Dissecting “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston that often reflects values of the Harlem Renaissance while following a young girl named Janie throughout her growing years as she searches for true love in a time where it revolved around stereotypes. The Harlem Renaissance was the development of Harlem, New York where the rebirth of African American arts and culture took place and a significant value of this movement was self-determination. This is the value I feel is most important to the novel- making choices for oneself, individuality, concept of “New Negro”, separating from white stereotypes, and Black Pride. Hurston shows both reflections and departures of this value throughout …show more content…
Based off what Joe has shared with her, she has gathered “He had always wanted to be a big voice, but de white folks had all de sayso where he came from and everywhere else, exception’ dis place dat colored folks was buildin’ themselves” (Hurston 28). Joe leaves the town that allows him to be stable to help build one that would eventually be his own, as it’s always been his dream to hold power and his own voice. This quote connects to not only the aspect of making choices for oneself, but also being separate from the white stereotypes. The stereotype was that in the town he comes from, white people were the only ones with a sayo and black people just had to go along with it. Leaving said town to build one where himself and his people will have voices puts a conclusion to the stereotype that it isn’t possible and shows him being capable of making his own decisions. However, Hurston also departs from this value when Joe begins to question Janie about where she left a bill for his store and it seems she has misplaced …show more content…
This quote also connects to the aspect of making choices for oneself and entirely departs from it because Joe makes Janie feel like she can’t do anything correctly or even think for herself. With that, he’s also suggesting that she needs a man to thrive. The way he even compares her to a child and various animals can very potentially cause her to feel small-minded and dehumanized. This is important to the novel because, like in the quote from the previous paragraph, Joe wanted for himself to have a big voice but not once did he allow Janie to do so. Hurston’s purpose for using Joe to hold back Janie from self-determination may have been intended to make the connection that people can be obstacles for others when trying to reach their individual choices. Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God to show her pride for her community. In Looking for Zora by Alice Walker, she states “I wonder if he knew the experience of Eatonville she was coming from. Not many black people in America come from a self-contained, all-black community where loyalty and unity are taken for granted. A place where black pride is nothing
The next husband that Janie comes into her life in Joe Starks. Joe starts was a very rich man and had lots and lots of money. Janie seen him coming down the road one day and this is how Joe and Janie meet. Joe affected Janie spiritual growth. For example, When Joe starts to belittle her and try to make himself boss. Joe said, “I am the boss missy and you are going to do what I say”(Hurston.41). This shows how abusive and mean Joe can be. Joe also affects Janie emotional growth. For example, When joe starts to abuse her Janie gets very upset and starts to cry and wants to leave. This shows you how much pain emotionally Joe is making Janie. joe also affects Janie spiritually. For example, When Joe starts to argue with Janie. Janie say, “I am
Zora Neale Hurston uses many rhetorical devices to depict the relationship Janie has with Joe Starks in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In chapter 7 Hurston uses devices such as metaphors in three paragraphs to convey how Joe Starks role of a mayor has a tremendous weight on him and Janie. Also how he’s aging physically and mentally is affecting their relationship in a negative way.
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
This excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were watching God, is an example of her amazing writing. She makes us feel as if we are actually in her book, through her use of the Southern Black vernacular and admirable description. Her characters are realistic and she places special, well thought out sentences to keep us interested. Zora Neale Hurston’s art enables her to write this engaging story about a Southern black woman’s life.
She hoped for a better life in this city. The people of the city grew to like them quickly because of Janie’s beauty and the fact that Joe had great leadership skills. They ended up building a store that became the town hangout. Because of their popularity in the city, Joe ends up becoming the mayor of Eatonville. Eventually, Janie starts to feel the effects of being the mayor 's wife and the negatives began to outweigh the positives.”Janie soon began to feel the impacts of awe and envy against her sensibilities. The wife of the Mayor was not just another woman as she had supposed”(Hurston 46). She started to notice that all the townspeople were under the spell of Joe and everyone was afraid to challenge him. Joe and Janie started to clash because of his views on a woman 's place, especially Janie. He keeps her locked up in their shop and doesn’t let her associate with the townspeople.Janie decided to jump in a conversation being held there with Joe and he told her “You gettin’ to moufy, Janie”(Hurston 75). Joe also grows jealous of other men in the shop being around joe so he makes her tie her hair up. As years grow by, their relationship gets worse and Joe hits Janie. He hit her because she didn 't make his dinner right. This makes Janie realize that the love between them is no longer there and that she is too young to give up on love. “Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart
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.
Path to Finding True Love “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.
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. The first time Janie had noticed this was when he was appointed mayor by the town’s people and she was asked to give a few words on his behalf, but she did not answer, because before she could even accept or decline he had promptly cut her off, “ ‘Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’/Janie made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy/.the way Joe spoke out without giving This would happen many times during the course of their marriage. He told her that a woman of her class and caliber was not to hang around the low class citizens of Eatonville.
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
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that presents a happy ending through the moral development of Janie, the protagonist. The novel divulges Janie’s reflection on her life’s adventures, by narrating the novel in flashback form. Her story is disclosed to Janie’s best friend Phoebe who comes to learn the motive for Janie’s return to Eatonville. By writing the novel in this style they witness Janie’s childhood, marriages, and present life, to observe Janie’s growth into a dynamic character and achievement of her quest to discover identity and spirit.
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...
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic eruption that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. Throughout this period, Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, poets, artists, musicians, scholars, and photographers. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement across every form of art, from literature to jazz to painting to drama. Regardless of the fact that Hurston wrote in a particular and geographical area, Hurston held political views that were utterly different from other Harlem Renaissance writers. Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses its plot both on Janie's series of romantic relationships as well as on Janie's individual journey for spiritual nourishment. In the novel, Janie's marriages force her to become aware of what it is that she wants for herself as an individual. This is an important part involving Zora´s writing because she as a person represents the Harlem Renaissance by the story she takes us
“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.
“White bystanders waited on the frontage road, shouting and jeering…” This took place during 1965 on the March Of Freedom. Non fiction really grabs society and tells the truth about it. This is what life was like for the blacks back in the 60s. They were mistreated every day so they had to take a stand. In regular fiction, you can tape suction cups to your shoes and climb up building, while in non fiction it’s less luxurys. Everything is basically based off facts in Nonfiction. In Marching for Freedom, Elizabeth Partridge portrays reality by writing about how blacks were treated back then.