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Similarities Between I Want To Die While You Love Me And Their Eyes Were Watching God

965 Words4 Pages

Andrew Ayotte
Mr. Bradshaw
English 11H
14 April 2023

When in fearful situations, many people do their best to stay positive and to remain hopeful that things will improve as a way to get through the hardship. Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poem “I Want to Die While You Love Me” and Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God both give examples of hope being used to try and conquer fear. Since people often hope for good things in their lives to continue and fear the end of those good times, Janie wishes to stay with Tea Cake during the hurricane; she holds out hope that Tea Cake will recover from his illness; and ultimately, she faces her fears in a final showdown with Tea Cake.
In Georgia Douglas Johnson's 1928 poem "I Want to …show more content…

In particular, Johnson’s speaker describes how they don’t want to see “The glory of this perfect day / Grow dim or cease to be!” (Johnson, lines 15-16). This exaggeration of a perfect day disappearing helps portray the fear of having an important thing disappear, such as the love of one's life. Similarly, in Hurston's novel Janie, a worried woman scared to lose the love of her life, gets a doctor for Tea Cake and hopes that he can recover. Janie notices Tea Cake in bed, describing, “A great fear had took hold of him. What was this thing that set his brains afire and grabbed at his throat with iron fingers?” (Hurston 178). Through this, readers can determine Janie's unreadiness for Tea Cake to die, and desperately wishes for his recovery. She notices Tea Cake’s terrifying deterioration, a slow breakdown of his sanity, and has no way to stop it, but continues to believe. Overall, Janie desperately hopes that Tea Cake will recover, but her overwhelming fear makes her question whether he will. While Johnson’s speaker wishes to never see their love fade away, Janie fears Tea Cake's fading life, and hopes for him to come

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