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Janie In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale

614 Words3 Pages
Throughout the book it is made apparent that Janie is not focused on being the first wife in her family but rather falling in love.This conflicts with the ideas and hopes that Nanny has for Janie.The hopes and ideas Nanny has set for Janie are shaped by her traumatic experiences from her youth. This leads to the main conflict between Janie and her Nanny. Janie tries to do whatever she can to please Nanny and this leads her to sacrifice some of her happiness.Also due to her Nanny Janie doesn’t really know the true meaning of love,but one that is Nanny’s interpretation of what leads to love. Janie’s only mother figure in her childhood was her Nanny. Her Nanny loves her very much because of this she wants Janie to live a proper life. So most
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Janie’s mom became an alcoholic after being raped by her own teacher. When Janie was left alone, Nanny took janie in and took care of her herself. If I were to imagine Janie with her mother if she didn’t leave, I would think that Janie would be a bit more obedient. As for hushpuppy’s mom, she left when Hushpuppy was still young. If Hushpuppy was still with her mother, I would think she would be a bit more feminine.

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Now, it is easy to see why it is argued that the film should have included more about Nanny and Leafy. Nanny represented the threshold guardian, set up the marriage to Logan Killicks, and, because of Leafy, felt she had good reason to do so. While the film may not go out and explicitly show all the details of Janie's creation, it gives the audience subtle clues that work. Janie, upon arriving to Eatonville is noticeably lighter skinned than many of the other

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518 Words | 3 Pages

Because Nanny grew up with nothing, she valued financial and material values rather than the love Janie so desired. Up until Janie was about seventeen, Nanny did not imprint these values. Furthermore, when Nanny heard Janie’s conversations with the local boys, she scolded Janie, and immediately starts to set up plans for marriage. There is one key reason for this decision on Nanny’s part; she wanted to maintain respectability in order to keep Janie for turning into the social wreck her mother is. We can see here that Nanny is just trying to do what was best for Janie, although Janie does not realize this until after Nanny has passed away.

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1834 Words | 8 Pages

Nanny’s portion of the novel shines a light on how Janie really views the world compared to her grandmothers. Ultimately Nanny wants Janie to be happy and well taken care of by any means necessary, regardless of how Janie feels. Nanny grew up while being in slavery and lived a hard, loveless life. She ended up getting pregnant with a white man, which to some degree helped her life and the life of her daughter better than it was before. Nanny believes that having the “ultimate life” is based off of status and what the man can bring to the table and provide for her, not solely from mutual

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660 Words | 3 Pages

Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, forces Janie to marry a man she is not in love with out of convenience. Nanny does not want Janie to suffer the necessities of life, but Janie cares little about materials and seeks love. Nanny’s ideology haunts Janie for much of her life, influencing decisions she takes later in marriage. Huston says, “The memory of Nanny was still powerful and strong,” which shows how Janie conforms to the ideology her grandmother instilled in her. And although Janie conforms, she continues to question inwardly about love.

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1666 Words | 7 Pages

She is the same as Janie in this sense. Another example is how Mrs. Bogle’s husbands treated her. The novel states, “Her first husband… [held] her till his death. Her second husband… proved his love and pride” (69, 70). The foil aspect is a similarity between the husbands of each woman.

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930 Words | 4 Pages

He turned out to be very controlling and possessive of her. He did not allow her to do anything and thought that “a pretty doll-baby lak [her] is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan [herself] and eat p’taters dat other folks plant just special for [her]”(Hurston 29). Janie realized that she should be able to have some type of freedom in her marriage, and not feel

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797 Words | 4 Pages

Janie dreams of a love full of shared passion sexually and romantically that is equal and united through marriage. When Nanny slaps Janie only a few pages later, newfound womanhood was declared in Janie. Her planned marriage to Logan would only derail her search for a love that would fulfill all aspects of what she felt underneath the pear tree. Her submissiveness to Nanny invited a sense of reality into her outlook on marrying Logan, but not enough to keep her with him. Janie will go on to leave him after Nanny’s death with the newfound realization that her innocent outlook on the unification of love, marriage, and sex is not the reality of her life with Logan, and although a life with Logan promises security and comfortability, this does not satisfy Janie and her ambitious dreams.

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1254 Words | 6 Pages

Nanny is successfully able to convince her granddaughter through her own traumatic experiences and make her feel “sympathy” as she tells Janie she doesn’t want her life to be spoiled like her own life was. At first, Janie refuses to marry Logan Killicks. Nanny being the older one, defends herself by saying “put me down easy” since she can no longer care for Janie and only her wish is for Janie to get married and be protected from the dangers she and her own daughter faced. By calling herself a “cracked plate” Nanny further elucidates that she went through many hardships in her own life and wants to do the right thing for her granddaughter by

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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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Later that day, his mother died. Being so young, he gets confused into believing his mother is a fish and that he killed her. Jewel on the other hand, sees his mother as a horse. Out of all the children, Addie only truly loves Jewel. Addie hates her husband, Anse, therefore hating every child he had given her.

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Janie did not love Logan before or after her marriage with Logan, and this worried her because it meant her marriage could fall apart. Nanny had reassured her, she will soon fall in love after they are married, but Janie was still frightened. Since Nanny was a big impact on Janie’s life and wanted the best for her, Janie had to follow everything she said, even if she did not like it. But, Nanny “...scuffed up from her knees and fell heavily across the bed. A month later she was dead” (Hurston 42).

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1171 Words | 5 Pages

Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate. " Nanny is beyond exhausted. She grew up during slavery, was raped and had to raise her child, Leafy, without a father. Nanny never got married because she was worried that Leafy would be trampled upon like she was. But, she still lost her child after living to see her be trampled upon the same way she was.

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1567 Words | 7 Pages

This lets the reader know why nanny wants the security and the protection for Janie. She

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Lily, the protagonist of the novel, struggles to find love within her biological family after her mother died when she was four years old and her father, T-Ray, became bitter towards her and the world around him. After Lily was older she gained a boost of confidence when her housekeeper, Rosaleen, who was also the only person who loved lily when she was growing up was beaten down by a group of racist that attacked her. When

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