An Overview Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora N. Hurston

Zora N. Hurston’s 1973 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God wraps up the story of the beautiful, confident, and independent Janie Crawford. The author manages to direct the novel with a circular plot by having the main character, Janie, telling the story of her life to her best friend Pheoby. As it is explained throughout the novel, Janie’s most desired dream is to find true and unconditional love. Throughout the novel, and before finding her real love, Janie experiences love in many ways, but it’s never as fulfilling as she wants it to be. First, Janie’s grandmother’s overprotective and suffocating love blinds her to ignorantly arrange Janie to marry a rich man in order to be economically protected, but this love falls more than short on what

He was pointing a gun at her too, but her self-protective mind helped her pull the trigger before he did. Gossiping is very recurrent in the novel, and Janie is a really easy target for this. Janie’s grandmother never understands her and constantly put her down as a child; the other women in town envy her confidence so much that they criticize everything they can about her, and the way she lives her life; and Joe never fully accepts her way of thinking either and he criticizes it very often too. However, they don’t put her down at all; on the contrary, they lift her confidence higher, and make her stronger, which helps her grow independent. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses continuous symbols to develop the themes of searching for true love, growing independently, and the importance of self-identity. The way Hurston develops these themes throughout the novel is by using ‘’…a blossoming pear tree,’’ (Hurston 10) Janie’s long and plentiful hair, and a

However, she grows even stronger thanks to all the judging that she receives from the people close to her; starting from her grandmother, passing through her death-husband, Joe Starks, and the gossip-lovers of the Eatonville. As soon as the story starts there are people judging the way Janie dresses and what they judge even more is the way she wears her hair. As they angrily ask ‘’what dat ole forty year ole ’oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal?’’ (Hurston 2) the readers are able to see that the people of the town are not used to see women looking the way Janie looks, therefore they find it inappropriate. In the novel Janie’s hair represents strength and independency. During this time period, men were seen as a really powerful figure, they were expected to have full control over their wives and daughters only because they were females. Joe Starks didn’t fully have the mentality of giving orders to Janie at first, but he slowly began acquiring it as time went by. Once, Joe ‘’order[es] Janie to tie up her hair [whenever she is] around the store’’(Hurston 55). Her hair is being used to represent the power and confidence she had been born with, and Joe ordering for her to ‘’NOT show it in [public]’’ (Hurston 55) is a symbol that highlights how Joe doesn’t want her to show how powerful, independent, beautiful, and confident she can be.