...Their Eyes Were Watching God is a classic novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston uses the story of Janie Crawford to show how women had to gain and develop a voice for themselves. Women during this time were seen as either a “toy’ men could show off or a worker. Janie Crawford went through three marriages. In each marriage, she learned what she did and didn’t want in love. Janie also learned about herself. The things she went through in her marriages helped her develop a voice and her own personality. Janie had to develop her sense of self and independence. Janie had been alone from the beginning, her father left and so did her mother. Her grandma was her only hope of developing into a great and independent woman. Janie had no idea how...
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...Through the use of colloquial dialect, syntax, and descriptive figurative language, Zora Neal Hurston beings to create the townspeople as a judgmental, jealous mass in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The old, stereotypical, Southern Black accent is prevalent throughout the novel, allowing the reader to see the speakers as uneducated laborers. Their judgmental rhetorical questions relate their feelings of jealousy towards Janie, asking what a “forty year ole ‘oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal”(1) and other probing questions, silently comparing themselves to and judging her. Yet these “uneducated laborers”, as they are so flawlessly portrayed, take the low road themselves, silently seething with jealousy. The townspeople, blinded by the main character’s beauty, are confused, fragmented sentences blundering foolishly from their tongues. They all seem to think “[Janie] was going to marry” and her husband “[runs] off wid some young gal so young she ain’t even got no hairs”(2), wondering about Janie’s life, so much more interesting than their labor-monkey lives. The townspeople, who make the transition to the “porch” are lumped together. At first described as monkeys on the “bander log”(2), the porch’s organs of judgment are taken away, Janie’s consideration of them as “tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences”(1) are synecdochal humiliations and degradations, lumping them together once more. The porch’s “killing tools” of laughs are only...
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...“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.” (8) This powerful quote and many others are found in Zora Neale Hurston’s African American Literature Novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston writes of a young, light skinned, African American female named Janie who journeys through life trying to find the “perfect” relationship. As Janie goes through her life, she, along with her search, has taken turns for the worse and for the better. Janie has endured many conflicts through her relationships with Logan Killicks, Jody Starks, and Tea Cake. Throughout Janie’s relationships with men, she discovered that she did not want to live a marriage life full of fear, unhappiness, and sorrow. Her ability to dream and to act on her instincts allowed her to truly find her happiness within her last relationship. As stated above, the...
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...“Their eyes were watching god” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston is a well-known novelist and folklorist. She has published the most books than any other woman. Today she is seen as one of the most important writers in the America’s history. “Their eyes were watching god” is a story about a girl named janie crawford and her quest in searching for love. Throughout her journey of trying to accomplish her dream the book walks us through how she slowly matures and enter her womanhood. In the novel “Their eyes were watching god” Hurston uses similes, metaphors, and symbols to display the moral that marriage and intimacy doesn’t bring love. Hurston uses similes as one of the ways to show that love doesn’t come by marriage or intimacy....
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...In 1937, Richard Wright, author of Native Son, wrote a review on Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, stating it, “Had no theme, no thought, no message” (“Wright Reviews Hurston”). In the novel, Janie Crawford is often seen by the men as a weaker person than she really is. This shows that women are the weaker sex throughout the novel, and that in order to gain power a women must marry a wealthy, powerful man. It shows that women must marry a man to help her in life and that they depend on them as well. In the marriage when women show their leadership side, they are often shut down by the men as they dominate in the relationship. to begin with, Nanny has shown that being married is important for a women. "Don’t tell me you done got knocked up already, less see – dis Saturday it’s two month and two weeks." "No’m, Ah don’t think so anyhow." Janie blushed a little. "You ain’t got nothin’ to be shamed of, honey, youse uh married ‘oman. You got yo’ lawful husband same as Mis’ Washburn or anybody else!" (Hurston page). This says how women should feel pride with the husband and their kids. Also that unmarried women that are pregnant should be ashamed. With women...
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...Throughout life we have many desires and one of the things we want the most is love. We want to be loved and Zora Neale Hurston addresses the reality of love in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this revolutionary book, love is the primary theme. It takes the reader through one woman’s desire for love, and the reality of what love is. Hurston is telling us that love is something that you must work to find and to keep, and for the main character Janie this was not what she imagined. When Janie is young she paints love to be this hallmark moment, where two people fall madly in love with a sexual desire for each other. “She was stretches on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold sun and the punting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and...
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...Their Eyes Were Watching God tells a story about a young woman going through life and finding her voice, the movie made by Oprah Winfrey flips the story and its characters making the main character and everyone in the story different. Oprah does a wonderful job at completely destroying the morals of the time period, and the symbols shown in the book. The movie changes relationships making the main character stronger and more independent. The beautiful love story shown by Oprah became a ridiculous rendition of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel missing key elements from the book. Oprah Winfrey completely disregards the moral fiber of the time period. In the movie some scenes got extremely graphic with the kissing and love making. These scenes...
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...Their Eyes Were Watching God is a book we're motif connects to the story. Community, race, and folklore all connect to the meaning of the book. Community and how does it connect to this story?. Janie a main character of this book who helps community tie into the book. First of all, Janie Crawford an African American girl talks to a town folk man. This relates to motif because motif relates to community and in this novel Janie is not apart of the community. Janie is not a town folk but she still talks to the folk of that town. On top of that, people in the community don't accept Janie in their town so she is considered as an outsider. On page 2 paragraph 3 of their eyes were watching god it says “it was a weapon against her strength and if...
