Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, revolves around the small town world of Janie, a vibrant yet oppressed woman. The reader is taken through Janie’s experiences, which elicit tremendous emotional growth in the heroine. Their Eyes Were Watching God is teeming with symbols; however, one of the most prevalent symbols is Janie’s hair. Her hair conveys far deeper themes that the novel is imbued with. Described as long and flowing, Janie’s hair symbolizes her vivacity and free will; however, it also conveys the theme of being ostracized from a community you belong in. Janie’s hair, although lauded, gives her an appearance that is of stark contrast to the rest of her community.
In chapter 1 of Their Eyes Were Watching
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God, one of the first things the reader is introduced to is Janie’s hair. It is described as the ‘great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume”(2). Immediately, it is inherent that her hair will become an integral component of her identity. Shortly thereafter, Janie takes the reader through flashbacks as early as her childhood. She is depicted as a curious child full of life and wonder. Even under the pear tree, another essential symbol, Janie is intrigued by the nature of life. This moment serves as a prerequisite for how her hair will serve later on in the novel. Subsequent to her first marriage with Logan Killicks, Janie marries Jody, her ambitious yet chauvinistic husband. Initially, Jody is depicted as a genial, loving spouse. This nature changes drastically as time progresses. There is a point in the novel where Jody, jealous of other men lauding Janie’s hair, forces her to tie it up. In fact, one night Jody spies one of the community members playing with Janie’s hair. the narrator states: “..he had caught Walter standing behind Janie and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing”(pg 55). this quote underscores how much attention is paid to Janie’s hair and that Janie is oblivious to this attention. Janie’s hair represents something far more visceral to her identity: her free will. By tying her hair up into a head rag, Janie is succumbing to societal obligations(to obey her spouse). and ultimately her oppression. Hurston strategically follows this event in the novel with a succession of unfortunate events for the heroine. For instance, Jody begins to beat Janie and vilify her in front of the other community members. in the novel, it is stated that Jody “slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store...something fell off the shelf inside her.”(pg 72). The reader can infer that what “fell off the shelf” was a piece of her identity. By submitting to Jody’s every demand, and getting beat afterwards, Janie is starting to slowly jettison off her personality for a man she thought she loved. However, Janie finally garners the courage to speak up for herself partially exuding her previous self. While in the store, Janie tells Jody that he looks like “de change uh life”(pg 79). This act of defiance clearly confounds Jody and the rest of the community. The reader can observe that Janie is trying to burst open the head rag that has sheathed her identity and muted her voice. This sets up a foundation for subsequent events. Janie’s act of speaking up for herself resonates because it conveys a conscious effort of her trying to untie the head rag, implying that in the near future she will be successful. Shortly after, Jody falls ill, which alarms yet relieves Janie.
Jody believes that Janie has poisoned him, illustrating the magnitude of both of their unhappiness. Almost immediately after Jody dies, Janie “starches” and “irons” her face, which could also imply how the headrags represent a facade that she unwillingly dons in public. Janie goes to the funeral inundated in loneliness and grief. However, after she emerges from the funeral Janie burns all of her head rags. Hurston states: “Before she slept that night she burnt up everyone of her head rags and went about the house the next morning..her hair in one thick braid”(pg 89). Fire represents the destruction of something; by burning the very tool that was facilitating the suppression of her identity, Janie is making a vow to never sacrifice herself to others. The long, nimble braid the reader is introduced to in the first chapter reemerges. It is important to note that as she lets her hair down, her circumstances change for the better. Janie meets Tea Cake, her playful new husband. Hurston describes Janie as the curious, vibrant child she was under the pear tree similar to how she is presently with Tea Cake. Therefore, Hurston reveals the overarching theme that when one unwillingly enshrouds their identity, their circumstances become unpalatable. This theme is conveyed through JAnie: As she sacrifices herself to tie her hair up, her happiness devolved into loneliness. However, once she crosses the threshold to her true self, she fully exuded the vivacious Janie that she truly is. All of this is manifested through her
hair. Although Janie’s hair represents her identity, it also conveys how she is ostracized. Janie’s hair is an aberration in the community she resides in; however, this is not clearly stated. It is subtly implied in the subtext of the novel. For instance, while Janie is married to Jody, her community states how if they possessed the same quality of hair as Janie, they would flaunt it. Although they are lauding her features, the ultimate message conveyed is simple: Janie is different from those around her. The alienation aspect is also clear. A seemingly miniscule event in the beginning of the novel reveals this. When Janie was a child, she took a photograph with white children, believing herself to be white. In the novel Janie states: “‘So when we looked.. there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor’”(pg 9). When Janie finally realizes that it is her, she states “‘Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!’”(pg 9). Hurston uses colloquial diction and punctuation to convey the genuine shock Janie feels in that moment. The dichotomy between Janie’s community and the community she is welcomed into is presented. Janie is stuck in the middle of that spectrum. Towards the end of the novel, Janie is on trial for Tea Cake’s murder. The white women show sympathy for Janie, most likely due to her outer appearance. However, the black women berate her. Hurston indulges the readers in an event where Janie feels the most vulnerable and ties it into alienation. By doing so, she underscores the extent to how Janie is excluded in her community. In conclusion, Janie’s hair conveys her lively identity, which at one point is suppressed. It also reveals the dichotomy of belonging to a community but being rejected. Janie’s struggle reveals mankind's tendency to reject what is outside of the norm, causing a confusion of one’s identity.
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.
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.
Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white
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 .
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses colloquial language to show readers exactly why Nanny raised her granddaughter, Janie Crawford, the way she did. When Janie is sixteen years old, her grandmother wants to marry her. The teen pleads to her grandmother for claims of not knowing anything about having a husband. Nanny explains the reason she wants to see Janie married off is because she is getting old and fears once she dies, Janie will be lost and will lack protection. Janie’s mother was raped by a school teacher at the young age of seventeen, which is how Janie was brought into the world.
In such cases, when he would usher her off the front porch of the store, when the men sat around talking and laughing, or when Matt Boner’s mule had died and he told her she could not attend its dragging-out, and when he demanded that she tie up her hair in head rags while working in the store, “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT shown in the store” (55). He had cast Janie off from the rest of the community and put her on a pedestal, which made Janie feel as though she was trapped in an emotional prison. Over the course of their marriage, he had silenced her so much that she found it better to not talk back when they got this way.
"Janie's Learning Experiences in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston :: Their Eyes Watching God Hurston." 123 Help Me. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
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.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a good place to start examining the roles of African-American women. It is written by a woman, Zora Neale Hurston, and from a woman's perspective. This book examines the relationship between Janie and...
Jody Starks was Janie?s second husband and was even more controlling over Janie than Logan. Janie usually wore very nice designer dresses because Joe was the mayor of Eatonville and felt that the mayor?s wife had to wear the best. The dresses symbolize the control and arrogance of Joe, because he forced Janie to wear things she was not comfortable in just to show off their money. Joe also made Janie wear head rags to cover her hair after an incident in the store. ?This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store.? (page 55). The head rags symbolize not only the control of Janie like in her first marriage but it also shows the jealousy Jody has towards his wife and other men.
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
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she grows into a stronger woman through three marriages.
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.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Janie Starks develops her character as she goes from discovering that she is African American to discovering the meaning of being a woman. Janie narrates her story full of hardships to her friend Pheoby Watson. She includes her failed marriages and quests for true love as they help her to find her independence. Throughout the novel, Janie goes on a journey in order to discover her true identity.
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.