Were Watching God Janie's Relationship

When Oprah made Their Eyes Were Watching God into a movie, she changed the story beyond what Zora Neale Hurston intended it to portray. During the movie, the characters and their relationships changed. The directors portrayed Janie as a more confident, independent women. Unlike the submissive, docile Janie the readers would come to know. The unnecessary modifications made for the movie took something from the readers of an amazing book. The relationship between Janie and Nanny drastically changed from the book to the movie. Zora allowed her readers to see Janie respecting Nanny and never talking back. Oprah’s viewers watched a different Janie, treating Nanny with disdain. Background information for Nanny gives the readers an insight into

Zora has her readers to believe Janie and Logan unequal in their relationship. Logan, the stronger of the two and Janie, the submissive wife. Janie performs no physical labor during the reading. “’If Ah kin haul de wood head and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside. Mah fust wife never bothered me ‘bought choppin’ no wood nohow. She’d grab dat ax and sling chips lak uh man. You done been spoilt rotten”’ (Hurston 26). Oprah leads her viewers to assume Logan and Janie equal partners. Both working on the farm together. She also allows Janie room to speak for

Through the whole chapter Nunki flirts with Tea Cake, This made Janie extremely jealous. “A little chunky girl took to picking a play out of Tea Cake in the fields and in the quarters” (Hurston 136). Oprah makes a pivotal choice in leaving the complete flirting scene out of the movie. Nunki was only mentioned as saying hello to Janie for a very brief moment. “Nunki: Hey, what’s your name? Janie: Janie. What’s your’s? Nunki: Nunki” (Their Eyes Were Watching God).
In both the movie and the book, there is one racist comment said regarding Indians. “’Dey don’t always know. Indians don’t know much uh nothin’, tuh tell de truth. Else dey’d own dis country still’” (Hurston 156). In Oprah’s version she has a white man make the comment. Zora’s decides to have Tea Cake make the comment in her book. She changed who made the comment to make Tea Cake appear