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Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Prompt: How does the possession of an object reveal certain characteristics that an individual carries ? Growing up, many children attach themselves to an object such as a blanket or a stuffed animal. These objects give the child comfort and serenity when in an environment in to which he or she is not accustomed. Author’s use rhetorical devices such as figurative language and symbols in order to help reveal certain characteristics pertaining to one’s identity. An author’s metaphors demonstrate how the clothes an individual wears are used to disguise the fears an individual carries. Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me, is a personal literacy that Coates writes for his nephew, Somari. This book was intended to discuss physical safety …show more content…

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, portrays the story of young woman named Janie struggling with relationships that become crucial to the way she chooses to identify herself. Janie goes through the constant struggle of being controlled by others and allowing others to dominate her identity rather than her owning herself. When she marries her second husband, Jody, he forces her to wear a handkerchief around her head in public because he declares her to be his property and is scared that her beauty will attract other men. However, when Jody gets ill and dies, Janie is placed into a predicament and finds herself face to face with the pain caused by her relationship. Hurston describes the transition Janie makes from being identified by others to recognizing her self worth. “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the her handkerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there” (Hurston 170). The author uses the handkerchief to symbolize how people and objects have constantly covered and concealed the true beauty that Janie has never been able to embrace. Hurston’s metaphors help the reader to understand the great deal of oppression that the handkerchief symbolizes. The author’s metaphors such as “girl was gone”, “woman had taken her place”, and “the glory was there” emphasize that Janie is able to reveal her true beauty in overcoming her struggles. The author implies that by Janie uncovering her hair, she is revealing the constant shadow that has prevented her from her self-examination and in finding her true identity. The author’s metaphors are used to help the reader understand that the moment for an individual to overcome a struggle is profoundly beautiful and

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Janie disliked the rag, but said nothing because it please Joe. Janie would do anything to please her husband's. Hurston shows this through her text, “This business of the head rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it”. This not only reveals the willingness Janir has to please her husbands, but also resembles the power her husbands had over Janie.

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In chapter six, the narrator is explaining what Joe had Janie do “That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store. That was all. She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others” (Hurston 55). I used this quote to explain how men can just boss women around and the women has to take the suffering or lose her social spot in society.

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Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” This realization made by Janie supports one of the biggest themes in this novel, which is that the concept of innocence and womanhood can’t exist at the same time. Because Janie finally lets go of her “childish fantasy”, her innocence is lost and she is now a woman. The theme of lost innocence in exchange for womanhood is also prevalent in Hurston’s story Sweat. This idea is one of the reasons that Sykes and Delia’s relationship begins to fall apart when we meet them.

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1254 Words | 6 Pages

Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over” (Hurston 72). Janie figures out that Joe is not the man she had married when the “image of Jody tumbled down” she begins to understand that Joe was not at all significant to her because he never cared for her and instead he was a bad influence. Janie figures out that he “never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams” the life she desires of with Joe Starks, is an allusion and Janie’s dreams are once again crushed. Janie is deceived by Joe because he represents empty dreams for Janie, he was a “drape [for] her dreams” Joe took advantage of Janie and manipulates her to do excessive labour for him in the store and constantly silences her. Furthermore, Joe Starks never treats Janie with respect as he views her as an object and spends his time commanding her.

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835 Words | 4 Pages

Hurston employs cause and effect to illustrate how she “left Eatonville” a “Zora” but once at school and far from home, she became “a little colored girl”. Hurston describes how even when she began to learn of the racial inequities in the US, she kept a positive mindset. She illustrates “there is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes,” utilizing personification to illustrate her genuine happiness. Again contrasting her attitude to the “typical” attitude of many blacks, Hurstron illustrates the “sobbing school of Negrohood '' who blame the hand they have been dealt and just feel sorry for themselves. Nonetheless, Hurston believes there is no use fretting about the past because she is “too busy sharpening (her) oyster knife” to worry about what she cannot control.

