Their Eyes Were Watching God Voice Analysis

Words: 907
Pages: 4

Steve Jobs once said, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice”. Too many times in life, people are silent and afraid to voice their thoughts because of some bigger, more powerful person in their life. This is the case with Janie in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, throughout the novel, Janie’s voice grows as she moves towns and gains different positions in society, and she is ultimately able to express her own ideas aloud with others in order to achieve what she desires. First, Janie spends the beginning of her life with her grandmother, Nanny, on the Washburn’s place in West Florida and then goes on to marry Logan Killicks. In this beginning stage of Janie’s life, she is quiet …show more content…
In the Everglades, Janie’s voice finally emerges, and she uses it to stand up for herself and get what she wants. Even from the beginning of Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship she has more voice then she has ever had before, and Tea Cake tells Janie to “have de nerve tuh say whut you mean” (109). Tea Cake fully encourages Janie to have a voice and use it to tell him what she wants. Janie is for once, finally allowed to speak up for what she wants, and finally has someone who will listen to her desires. When Janie was in Eatonville, she was not allowed to listen to, or engage in, the conversations people would have on their porches. Now, in the Everglades Janie “could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” and Janie even “got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest” (134). Janie is now allowed to talk amongst the community and voice her opinion among them. Up until her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie had never had the chance to talk freely with other, and now she finally is allowed to. Janie’s time in the Everglades with Tea Cake is when Janie starts to fully use her voice and does not hold anything back because she is not afraid of anything anymore. Overall, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s voice is constantly growing until she is able to speak up for herself without hesitation Different people in her life prevent her from speaking her mind such as some of her husbands. However, as Janie movies cities with the different men in her lives, her voice changes. Ultimately, after moving many times and marrying different men, Janie’s voice evolves until she is able to speak up for herself and her