Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

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On the surface, Their Eyes Were Watching God seems fairly simplistic. Janie's adventures through the country read like a sappy romance, void of much worth and substance. However, through Nanny's controlling nature over Janie, Jody's relationship with Janie, and Janie's life with Tea Cake, Nora Hurston provides criticism on the controlling nature of men and elders silencing the voice of women. She also proves that sometimes it takes a tragedy for a woman to truly become liberated, and that when one finds true love, nothing can stand in the way. Janie's grandmother, who on one side of the spectrum provides a lot of influence and wisdom, also succeeds for a while in controlling how Janie perceives love. After seeing Janie kiss Johnny Taylor, she decides it is high time to find Janie a husband. Nanny explains that black women “ '...is de mule uh de world so far as [she] can see' ” (90). After revealing …show more content…
While Janie initially loves the way Jody treats her, his controlling nature over what she can do or say comes to a head with time. After Jody buys more land to expand Eatonville, and some of the townsmen ask for words of encouragement, Jody interrupts them, telling the town folk “ '...mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak that. She's uh woman and her place is in de home' ” (150). Jody begins take control over what Janie can do and say. After leaving her home with Jody expecting more independence, Janie falls back into a place where others control what she does. After many years of exerting control over Janie, Jody falls ill and dies. Upon seeing him dead, Janie “...[tears] off the kerchief from her head and [lets] down her plentiful hair” (246). After years of living in Jody's controlling trap, Janie liberates herself by letting her hair flow freely, something she could not for a long time. Jody's death, while tragic, allows Janie to think for herself

Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God , the main character Janie struggles to have control over her own life. Janie is forced into marriage at a young age and grows up extremely fast. During most of her life she does not have much control, she struggles to find her freedom throughout this story. When Janie finds her freedom she is finally happy. At the age of sixteen Janie is forced into marriage by her grandmother. The man Janie is forced to marry is far older than…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie and Teacake decide to wait out a hurricane, even though everyone else, except a few others, left before it came. Janie and Tea Cake eventually strike out on their own. They must swim through the flood to reach safety, and since Janie is not a strong swimmer, Tea Cake has to hold her up. This exhausts both of them, and by the time they reach a stopping point, fleeing workers have crowded it so there is no room to stand. Luckily, they both survived,…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie Starks journeys through life and transitions into her full womanhood. She wrestles with a codependent lifestyle that is forced upon her despite her yearning to be dependent on herself. She is suppressed through her relationships supported by society, and it is not until she breaks away from the people and environments that hold her back, she is able to flourish into her authentic self. Living with her grandmother…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

Zora Neale Hurston’s amazing novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) follows main character Janie Crawford, a woman who wishes to sculpt her own destiny, on her quest for true love, freedom and happiness. As a young woman, Janie fantasized of love and marriage believing would bring contentment, where “husbands and wives always loved each other” (Hurston 21). Someone who’ll love her physically and passionately; but finally once tasted, she felt her husband Logan slowly “desecrating the pear tree”…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses metaphor and symbolism throughout to show Janie’s experiences, as she journeys through various marriages to fulfill her hopes and dreams. To Janie, the “horizon” symbolizes her dreams and hopes of a true marriage. The use of Horizon (a recurring image), by Hurston portrays the experiences of the main character, Janie. In the beginning of the novel, Hurston begins by saying that “ships at a distance have every man's wish…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

Their Eyes were Watching God is in many ways a novel about Janie's sexual awakening. Because it was written in the conservative 1930s, much of this sexuality is hid/hidden in (physical thing that refers to an idea or emotion). When Janie finally finds a "bee for her blossom," it is the man that she has been most sexually attracted to in her life. Hurston takes a nature-lover approach to sexuality. Unlike her grandmother, Nanny, who sees sexuality as threatening and upsetting (the balance of) and…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

For a long time, women’s struggle for rights has been a major issue in our world and there has been a low tolerance for women doing whatever they please. The novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is set in the 1930s when the mistreatment and dehumanization of women was very common.Viewed as inferior, women were often overbeared with high, sometimes impossible expectations.The flow and structure of the novel shows the attitude towards women during that era, and shows how oppressed they felt due to…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

Within the time period of the piece Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston, women were look at as submissive objects to men. They had a specific standard on how they were supposed to look and act; they had a purpose of serving to the men. Throughout the book, Janie starts out resembling that standard but we see her grow to her own standard, not society’s. In the book, Janie’s outlook on life and love resembled hope, loss, optimism, anger, and self-help. Within the novel, there…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

In Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, a young mixed girl growing up in the south, dreams of love and a fulfilling life shared with someone by her side. However, life seems to have another plan in mind, and she soon discovers that being a woman is challenging and that sometime, death can lead to new beginnings. From an early point in her life, Janie is determined to make love the center of her life, yet she regularly faces challenges and people who wanted anything but love to be…

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" and "Jonah's Gourd Vine" are both written by Zora Neale Hurston. Authors often tend to display similarities in their writing styles across different works. This is also the case for these two stories written by Hurston. A close examination of these stories will reveal some of the similarities she uses in her writing style, which include character dialogue, setting, and the theme of finding love. First, in Hurston's books "Jonah's Gourd Vine" and "Their Eyes Were…

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