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How Does Janie's Journey In Their Eyes Were Watching God

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In “Their Eyes were watching God”, Zora Hurston creates a fictional novel where the emotions, lifestyles, and people create a realistic image. Janie’s origins were mysterious to the reader and bit by bit they were revealed , although much is not known. Her past shaped her into the free, hopeful character she is at the end of the book. In the book her origin of character would most notably be her rising with Nancy. In Janie’s growth, her thoughts and fantasies were shaped to only focus on simple matters. Nancy would pressure Janie to settle down, get married to a rich man, and live a certain lifestyle. The pressure Nanny applied succeeded as Janie married again and again to certain men. That man, being wealthy [Joe] which did lead her to wealth and prestige, yet did not grant what she deeply desired: freedom and happiness. …show more content…

“But she had been whipped like a cur dog” to suit Nanny’s wishes. The Horizon is viewed as different things depending on people’s perspectives, “Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon...and pinched it to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her.” Her character was shaped into a desperate, hollow woman that seeked her horizon in men. She couldn’t find her horizon in the people, therefore she moved from one to another seeking it. It all led to her unhappiness and desire to be free to truly seek her own

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In Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie’s hair is described ad nauseum; in fact, it is described so often that one cannot help but notice its importance to the text as a whole. The author uses Janie’s hair to demonstrate Janie as an independent woman. To Janie, her hair is one of her defining features, and it becomes a surrogate for her identity. While Janie works inside her and Jody’s store, Jody forces her to wrap up her hair in a head-rag. To Janie, the “business of the head-rag irked her endlessly”, even though she did not want it wrapped up, Jody did.

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301 Words | 2 Pages

The main character Janie of the book Their eyes were watching God, is facing the conflict of a loveless and abusive marriage. Through the chapters, five and the first part of chapter seven Janie is submissive to her husband’s words and does what he says. However, at the end of chapter seven Janie talks back to Joe while working in the store and humiliates him in front of the townspeople. In result of Janie’s actions Joe makes it clear to Janie and the customers in the store Joe is still the dominant figure in the relationship, to show his dominance Joe smacked Janie in the face. Although Joe hit Janie it was not the first time, and Janie knew the first time Joe had hit her that the love she has longed for is not in this marriage.

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854 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1067 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie, a strong, empathetic woman, explores many different interpersonal relationships and has experiences specific to her identity as a black woman. Throughout the story she is oppressed and is forced to silence herself after being silenced by her husbands, Nanny, and the townspeople. Janie is first controlled by her grandmother, Nanny, when Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks, a much older man. Janie is placed under Logan’s authority until a seemingly ideal man named Joe Starks comes into Janie’s life with promises of a better future. After marrying Joe, however, Janie realizes that he is not all that he claims to be and is forced, once again, to be oppressed and silence

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660 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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175 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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616 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1277 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston utilizes a variety of symbolism and imagery related to the natural world to convey Janie’s complex desires for impeccable life experiences. Additionally, Hurston employs figurative language through nature sources to represent the satisfactory and traumatic experiences that have occurred throughout her lifetime, as well as the journey that she has completed in order to fulfill these experiences. Juxtaposition and similes are present throughout this novel, which further parallels Janie’s connection to the natural world, while additionally demonstrating the intellectual strength that she possesses. Since the early parts of the novel, the reader has been continually reminded of Janie’s

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724 Words | 3 Pages

Finding her identity was a very difficult and powerful process and Janie is deemed as a strong independent woman because of it. Janie shows this when the novel states that “She was looking for the kiss of life. She was searching for something that was inside herself, and always had been” (Hurston 9). This proves Janie’s quest to find herself and who she is because she knows she has a purpose and that her life has meaning. Janie’s determination shows how she’s trying to fight the expectations for her and doesn’t want to die just being a normal woman.

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503 Words | 3 Pages

All-Natural In a society defined by artificial hierarchies and man-made laws, Janie, in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, struggles to identify the true God amidst many impersonators. Janie first discovers her God in the pear tree blossoming in her backyard. She learns of the bliss of nature; a nature unburdened with societal hierarchies and without a script from which to read. The pear tree is the first glimpse of the all natural, raw God that Janie embraces.

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1660 Words | 7 Pages

Janie shows determination as she persists and struggles to define love on her own terms through her marriages. First, her determination shows when Janie runs away with Jody. She becomes aware that her marriage with Logan does not satisfy her goals and dreams for love, so she takes a chance and marries Jody. Hurston states, “Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south.

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446 Words | 2 Pages

Nanny’s obsession with materialistic items is not going unnoticed by Janie, and she notices that “she had been whipped like a cur dog, and run off down a back road after things. It is all according to the way you see things. Some people could look at a mudpuddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to that other kind that loved to deal in scraps.” In this passage, Janie finally had the realization that she had been trampled by thoughts of materialism and

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1220 Words | 5 Pages

Janie experiences a loss of independence during her first marriage, and that loss is magnified with her marriage to Jody. Jody exhibits a controlling, narcissistic, and dominating personality which leaves Janie powerless and oppressed. “She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life left beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels” (Hurston 76).

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774 Words | 4 Pages

With each marriage, Janie grows more self-aware and realizes what her true desires are. She wants to be with a man who makes her happy, but also treats her with the respect and dignity she deserves. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s independence grows as she yearns for true love through her three marriages. Janie’s willingness to do what others ask, leads to her being pressured into marriage at sixteen years old by her grandmother.

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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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