marriage? In Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has a total of three marriages and her best marriage was to Tea Cake. Janie’s worst and longest marriage was to Joe Starks where she lost her dream and was never happy. The key to a strong marriage is equality between each other because in Janie’s marriage to Joe she was not treated equally, lost apart of herself and was emotionally abused, but her and Tea Cake's marriage was based on equality and she was able to fully be herself.
..., she found her identity. It did not come easy for Janie. It took her years to find out who she really was.
Zora Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” depicts the journey of a young woman named Janie Crawford’s journey to finding real love. Her life begins with a romantic and ideal view on love. After Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, soon grows fearful of Janie’s newfound sexuality and quickly marries Janie off to Logan Killicks, an older land owner with his own farm. Janie quickly grows tired of Logan and how he works her like a slave instead of treating her as a wife and runs away with Joe Starks. Joe is older than Janie but younger than Logan and sweet talks Janie into marring him and soon Joe becomes the mayor of an all African American town called Eatonville. Soon Joe begins to force Janie to hide not only her
Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston in the year of 1937. In the novel, the main character is Janie Crawford. Janie has been treated differently by others during her life because of how she was raised and the choices she has made throughout her life. The community is quick to judge her actions and listen to any gossip about Janie in the town. Janie is known to be “classed off” from other members in her community in various ways. “Classed off” means to be separate or isolated from other people.
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 the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie’s past actions affects her development throughout the novel. There are also positive and negative effects that impacted her life. Janie is influenced through the development of her relationships such as her Nanny’s advice to her as a child, Joe tries to control her, and before and after the hurricane causes Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship to become more tense, causing the outcome for her to free herself from the restrictions and make her own personal decisions. She becomes more confident, more self-aware , and discovers her capabilities .
It’s no wonder that “[t]he hurricane scene in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a famous one and [that] other writers have used it in an effort to signify on Hurston” (Mills, “Hurston”). The final, climactic portion of this scene acts as the central metaphor of the novel and illustrates the pivotal interactions that Janie, the protagonist, has with her Nanny and each of her three husbands. In each relationship, Janie tries to “’go tuh God, and…find out about livin’ fuh [herself]’” (192). She does this by approaching each surrogate parental figure as one would go to God, the Father; she offers her faith and obedience to them and receives their definitions of love and protection in return. When they threaten to annihilate and hush her with these definitions, however, she uses her voice and fights to save her dream and her life. Hurston shows how Janie’s parental figures transform into metaphorical hurricanes, how a literal hurricane transforms into a metaphorical representation of Janie’s parental figures, and how Janie survives all five hurricanes.
Through her three marriages, the death of her one true love, and proving her innocence in Tea Cake’s death, Janie learns to look within herself to find her hidden voice. Growing as a person from the many obstacles she has overcome during her forty years of life, Janie finally speaks her thoughts, feelings and opinions. From this, she finds what she has been searching for her whole life, happiness.
Over time Janie begins to develop her own ideas and ideals. In Their Eyes Watching God. Each principle character has their own perceptions. towards the end of marriage. & nbsp;
When thinking about the novels that are read in high school, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby come to mind for most people. The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston usually is not thought of. Throughout the years, critics believed Hurston’s novel to be just fiction and that it pose no meaning. In spite of the novel not having much politics, it does contain many social issues from the past that are still somewhat relevant today. Above all, Their Eyes Were Watching God deals with the way people are unequally treated in society based on their gender, race, or anything that makes them diverse from others. It is probable that Hurston brings up the controversial issues of her time era in the hope to cause a transformation in the world.
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.
She managed to leave her Nanny’s grasp and use the opportunity to seek out her dreams, but at the same time, she had to suffer through her relationships with Logan Killicks and get emotionally and physically abused by Joe Starks. Janie achieved her dream of love by being with and loving Tea Cake, although at the end she had to kill him (since he was trying to kill her). Although she is alone yet again at the end of the novel, Janie’s journey was a triumphant one since at the end, she managed to achieve her dream of falling in love. Janie’s journey in Their Eyes Were Watching God teaches that the journey of life is a series of ups and downs and one’s resilience through
...eceive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped....Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood” (pg.145, par.1), portray exceedingly sinister pictures of the Lord our God. However, this hardship that “God” has made them suffer through only strengthens Janie’s character even more; this happens through the deep love between her and Tea Cake. Though they do struggle to get through the hardships; the sense of self Janie receives afterward stays with her, and helps her sustain her inner peace with nature. This inner peace is what Janie means when she says she has been, “to de horizon and back” (pg.191, par.4) as she finishes her story to Pheoby. Thus, she feels that she has reached fulfillment in her life; peace with God, Nature, all the people around her, and most importantly herself.
Watching God is a narrative about Janie’s quest to free herself from repression and explore
Janie associates God with love as many people do, calling on religion only in the best and worst times of life. The first two thirds of the novel does not have many points in which God seems relevant to Janie's life. This all changes when Janie falls in love because she feels like she needs to thank God for bringing Janie and Teacake together. The hurricane scene is one area in the novel where love and the relationship between God and nature is brought up. When the hurricane is worsening in severity, Teacake guiltily asks Janie if she wishes she were back in her big house instead of with him.