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1847 Words | 8 Pages

In the early 1900s, Janie struggles to find her self worth. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, expands on the story of a girl who goes through many different relationships before finding herself. Janie faces emotional abuse, insecurities, and a variety of men. Her grandmother taught her many life lessons and engraved in her head that she needed to find a man to take care of her for the rest of her life. Janie grows through each relationship and soon comes to the conclusion that she is able to care for herself.

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722 Words | 3 Pages

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel portrays Janie, a middle aged black woman who tells her friend Pheoby Watson what has happened to her husband Tea Cake and her adventure. The resulting telling of her story portrays most of the novel. Throughout the novel, Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of love, or being in a relationship versus freedom and independence, that being in a relationship may hinder one’s freedom and independence. Janie loves to be outgoing and to be able to do what she wants, but throughout the book the relationships that she is in with Logan,Jody and Tea Cake, does not allow her to do that.

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1657 Words | 7 Pages

Hurston tells the story of Janie, a black woman who because of her grandmother experiences and beliefs was forced to marry into a loveless marriage with Logan Killicks, a hard-working farmer who had 60 acres of land and could provide for Janie. This marriage ended when Janie ran away with Joe Stark, a man that she fell in love with and thought could give her the love absent between her and Logan. But Janie soon realized that her second marriage wouldn’t turn out better than her first. Joe was just as controlling and degrading as Logan. He hardly expressed his love for Janie and spoke to her like an incompetent child.

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911 Words | 4 Pages

This proves how Hurston’s decision on how Janie, as well as bystanders actions, can affect how other characters like Joe and Tea Cake are

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245 Words | 1 Pages

Hurston divided her essay into four parts to describe different parts of her life. How she was a happy child in a small black town in Florida, how she was a lonely child in a larger white dominate town but was still hopeful even though she was bullied as indicated when she was reminded that she is “the grand-daughter of slaves” (Hurston 266), how she grew into an adult and acknowledged the racial differences and the isolation but did not let that break her and finally an acknowledgement that she is just a person equal amongst everyone else no matter their color as she compares herself to a “brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall with other bags” (Hurston 268) of different colors not just white or brown. The images help demonstrate

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1014 Words | 5 Pages

In the movie “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston, there are two universal themes that occur which involve Janie's search for genuine and fulfilling love and independence. Throughout the movie, Janie experiences various types of love in her life, and because of her search for this love, Janie ultimately gains her own autonomy and personal freedom. However, because Janie longs for her own independence, others seem to have a tendency to disapprove of her. This may be simply because she is brave enough to achieve her own sovereignty. During the movie, Janie looks for a love that she has always wanted.

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

The young girl was gone, but a handsome women had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there” ( Hurston 87). Joe found her to be an affront, so he made her hide her hair and slowly suppressed everything that made her

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530 Words | 3 Pages

Jody controlled major aspects of Janie’s life, such as her appearance, when he forces her to keep her hair up. Janie does not like that Jody feels the need to control her: “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it... that was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was” (Hurston 55).

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1550 Words | 7 Pages

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne’s setting in a Puritan society dominated by white men allows for him to present a woman to break this streak by not only committing a sin but by accepting it and the consequences. She seeks to break the rules set by the community and even returns to assist the needy. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston’s setting in the 18th century allows for her to unravel a dynamic in which women were starting to create a respectable status for themselves. Janie’s race in this time period is already weighing down upon her status, so for her to go out and to strive through the world wide stigma depicts an ambitious women. Janie dreams for a perfect life.

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713 Words | 3 Pages

Zora Neale Hurston’s writing in Their Eyes Were Watching God, reflects the Harlem Renaissance through Janie 's individuality, and departs from the Harlem Renaissance with the common recurrence of black woman empowerment. In the novel, Hurston reflects the ideas of the Harlem renaissance with the ways in which Janie rebels and goes against norms for women.

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