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...In the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there is an exploration of the paradigm of sexual identity from nature through the pear tree, the bee and the flower, and the hurricane. The film follows the transition from childhood to adulthood of Janie Crawford, a mixed girl of black and white. Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of the development of Janie's ideals of love and independence. As a child, Janie sees a bee pollinating a flower in the pear tree of her backyard and from there becomes determined to find true everlasting love. According to Robert Solomon, “This "traditionalist" definition of sexual identity has sometimes been associated with one or more of the following additional positions: that certain...
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...In “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Janie married three men with different personalities. Throughout the book, as readers we witness the types of love she experiences with her ex-husbands. Her troubles of love included running away, suffering abuse, and gossip from the townsfolk. Life was difficult for Janie, from her family history to her role as an African American woman in the ‘30s. Even though she was described as very beautiful, Janie stood out from everyone due to her past. “Seeing the woman as she was made then remember the envy they had stared up from other times”(Hurston 17). Because of her wish to find true love, Janie discovers it with the cost of being alone and losing people along the way. Janie’s first marriage was an arrangement made by her grandmother, Nanny. She didn’t want to be with Logan Killicks, but Nanny told Janie that love was going to come to her. “Ah ain’t gointuh do it no mo’, Nanny. Please don’t make me marry Mr. Killicks”(Hurston 32). She tried being married, but never felt any sort of love for him. Janie said to her grandmother “Cause you told me Ah gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t”(Hurston 40). After Nanny passed away, Janie’s life was difficult without any more family left. In chapter 4, she leaves Logan for another man and decides to marry him instead....
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...In 1973 a book called Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Zora Neale Hurston. The author portrayed a middle-aged black woman’s story of fulfillment and her chase after the horizon. The book was a masterpiece, that tugged at the heart strings and left readers wanting to chase the horizon in their own lives. In 2005 director Darnell Martin brought the book to life in a film adaptation of the same name. The film was a disappointment in comparison to the novel that was so moving. Many important pieces were left out and gave the movie a watered down feeling that missed the true essence of the story Zora Neale Hurston was hoping to portray. Despite the movie’s shortcomings, it still has its own morals and lessons The lesson of the movie is self-fulfillment and being able to be happy and content with life regardless of the hand that the person is dealt. And the movies message is correct, sometimes people face situations they can’t change and outcomes they can’t control, but what they can...
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...Janie Killicks/Stark/Woods: A Hero or A Failure? In Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most prevalent imagery consistent throughout the whole novel is of nature, both beautiful and powerful. Nature’s temperament gradually shifts from an innocent ideal into a destructive force in synchronization with Janie’s life. Janie’s wish is to be in a loving marriage, represented by the pear tree and blossoms; however, once she finally achieves this desire, the hopeful nature she had once longed for gradates into a damaging monster that ultimately kills Tea Cake and consequently, her dream. Though Kubitschek believes that her quest for the pear tree is obtained through her marriage to Tea Cake, the violent hurricane reveals Janie’s ultimate failure in attaining the one thing she wanted the most. The change in nature that occurs once Janie believes that she has achieved her fantasy of a blossoming marriage represents an epiphany, a coming of age moment in which Janie’s childhood dreams are realized as unrealistic and naïve, as the true, destructive disposition of nature is unleashed. The most driving force in Janie’s early teenage years is the need for attainment of the ideal marriage filled with love and equality, which she was introduced to by a pear tree in full blossom filled with sexual images such as “dust-bearing bees sink[ing] into the sanctum of a bloom” (Hurston 11). She became obsessed with the spring and “attempts to harmonize her daily life with her ideal image...
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...This last memorable moment in the novel, reveals Janie’s thoughts of Tea Cake. Janie does not believe Tea Cake is dead as long as she can keep him alive with her memories of what they had. The reader can sense the passion coming from Janie when she thinks about her relationship with Tea Cake still alive. This shows how even after death, Janie still wants to keep Tea Cake with her in her heart and mind. He will only stop living when Janie ceases to think and feel for him. Janie is using imagery to show the reader visual images about her feelings of love and passion for Tea Cake. Throughout the relationship, Tea Cake showed Janie what love is about even through the hardships they both were still romantically involved with each other. He showered Janie with all that he could give to...
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...In the story “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie had to deal with a traumatic experience that brought her the realization that she had fulfilled her spiritual journey all along. The love she had for Tea Cake played an important factor to her quest as well as his death. Through his death the author is able to demonstrate that not only was Tea Cakes’ death horrendous but needed for Janie’s quest to end. Janie truly loved Tea Cake. Although she was previously married twice the love she had for Tea Cake was real and something she had never experienced before. It was the type of love she dreamed about when she was younger. Janie wanted to find that love when she was a teenager but her grandmother did not let her. Her grandmother...
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...“De nigger women is de mule uh de world…” (14). The book Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a captivating story about Janie Crawford and her life. During this time Janie struggles between keeping her own power, and others taking it from her. Janie is overpowered by many in this novel, her Nanny, first husband, second husband, and by many others in her new life. Although she loses her power through these relationships she always retrieves them, and asserts her power. One example of Janie’s loss for power is when her Nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks, an old man who has sixty acres of land. Janie is forced to marry Logan because Nanny thinks she would be better off with someone like him, someone dependable,...
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