In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie fell in love twice and the love she felt from the two individuals were real but were expressed in two different ways. Janie as a character never gave up on love, rather she learned the meaning of love and how to interpret it. In chapter 20 she says to Pheoby “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore, and it’s different with every shore”, as Janie is saying this to Phoeby she is analyzing her past relationships and comparing them to each other in a metaphoric way. She is saying that love is different each time you feel it and it changes depending on the individuals falling in love, no two loves are ever the same. Hurston uses metaphors to add …show more content…
flow to this story, her sound very poetic. Firstly, at the beginning of the book Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie was married off by her grandmother to a man she had not loved and could never fall in love with.
Janie later meets Joe Starks as she is pumping water and falls in love with him. He seems like the perfect guy and as their love began he explained to her all of his ambitious plans and Janie -being a naive girl- becomes extremely excited and decides to leave her husband for Starks. At the beginning of their relationship Starks treated Janie like a she was a precious jewel and because Janie had never experienced anything like Starks she fell head over heels. When Starks first met Janie he tells her “A pretty doll-baby lak you is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan yo'self …show more content…
and eat p'taters dat other folks plant just special for you.(29)” This is what really got Janie and Starks's relationship going, he sweet talked her into thinking that she deserved better than what her previous husband was offering her.
Later Starks’ love for Janie changes from sweet and tender to possessive and overbearing and Janie had to live with that relationship no matter what. “Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-making'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home”(43). When Janie was asked to give a speech Starks cuts in before she has a chance to respond and shuts her up by saying that she is not worth listening too and is only good for the household. Another example of Jody being controlling is when he tells Janie that she has to wear a rag over her hair because he is a jealous man; Starks even hit her on multiple occasions for simple mistakes that she makes. Her love differed to the love she had with Tea Cakes because they were in very different financial situations, with Tea Cakes they had to rely on each other on multiple occasions. During most of her time with Tea Cakes, they shared a healthy relationship. Tea Cakes gave her a lot more room for freedom than Starks and he allowed to speak her mind and not be mute. However, her and Tea Cakes did face some troubling issues in the end when he got sick, he became possessive like Starks and she eventually had to kill him. Out of all of
her relationships that included love the best one was with Tea Cakes although he was young and naive which later was the reason for his death. As Janie state din the quote extracted earlier, love changes depending on the people involved yet the feeling of love does not. Secondly, author Zora Neale Hurston does a phenomenal job using metaphors and structure to foster the theme of testing out love throughout the novel. Janie gives both Tea Cakes and Joe Starks a chance after she has experienced a terrible relationship with Logan. Janie’s experience with Logan was what constructed her ideas of love, this quote clearly states that “So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things” (25). This is her analyzing her love with Logan her current husband and seeing it is not what she had expected, but after waiting a long period of time for it to change she has realized that it is not meant to change and will stay the same. She is thinking about how things have not changed and that she should just stop expecting them to change because they won’t. Hurston does a great job of portraying love in this book especially with Janie being a very innocent and naive young girl. She writes of Janie’s failed love and her ideas of how should be, the best thing that Hurston does is she has Janie’s character change and grow emotionally; Janie later realizes that most relationship does not put love first. Hurston’s metaphors help this book by making some of Janie’s words sound poetic.
All three husbands are similar in the way that they all have expectations of Janie as a wife. Logan Killicks, Janies first husband, has expectations of Janie. His motives for his expectations though, are because he wants her to help out on the farm. Logan shows this expectation by saying, “ Naw Ah needs two mules dis yeah. Taters is goin’ tuh be taters in de fall. Bringin’ big prices. Ah aims tuh run two plows, and dis man Ah’m talkin’ ‘bout is got uh mule all gentled up so even uh woman kin handle ‘im” (21). He has the idea that Janie can work with him, Logan makes her carry wood to the house, cut seeds from potatoes, and even move piles of manure. In the same way, Joe Starks expects much from Janie as well. He is motivated by improving his image however, by making Janie Mrs. Mayor Starks she is now Joe’s eye candy. His vision for being a big voice is mainly in Janie’s perfect looks, like in this quote that states, “ Everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her” (34). He expected Janie to be his trophy wife and just look better than everyone else. Tea Cake Woods’ expectations of Janie as a wife is the same as well. He had a different approach on it though, all Tea Cake wanted is for Janie to be his equal and nothing more. His motivation, is love. Tea Cake loves Janie and the way he expresses this is when he says, “Put dat two hundred back wid de rest, Janie. Mah dice. Ah...
As a husband, He treated her with respect and love, unlike Joe Sparks. Also, he did not see her as one of his possessions to be seen and never heard, instead he saw her a person capable to learning and understanding. He taught her how to play checkers, handle guns and listened to her opinions. Tea Cakes also had a much different personality from Joe Starks. He was just as hardworking as Joe Starks, but his ambition is not channeled to acquiring more possessions and power. He was content with what he has and strove to provide for him and his wife. While married to Tea Cakes, Janie was able to express herself be free and independent. She was treated with respect and not inferiority hence she is able to make her own decisions for herself and grow as an
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). When Janie was a teenager, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longs for something more. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if this is what she looks for. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character, is involved in three very different relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie learns some valuable lessons about marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
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.
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.
Until one day, towards the end of their long marriage, when Jody made a very mean comment about Janie's body. She came back with, "When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life." After these words came out, Jody hit her. These harsh words could never be forgiven. At the end of their marriage, before Jody died she finally told him her feelings.
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.
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...
...d feels that she is lucky to have him. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, seems to be her singing bee when they first meet but she realizes that he is not. When Joe becomes what he strived to be, he tried to control Janie and change her into what he expected and thought for her to be. Only Tea Cake, Janie's final husband, truly cared for the person that she really was and treated her as his equal. He encouraged her to speak her mind and tell him her opinion so that they can gain a better understanding of each other. In the course of these marriages, Janie is lead toward a development of self and when she arrives back in her hometown she has grown into a mature, independent woman who was still left with the warm memories of love and laughter with Tea Cake.
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.
People are constantly searching for their voices. A voice gives someone independence and the ability to make her own decision. The First Amendment ensures that all United States citizens possess the freedom of speech; however, not all people are given the ability or opportunity to exercise that right. When a person has no voice they rely on others to make their decisions. Throughout Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Are Watching God, Janie constantly struggles to find her voice. Her marriage to Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake help her discover and utilize her voice in different ways. During Janie’s first marriage to Logan she has no voice, Joe silences Janie’s tiniest whisper and controls her similar to a slave; in contrast to Logan and Joe, Tea Cake encourages Janie to use her voice and make her own decisions. Janie cannot express her voice until she discovers happiness and independence through her final marriage.
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the character of Janie Crawford experiences severe ideological conflicts with her grandmother, and the effects of these conflicts are far-reaching indeed. Hurston’s novel of manners, noted for its exploration of the black female experience, fully shows how a conflict with one’s elders can alter one’s self image. In the case of Janie and Nanny, it is Janie’s perception of men that is altered, as well as her perception of self. The conflict between the two women is largely generational in nature, and appears heart-breakingly inevitable.
Through analyzing Janie’s relationship with Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, it is clear that her individuality is questioned and influenced by who she is with. Killicks was chosen by Nanny to become Janie’s first husband primarily due to his enticing financial stability. Janie soon realizes that “marriage did not make love.”(25). She “wants to want him sometimes. [She] don’t want him to do all de wantin.”(23). Logan says to Janie, “Ah’ll take holt uh dat ax and come in dere and kill yuh!” (31). Janie has finally had enough of being used and bei...