Danique Rouse
Greene
American Literature
20 April 2015
A Voice in the End: Janie’s Journey of Self Discovery
Common ideas in literature and the tangible human life often center on a type of journey or trip. The protagonist of these journeys venture out into a world that is unknown to them, yet this same world holds the ultimate destiny that they have been searching for. This is what Janie, the protagonist from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, does throughout the early years of her life. Zora Neale Hurston expresses Janie’s journey from a gender oppressed woman into a strong female character at the end of her story where she finally blossoms.
Many of Hurston’s most famous novel centers on the idea of self-discovery. In this
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case, Janie is the lead female character who struggles to find her voice and the meaning of true love. However, Hurston displayed Janie’s journey in a way that she found her own voice through the meaning of love. Their Eyes Were Watching God emphasizes on this oppressed female character, in an era where black women were heavily looked down upon, and Hurston shines through Janie in order to show just how high the level of discrimination was for a woman of her color. Janie reflects Hurston in this way and many others, including her independent thought process. The choices made in the heart of Janie led her to finding the voice she was always destined to have but was too persecuted against to possess. The life that Janie was born into and going through three different marriages play a big part in the journey for finding her voice. Hurston’s writing in this novel produces many images and symbols for that of the subjugated black woman of the era. Janie’s grandmother uses one of the most famous symbols in the novel to describe the oppression of Janie’s character in a man’s world: Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world as fur as Ah can see (Hurston 14). The use of the word “mule” in comparison to a woman shows how the men of this novel saw women as objects to dump all of their weight on therefore oppressing them even further. For example, Jody uses Janie to run the town store for him during their marriage. He chooses her to deal with many of the townspeople rather than do it himself. The mule is known to be a great pack animal that can sustain the weight of others while being very patient. This reflects Janie as character due to the many times where she shows patience while carrying the physical and emotional weight of others. She carries the weight of her grandma’s sayings throughout her whole life as well as the workload placed on her back from all three of her husbands. Also, Janie being married three times shows a vast amount of symbolism. The number three plays a big part in literature where ominous things might come in threes or the saying, “third time is a charm” applies to the protagonist’s story. In this case, Janie not only finds her true love in her third marriage, she also begins to exemplify the beginnings of finding her voice. Moreover, Hurston shows how persecuted she felt by men with the symbol of the mule as well as the use of Janie’s hair. The hair Janie possesses is described as beautiful and flowing, which compares to that feeling of freedom and independence. Janie went in and out of oppression with the different men in her life especially with her second husband, Jody. The oppression of a female was reintroduced when Jody had Janie wrap her hair in rags all the time (Few, Masaeed 2). The rags made Janie feel as if it were not the real her under Jody’s reign, and she was released from his persecution as Hurston wrote, “Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (Hurston 89). It is the use of these symbols and Janie’s outspoken tone of voice where one can see that Hurston strongly believed in female empowerment (Few, Masaeed 2). Another factor is Hurston’s use of her own personal life which also reflects on Janie’s journey. Many aspects of Hurston’s early life are parallels to Janie’s life throughout the novel. Hurston lived in Eatonville, Florida for much of her early life where her father, a Baptist preacher, served as the mayor of the town for several terms. The character of Jody might have been heavily influenced by Hurston’s father and his life. Also, Hurston’s mother died when she was very young, and her father remarried, which led the already outspoken Hurston to flee her hometown as a young girl (Read 1). This outspoken, even wild attitude is what can be seen in Janie in the novel and shows how Hurston included herself in the character. Then at an older age, Hurston was also in a relationship with a man much younger than her just like Janie with Tea Cake; however, Hurston’s relationship with her beau did not last as long as Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship (Read 1). The voice of Hurston and her life being in the novel are ways of her shining through Janie while they both find their voice on a reflexive journey. On the other hand, there is the thought that the idea of Janie finding her voice through love and making life decisions from the heart is not plausible.
