Theme Of Fear In Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Fear can hold a person back and make them act in different ways than they initially intended. This is true of Janie in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston because she continually struggles between conforming and being what people ask of her and doing and saying what she wants. Throughout the story, Hurston displays Janie’s internal battles as a way to express how the fear of living up to others expectations can overshadow being who a person wants to be.
At the beginning of the novel Janie is forced into marrying Logan Killicks by Nanny who claims that, “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (Hurston 15). Janie’s dreams of falling in love are crushed and all she can do is hope that in marrying

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