Preview

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
581 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Houston reveals the injustice of life as an African-American female during the early 20th century. Through narration, Houston sheds light upon the ignorance and biased perceptions in the African-American society that help to mold expectations for individuals while also placing limits upon them. Expressing hatred amongst their own elevates the telling of the novels bildungsroman and a woman’s strong desire and belief in her own fate.

The conflict of man vs. society is quickly revealed from the beginning of the novel. Through a recalled account of past life events, the reader is allowed to grasp an understanding of the life of Janie Crawford. Her life’s trials and tribulations have compelled her into the woman she is, a woman of self-determination who has abandoned the idea of the need for a male presence, as a result of three unsuccessful marriages. Coming into her own, Janie battles with society’s ignorant definition of gender roles and relations versus her personal views of self progression and independence. From her financially driven first marriage to the death of her last husband, she has taken on the flaws of others, specifically a man, to help her search for personal happiness, which has only hindered her progression. Janie once took on the same views as society but due to her personal experiences that allowed herself growth, she broke free of the biased, realizing that the development of an individual identity amounts way more than simply compromising for the like of others.

There is an evident reoccurring theme of ignorance throughout the novel. At the center of this ignorance is Janie, as she is ridiculed and poorly judged by her community. As she arrives back home, she is looked down upon because she arrives without the company of her husband. The judgment placed upon her and the gossip that is said is a result of naïve ignorance on both parties, the community and Janie

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Joe criticizes everything that Janie does and orders her to listen to his every command. Janie shows the person she is in chapters 5 and 6 that she is a scared woman that blossoms into a strong individual who stands u to the pretentious and ignorant men who are sexist. In…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As you can see, even though each of Janie’s husbands was successful in the novel they would have not been so much successful in today’s society. I went into details about three main ideas which were the breaking down of each husband social class, the social class we have in today’s society, and the comparison between the two. Now, before I end this paper I would like for you to answer this question. Do you still believe Janie would have married each of these men if they were living in today’s…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Janie’s concept of marriage is unique in her own, sixteen year old, eyes. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.” (pg. 8) Janie saw her marriages like bees who visit the beautiful blossoms of the pear tree, her life was formed around this tree because of the experiences she had underneath it. She experienced love and life that she wants to replicate. Janie also knows that her life and loved ones would bring her joy and suffering and not everything would be what she hoped for. Joe Starks to Janie was the opposite of her pear tree---he was the suffering. Just like Logan, Jody did not give Janie her ideal pear tree image. “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon.” (pg. 29) Hurston uses the word “sun-up” to symbolize hope and “pollen and blooming trees” to symbolize sex and new life, but Jody did not give her these things he only gave her fortune. Janie's relationship to Jody was also very poor because there was a lack of communication between the two and too much…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    All of her life Janie is told what to do by other people. Her grandmother and first two husbands limit her independence and force her to conform into roles that she does not want to fill. She is coerced into marrying an old man, performing laborious tasks, and dressing a certain way. Yet despite Janie’s history of being oppressed by her surroundings, she uses her past experiences to shape who she becomes. Janie reflects on her change in independence, stating, “Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means to live mine” (110). Unlike Gatsby, Janie is willing and ready to move forward in her life. She understands her past, and turns it into a driving force behind her desire for independence. Hurston highlights Janie’s willingness to move on from past events, showing readers that it’s important to overcome adversity and to grow from it. This novel was iconic during the feminist movement of the 1970’s, primarily because of Janie’s sense of independence and freedom as a woman. Hurston’s message of overcoming prior adversity and growing stronger resonated with women in the 70’s. Since then, this novel has inspired individuals to speak up and find their voice, no matter what has happened before…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The novel presents, in a combination of first and third person narration the story of Jamie Crawford and her three successive husbands. At several points in the text, Janie Crawford is prohibited from speaking, while at other points she chooses not to speak. Silence, then, is sometimes used as a tool of oppression and at other times as a tool of power. Even from the beginning of the novel it can be easily noticed the shifting narration; the viewpoint has moved from “every men” to “men” to “women” to “a woman” all these under the form of gossip of the front porch (see quote 1). While the earliest feminist interpretations put forward the idea that Janie achieves selfhood by claiming her voice, Barbara Johnson asserts that it is by accepting the inevitability of self-division that Janie gains the power of speech. She shows how Janie’s discovery that “she had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them”(Johnson: 50) has implications for Janie’s ability to speak. There are two paragraphs that highlight this aspect of inside and outside in Their Eyes Were Watching God (see quote 2). It can be noticed the…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In Zora Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, we get a look into the life of an African American woman who faces difficulties because of her race and sex. African American women at that time were at the bottom of society. They could not voice their opinion or express their ideas. Their job was to work and do what they are told. They were neither respected nor viewed as valuable to society. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford, despite her skin color and gender, is determined to achieve her goals. She goes on a journey of self-realization and is able to find herself in a few different ways. One way she approached the journey is by challenging the men in her life that are dominating and trying to control her. Another way she tries to find herself is through romance and sexual desire. She wants the freedom to love whoever she wants and be loved by them. She wants the type of love that is real and not controlling. Janie spends many years trying to find the love she desires from the men she marries. She goes through three relationships that test her strengths and ability to love. Lastly she will be able to find herself by finding her space. In most of her relationships she is prevented from exploring…

