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Janie's Voice In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neal Hurston

925 Words4 Pages

Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God features a young black girl named Janie Crawford and her journey to self-discovery. The novel is actually Janie’s reflection of how she finds her voice. One day, a sixteen year old Janie was watching a bee and pear tree’s blossom, which she equates to marriage and awakening. Janie, filled with the “oldest human longing--self revelation”, runs outside “seeking confirmation of the voice...Waiting for the world to be made” ( Hurston 7,11). Janie is always searching out for love, which she feels like will lead her to finding herself, through the oppressive, silencing, and judgmental society she grows up in. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, to show how Janie learns how to control her own voice, …show more content…

Because her grandmother’s past experiences including slavery and rape, all she wants for Janie is security. This security takes form through Brother Logan Killicks, the farmer with sixty acres of land . Although Janie does not love him, she wants to respect her grandmother’s wishes and pushes down her own opinions. Janie comes to later regret her decision of entering the loveless marriage that she feels her Grandmother emotionally pushed onto her. Logan is an older man, and he is used to his life on the farm expecting Janie to follow suit. He pampers her, but still Janie, although trying to, does not love him because he is not what she wants. An exhausted Logan stops trying to win her over, and instead gets a mule for her to help farm with. In this marriage of convenience, both members are left discontented in this one-sided affair. Janie is utterly disappointed that her first dream of marriage is dead and “so she became a woman” …show more content…

She is still in her loveless marriage, when he enters promising a new future rich of experience. Joe is going to what becomes Eatonville, to become a “big voice”(28). Janie, first unsure about disrespecting her grandmother’s wishes, finally accepts deciding she wants a new chance. On the way there, Joe speaks no romantic words to her, but does buy her sweets. This soon becomes the pattern of their relationship, as he fills her with wealth, but robs her of her own intellectual right. As they reach Eatonville, Joe secures the position of mayor, which also helps him achieve his big voice. Joe’s big voice ultimately pushes down Janie’s own quest for voice. Joe treats Janie as a trophy wife. Joe often calls Janie “Mrs. Mayor”, robbing Janie of even her own identity apart from him (46). In his mind, Janie’s place is to represent the authority he holds and that is it. He considers Janie to be daft, and always controls her even to the point of making her tie a rag on her hair. Janie “[goes] through many silent rebellions”, but chooses to keep silent in order to avoid conflict. Janie is not using her voice to empower herself, but instead she is debasing her voice’s value. Eventually, Joe’s degradation causes to Janie to finally retaliate, a pivotal point in Janie’s discovery of voice.Joe is weakened by Janie’s retaliation and his liver failure, and soon succumbs to death, but not before Janie realizes something. She realizes that

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Quickly over time Janie became Joe’s prized possession when Joe starts to gain more and more power. For example, when Joe was chosen to become mayor of Eatonville, a townsperson asked Janie to make a speech. When Janie begins to speak, she was quickly interrupted by Joe who said, "mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. She's uh woman and her place is in de home." What Joe fails to realize

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After hearing her say this about him Joe slaps Janie, which isn’t something a good husband would do. This situation is what causes the marriage to really go downhill, and soonafter Joe gets sick and he dies, while still fighting with Janie and overall being a bad

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford undergoes a significant character development through her three marriages. Her journey from a naive and impressionable young woman to a confident and self-assured individual is marked by her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. Janie's initial marriage to Logan Killicks is arranged by her grandmother Nanny out of her concerns for Janie's security and social standing. However, Logan Killicks is not the husband Janie desires as he fails to treat her with respect or affection.

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“He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it.” (71) Eventually, “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul.” (76). Whether Janie would have ever been able to gather the courage to leave her abuser is questionable, but as fate would have it Joe died.

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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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Some difficulties include racism, religious discrimination, and dealing with others’ cruelness or kindness. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie returns back to her hometown Eatonville, Florida after being away for some time. All the townspeople gossip about what might have happened to Janie when she moved away. Janie clears up all the gossip and shares her story with the curious group.

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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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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie suffers from hardship in two relationships before she can find her true love. Janie explains to her best friend, Pheoby, how she searches for love. Therefore Pheoby wants to hear the true story, rather than listening to the porch sitters. Throughout the book Janie experiences different types of love with three different men; Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. At 16 Janie marries Logan Killicks.

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As time progresses, Janie and Joe’s relationship goes from arguably unloving to abusive. After Joe beats Janie for the first time, “She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she knew that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams.

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1660 Words | 7 Pages

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.

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Joe feels threatened by his wife possessing the same education as he does and he embarrasses her by making her feel inferior. Janie feels trapped and unlike herself at this point and continues to feel like this throughout their marriage. She “…pressed her teeth together and learned to hush” (71). Joe wants Janie to look down on the townspeople like he does but she like being a normal person and playing checkers with them. She keeps quiet about her opinion and denies herself and of her own ideas, making it hard to live this way and still be happy.

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1313 Words | 6 Pages

Logan owns “sixty acres uh land right on de big road” (23), and Jody believes that “It takes money tuh feed pretty women” (37); whereas Tea Cake, who is not wealthy at all, but takes really good care of Janie and respects Janie’s femininity. While Jody was constantly “unconscious of (Janie’s) thoughts” (43), Tea Cake often “wanted her to get her rest” (107) in the mornings instead of getting up early to make breakfast for him. Janie’s young vulnerable heart was let down many times but her heart of finding the one and experiencing real love always stayed with her, and “she was saving up feelings for some man he had never seen” (72). When Janie decided to be with Tea Cake, Janie experienced a “a new sensation” (108) of “passive happiness” (107): “Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting” (110), fishing, dancing… everything that she had not experienced before with Logan and Jody, who are more hidebound rather than fun. Tea Cake respected and admired Janie as a woman instead of a tool that is enslaved by man, and Tea Cake helped Janie to “crawl out from (her soul’s) hiding place” (128) and experience the part of a life that she had never been exposed to before; Every time Janie looks at Tea Cake and what he had done for her, she would feel a “self-crushing love”

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807 Words | 4 Pages

Once at Eatonville and Joe becomes mayor things started to change for the better of the town and worst for Janie. From the beginning Joe Starks was looking to create a life exactly how he wanted it that included an submissive wife. Janie was again thrown into the shackles of oppression as Joe makes her work at a store. In addition Janie was seen as an beautiful woman and often enjoyed herself with social activities at the store. Joe was jealous at the fact that she was getting closer to other people and disliked the idea that him and her was at the social class of commoners.

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Zora Neale Hurston, an author during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, an amazing novel written about the losses and loves of a lady named Janie Crawford. The author describes the way Janie found out who she really was and what love was throughout her three marriages. Janie’s first two marriages were unfulfilling and not healthy for herself. Janie realized what true love was when she met Tea Cake. Janie’s first marriage was to a man named Logan Killicks, which was forced upon her by her grandmother.

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Self-discovery is essential to a prosperous life. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie, the main character, discovers who she is through her relationships. Janie learns from each of her experiences, but the most significant are her husbands: Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake. Each of these people attempt to control her thoughts and actions, but Janie rebels against them. Janie stands up for what she believes in, and through these confrontations, she better understands herself.

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