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Janie character analysis essay
How does janie discover her own individuality
Characteritics of janie
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Janie character analysis essay
How does janie discover her own individuality
Characteritics of janie
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s flaws about love continuously brought her to the same ending with all of her husbands, no matter how long the marriage lasted. In The Odyssey, Calypso was trapped on an island to fall in love with men who washed ashore. The fatality of her faults was her over affection and her need for love while being so alone on her island, Ogygia. Their weaknesses are exact opposites, specifically in their relationships with men. The flaws are role in relationship, attachment to men, and lastly, their submissiveness to men.
Janie the protagonist of the book Their Eyes Were Watching God is introduced as a forty-year-old harlot by the woman on the porch. “They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs” (pg 2). From this porch Janie’s best friend Pheoby comes in to save her rep, Pheoby refutes, saying “You mad ‘cause she didn’t stop and tell us all her business” (pg 3). From this friendship we see that Janie is not a harlot she is just the talk of the neighborhood; she describes it as “Mouth-Almighty … got me up in they mouth now” (pg 5) . She then replies to the gossipers saying “They don’t know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt” (pg 6).
How does a woman living in the 20th century achieve independence and freedom despite living in a patriarchal society? In her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston gives us an answer to this question. Janie Crawford was born in Florida and raised by her grandmother, who was formerly enslaved. When Janie becomes a teenager, she is forced to marry Logan Killicks for financial security. After a number of months, Jannie decides to leave him for a man named Joe Starks, who promises better treatment.
Janie Crawford as the character of Their Eyes Were Watching God was a women who was not afraid to be a pundit person. In the beginning of the story, she is presented as an old woman telling a story to Pheoby Watson: she started with her childhood. Janie has an affinity to nature, which implies some natural figures to describe her life, giving another meaning to how she sees things. She uses the representation of her life by natural things to bring the feeling on her memory easily; to have a present memory of what she lived, with the everyday life presence.
Janie Takes a Stand At the end of chapter 6, Janie rebukes the men and her response not only highlights the gender inequality problem in the novel, but it also shows a major character development in Janie. Not only of what Janie says is startling, but the fact that she said something made me see Janie in a different perspective. Janie?s opening line, ? Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business?, caught my attention because her response is against societal norms.
The man vs nature conflict in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" plays an essential role within the novel. Throughout the novel, especially in the beginning, Janie is shown to have a connection to nature. This is most noticeable in the way that bees and pollen symbolize Janie's maturity and how the horizon is used to represents Janie's lifelong search for happiness. It is because of this, that when the hurricane comes across Janie and Tea Cake near the end of the novel that it is more than just a mere battle for survival. Throughout the novel, forces similar to that of the hurricane antagonize Janie: the doctrines to which Nanny, Logan, and Jody adhere; Mrs. Turner’s racism; the sexism of Eatonville’s men; and the gossip of the porch culture.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie, is influenced by others to change her ideals. Hurston vividly portrays Janie’s outward struggle while emphasising her inward struggle by expressing Janie’s thoughts and emotions. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the protagonist is concisely characterized as having “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” as Janie does. Janie conforms outwardly to her life but questions inwardly to her marriages with Logan Killicks, her first husband, and Joe Starks, her second husband; Janie also questions her grandmother's influence on what love and marriage is.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s happiness and self-fulfillment greatly depended on the man whom she was in a relationship with. From, the beginning of the novel, Janie never followed the path that had the utmost value to herself; She always settled for what other people thought was best for her. This made Janie never quite content with her situation and caused her happiness and self-fulfillment to be hindered by her circumstances. The horizon, a motif representing dreams, wishes, the possibility of change, and improvement of ones’ self, is the point in which Janie’s journey of self-discovery is illustrated by.
“Their Eyes are Watching God” novel consisted of a woman that didn’t know love, it seemed to be very rare in her defense. She allowed people to influence her better judgement. She hoped and had faith that at some point the right time of love would come. When it all came down it to it she believed for better but in silence. This story blocked out feminism, it detailed into a world where women couldn’t compare to men.
People come into our lives for different reasons. Some leave a positive impact, while others bring negativity. Readers and critics alike have treasured Zora Neale Hurston’s 20th century novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, for generations particularly for its complex portrayal of the different main characters. The people a person meet and the experiences that person many go through in their lifetime can alter a person significantly. Through the tyrannical words of Joe Starks and the inconsiderate actions of Nanny, Janie in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is negatively influenced as her actions and thoughts alter her life.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is a main character whose outward existence conforms, and her inward life questions. This tension helps to evolve the author’s theme of the importance of individuality and how individuality creates happiness. Janie experiences most of her life in trying to conform, and grows to despise it. Once free, she becomes herself and becomes happy. Early in the novel, Janie marries Logan Killicks.
Over the years the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston has received many literary reviews and critiques both. Some praise her for bringing up gender inequality in the time period and showing how the main protagonist overcame her obstacles in life. Others think Hurston's writing style was confusing and needed more work to establish what exactly she was trying to say. Many reviewers think there is beauty in what they see to be a strong story both with the morals and writing story. One author writes of the dialect,"In case there are readers who have a chronic laziness about dialect,it should be added that the dialect here is very easy to follow, and the images it carries are irresistible" ("The New York Times Book Review")
In The Eyes are Watching God, the author Zora Neale Hurston expresses the struggles of women and black societies of the time period. When Hurston published the book, communities were segregated and black communities were full of stereotypes from the outside world. Janie, who represents the main protagonist and hero, explores these communities on her journey in the novel. Janie shows the ideals of feminism, love, and heroism in her rough life in The Eyes. Janie, as the hero of the novel, shows the heroic qualities of determination, empathy, and bravery.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie deals with external conflicts that end up changing her as a person. Many of these conflicts were caused by the types of
This shows that John is a merciful being and desires forgiveness from his wife and God, therefore demonstrating traits of a good man. Furthermore, John has a heated argument with his wife, due to his encounter with Abigail, alone. Although, he thinks his wife will doubt him, she states on the contrary, “I do not judge you. The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you. I never thought you but a good man, John - only somewhat bewildered” (55).