The thought is that Janie did not find her empowerment through choices made on the whim, but that she found a voice through the process of cognition. The protagonist, Janie, found her voice by analytically thinking about her life and the choices she makes (Bernard 1). Throughout the novel, Janie had to have established a thought process to find her inner voice and empowerment and relied on past experiences to get to the next phase of her life. The reflection process implies that Janie learned how to deal with inner conflicts while also taking on the conflicts of the environment around her. This is a plausible thought being that humans are a type of species that use their cognitive thought process all the time. Janie seems highly aware of herself and Bernard suggests that, “... Janie claims a dialectical understanding of the self when she asserts that the goal of self-formation is for her to find herself in others and vice versa” (Bernard 3). This derives from actions in the novel Janie takes that involve the environment around her. For example, Janie exemplifies her use of self-cognition when she speaks about the pear tree. She is well aware of how the meaning of true love relates to the pear tree and how to find it in the people around her. Hurston also shows other instances where Janie is aware when she is speaking to …show more content…
others on the subject of knowing one’s true identity. Many of these times can be found when Janie speaks with her friend Pheoby about her life journey. However, the cognitive process goes against Janie’s ability to find her independence by making choices from the heart.
There was evidence of Janie using his process as she thought about love and compared it to a pear tree; however, many of her relationships with men heavily influenced her journey to find her voice. Whether the relationship was healthy for her or not, Janie felt the oppression of men was weighing her down leading her to find Tea Cake and finally her own voice. Writing her most famous novel, Hurston’s use of these relationships, symbols, and personal life experiences are what led to Janie’s journey and also what ultimately helped Janie find that strength. Embarking on this journey, Janie ventures out of her small life to pursue her idea of love and happiness. She goes through many years of her life being oppressed by a number of men, even those who are not her husband. Ultimately, Janie uses that experience of male dominance in her life to breakout on her own and find the strong female voice she always searched
for.
One strong characteristic that Janie did not seem to show as much, is pride. Janie showed pride in some chapters, which I enjoyed because it was her turn to put herself first. The realization of questions that was once thought about, could be answered in the years she continued to find herself. Janie also had sympathy. Sympathy became a detail in chapter three, where the reader stated “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”(Hurston 25). That quote showed so much because she never married Tea Cake, but she married the man that she no longer loved. Janie had sympathy and having that trait helped her become a
that they can spend more time together because she missed him when he was at work and he missed her when he was away from home.
Janie does so by choosing her new found love with Joe of the security that Logan provides. Hurston demonstrates Janie's new found ‘independence’ by the immediate marriage of Joe and Janie. Janie mistakenly chooses the pursuit of love over her pursuit of happiness and by doing so gave her independence to Joe, a man who believes a woman is a mere object; a doll. By choosing love over her own happiness Janie silences her voice. The realization of Janie's new reality is first realized when Joe states, “...nah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home()" Joe is undermining Janie, cutting short any chance for Janie to make herself heard. Joe continues to hide Janie away from society keeping her dependent and voiceless. As Janie matures, she continues to be submissive to her husband, “He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush (71).” Though Janie ‘learned to hush’, and suppress herself, Janie still urges for her voice. When the opportunity came for Janie to reclaim her voice, "But Ah ain’t goin’ outa here and Ah ain’t gointuh hush. Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo’ you die. Have yo’ way all yo’ life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo’self heah ‘bout
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.
Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white
Janie Crawford, the main character of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, strives to find her own voice throughout the novel and, in my opinion, she succeeds even though it takes her over thirty years to do it. Each one of her husband’s has a different effect on her ability to find that voice.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston created a heroine in Janie Crawford. Janie overcame many obstacles of her time. Acceptance into the community, self-discovery, and courageousness are some of Janie's obstacles.
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.
Hurston uses the power of language and different narrative techniques to show Janie's transition throughout the novel. It is important to notice that in Janie's journey from object to subject, the narration of the novel shifts from third person to a mixture of first and third person; thus, the shift shows the awareness of self within Janie. Language becomes an instrument of injury and salvation and of selfhood and empowerment. The use of powerful language is exemplified well in the text when Janie is asked to say a few words as the new Mrs. Mayor. Joe, her second husband, quickly cuts in and says, "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for not...
Janie represents all of the independent women of her time because she never gave up her happiness. The one moment that brought the whole story together and the one moment that really showed Janie as one strong woman, was the moment she let down her hair. After many years and multiple men burdening her of societal expectations she finally became a woman that she wanted to be. The moment quoted when she became herself was, “She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there”(Hurston 86), was the climax of the story, and the beginning to Janie’s
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...
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...
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.
... 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.