Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Nyeri Bevans
Period 5
English 3 Honors
April 22, 2013
Their Eyes Were Watching God The main character Janie Crawford grows through four of the five stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Personal development. Janie starts off in a sense of survival mode, since Nannie is the one who makes major personal and financial sacrifices in order to make Janie’s life better than her own and her daughters. Even though life is “good” for Janie she really has no sense of who she is an individual. When Janie begins her story her first actual memory is having no personal, social, no family, and no racial identity. For example no stable name, she’s denied by her black peers for living in a white folks backyard, she doesn’t know who her father is, and she is astonished to hear that she is black. Since Janie is not in control of her life she gives all her power away, for instance Nannie forces her to marry at the prime age of sixteen to an older man named Logan Killicks, who she knows nothing about then later to her second husband Joe Starks at age seventeen. It is Nannie’s fault that Janie stays on the second level of personal development, safety. Nannie’s major concern when she catches Janie innocently kissing Johnny Taylor at their post is that she does not want Janie to end up used and abused like her daughter and herself. So Logan is what she believes to be best for Janie. Logan has land, money and can provide the financial security, but her marriage does not last very long. During the time Janie longs for her life to be better. When she meets Joe she sees it as a way of adventure, something that is new if not love. As Joe succeeds in his dream of becoming a “big voice” in Eatonville he begins to smother Janie’s search for adventure and need to feel connected to a world outside her hometown. Soon Janie begins to go back to her quest for love and strays from adventure. She begins to tell herself that what she and Jody share is “love”, when it is not love at all. She longs for
Period 5
English 3 Honors
April 22, 2013
Their Eyes Were Watching God The main character Janie Crawford grows through four of the five stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Personal development. Janie starts off in a sense of survival mode, since Nannie is the one who makes major personal and financial sacrifices in order to make Janie’s life better than her own and her daughters. Even though life is “good” for Janie she really has no sense of who she is an individual. When Janie begins her story her first actual memory is having no personal, social, no family, and no racial identity. For example no stable name, she’s denied by her black peers for living in a white folks backyard, she doesn’t know who her father is, and she is astonished to hear that she is black. Since Janie is not in control of her life she gives all her power away, for instance Nannie forces her to marry at the prime age of sixteen to an older man named Logan Killicks, who she knows nothing about then later to her second husband Joe Starks at age seventeen. It is Nannie’s fault that Janie stays on the second level of personal development, safety. Nannie’s major concern when she catches Janie innocently kissing Johnny Taylor at their post is that she does not want Janie to end up used and abused like her daughter and herself. So Logan is what she believes to be best for Janie. Logan has land, money and can provide the financial security, but her marriage does not last very long. During the time Janie longs for her life to be better. When she meets Joe she sees it as a way of adventure, something that is new if not love. As Joe succeeds in his dream of becoming a “big voice” in Eatonville he begins to smother Janie’s search for adventure and need to feel connected to a world outside her hometown. Soon Janie begins to go back to her quest for love and strays from adventure. She begins to tell herself that what she and Jody share is “love”, when it is not love at all. She longs for