    • 1947 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story, Their Eyes were watching God was the story of Janie and her tremendous journey to find her true self. There were many things that influenced her to mature throughout the book. One of these influences was nature. Nature played an important role in shaping Janie’s character; from the pear tree, where she first realized her sexuality to the devastating hurricane that swept the town. These features in nature helped her mature and realize what she needed as growing woman throughout the story.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Their Eyes Were Watching God

    • 4160 Words
    • 17 Pages

    An important assertion that shows up multiple times throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is race. Throughout the story there was constant racial prejudice coming from both, the African American race and the Whites. A quote that supports this assertion is, “Ah thought you would ‘preciate good treatment. Thought Ah’d take and make somethin’ outa yuh. You think youse white folks by de way you act,” (Hurston, 30). This is what Janie’s first husband, Logan Killicks says to her when she doesn’t do work that is outside the house, such as farming. Logan says she acts like a “white folk,” in the novel and throughout the time period in which the novel takes place, people with fair skin were considered prettier and superior. People with darker skin were inferior and according to Janie’s Grandmother, the women were beneath the already inferior African American race. By say that she acts like a “white folk” he was trying to say that she was acting much more superior than him she acts like she doesn’t have to do anything. Zora Neale Hurston is trying to show the clear distinction between the race and the extent of the racial prejudice that happens, not just in the past time period when this book takes place, but just in general there is so much racism everywhere, even now.…

    • 4160 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    <br>Janie is a Black woman who asserts herself beyond expectation, with a persistence that characterizes her search for the love that she dreamed of as a girl. She understands the societal status that her life has handed her, yet she is determined to overcome this, and she is resentful toward anyone or anything that interferes with her quest for happiness. "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see," opines Janie's grandmother in an attempt to justify the marriage that she has arranged for her granddaughter (Their Eyes 14). This excerpt establishes the existence of the inferior status of women in this society, a status which Janie must somehow overcome in order to emerge a heroine. This societal constraint does not deter Janie from attaining her dream. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Their Eyes 24).…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    <br>Zora Neale Hurston, in dealing with the female search for self-awareness in Their Eyes Were Watching God, has created a heroine in Janie Crawford. In fact, the female perspective is introduced immediately: "Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly" (1). On the very first page of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the contrast is made between men and women, thus initiating Janie's search for her own dreams and foreshadowing the "female quest" theme of the rest of the novel. Detailing Janie's quest for self-discovery and self-definition, Hurston celebrates Janie as a role model for all by communicating her understanding of life's true meaning.…

    • 1950 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that focuses on the curious attitude on the difference between genders. It is written by Zora Neale Hurston. The protagonist is Janie, who is a semi-black woman because she comes from mixed ancestry. The novel is merely about Janie’s search and quest for love and independence. The novel starts with Janie arriving back to her hometown, coming back from a death.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Their Eyes Were Watching God

    • 3166 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Reading Guide Preview Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston About the Author Although Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave in a racially segregated cemetery, she had a remarkable career as a novelist. She was also a pioneer in documenting African American culture. Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida, a fully incorporated African American township, and studied at Howard University. In 1925, she moved to New York City, where she became an influential talent of the Harlem Renaissance, the blossoming of African American literature and art. While attending Barnard College, she met the famous anthropologist Franz Boaz, who convinced her to study the folklore of African Americans in the South. Her first collection of African American folk tales, Mules and Men, was published in 1935. Her second collection, Tell My Horse, published in 1938, also contained descriptions of African American cultural beliefs and rituals brought from Africa. Hurston achieved critical and popular success with her novels Jonah’s Gourd (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God(1937), and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939). She also wrote a prizewinning autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), as well as short stories and plays. When Hurston died in 1960, all her works were out of print. In the 1970s, African American author Alice Walker revived interest in Hurston, helping to restore her reputation. Background Their Eyes Were Watching God is set in Florida during the 1930s. Although the story is fictional, the town of Eatonville, built and governed by African Americans, is real. At the end of the Civil War, blacks settled near the town of Maitland. In 1882, the black businessman Joseph C. Clarke bought a large tract of land, subdivided it, and sold lots to black families. In 1887, blacks incorporated the area as an independent town called Eatonville, Hurston’s childhood home. Quick Guide As you read Their Eyes Were Watching God, keep…

    • 3166 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The importance of the surrounding people in a community is evident when Janie decided to stay with Tea Cake even after a horrendous and dangerous storm. She couldn’t leave behind a community that had treated her well, and allowed her to “listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted.” (134) The topics of listening, laughing and talking were often brought up throughout the novel, for Janie is never permitted to do so as a subordinate. But, being given these opportunities by her peers forces Janie to fall in love with a poor, yet joyful community.…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Their eyes were watching God” a novel by Zora Neale Hurston left me with a lot of wandering thoughts and questions. Through annotating these two literary criticisms by Claire Crabtree, Jordan Jennifer and two social issues by Keith Richburg and Anne Kingston I learned a lot about what was going on with the protagonist Janie in the story and deep in her Feminist mind and why she did some of the things she did. The first source by Jennifer changed the way I thought about Janie in the book. It was always mind boggling to me as to why Janie would just leave one man and go on to the next man with in a sense the same traits. This source shed light on what Janie might have been thinking. Some questions that came to mind were those such as; “what does Janie feel is true love?” The author’s argument is true and very convincing. After reading my two articles on my social issue of Feminism I came to a better understanding of what women and young girls all around the world felt they had to do to gain that little bit of feminist feelings. While women’s rights and all these other laws are passed it still seems as if feminism throughout the world does not exist and women are not equal. Before annotating these articles and thoroughly reading through them I always thought women had the most power and had full control of what happens in the world but after reading through the articles I came to a better understanding of how women felt and what women had to do to feel somewhat equal. Lastly the literary criticism by Crabtree with explanations of the folk themes and the novels use of feminism gave me a better understanding of the background of the novel “Their eyes were Watching God” and why some of the things that happened occurred and how the characters reacted to it. This alone changed the way I thought about the topic. Some questions that were derived from annotating this essay were those such as; what is a strong black woman? And is this book more of the folkore…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Janine’s character showcases existentialism perfectly; she identifies the meaninglessness of the world and an individual who either entraps their self in the idea of a meaningless world or seeks a purpose to live…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays