Their Eyes Were Watching God Compare And Contrast

Logan Golding

Miss Sibbach

AP English III

12 December, 2014

Oprah Winfrey’s Twist

Oprah Winfrey’s film Their Eyes Were Watching God significantly differed from the novel. Oprah inserts multiple twists on each of Janie’s relationships, changing the story to a love story. Janie acquired a limited amount of strength in the novel, but in the movie Oprah characterizes Janie with more strength. With the benefactors and adjustments made, Oprah accomplishes a love story instead of a journey of a woman. The threat of leaving Joe Starks did not occur in the novel because Janie never had the internal strength to stand up for herself. Joe telling Janie she had to wear a head wrap happened differently because Janie argued with him in the movie when in

Joe embraces the characteristics of jealousy, especially over Janie and did not like any other men having anything to do with her. “Not only did Jody restrict how much of herself she could show, but how many words came out of her mouth” (Grey). In the novel, when the man stroked Janie’s hair Joe made her wear a head rag and she had no say about it, while in the movie she argued with him. Janie’s argument with Joe shows her defiance towards him as well as her strength to stand up for herself. Joe also did not like the fact of her talking to the men on the porch at the store, which showed his jealous and controlling side. “Joe’s treatment of women also defines him; he acts like women are objects to be owned and ordered around by men” (Joe). The results of how Joe thinks of women showed in the movie because his want of Janie’s help to build the store. Joe wanted Janie’s help because Joe felt that women shall work just as men should because of the equivalence Oprah placed on the genders in her film. In the novel Joe would have never wanted or asked Janie to work on building the store because he intended her as the trophy wife. The changes Oprah makes in Joe and Janie’s relationship give Janie the authority to make her own decisions which contradicts Hurston’s

“It was one of the most beautiful, poignant love stories I’ve ever read…” (Their). Oprah saw the opportunity to take Hurston’s novel and make a movie of what she saw as a love story rather than the actual meaning of a journey. She customized the movie to evolve relationships that portray as pure which gave her film the love effect, Hurston focused on a journey of Janie trying to find her inner self rather than focusing on creating a love story. “Janie does find love, but a love story, the novel is not” (Ceptus). Although Janie did fall under relationships and witnessed love, the story itself does not exist anywhere close to a love story. The love Hurston includes in Janie’s journey changes the person she becomes. Oprah drastically reveals Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship throughout her movie. “Oprah’s rendition of Their Eyes Were Watching God reduces the novel’s complexities of race gender and history to pretty costumes, lush backgrounds, and sexy bodies” (Ceptus). Janie and Tea Cake constantly show explicit amounts of affection by heavy kissing and unnecessary touching in public. Oprah altering the movie caused a decline of the meanings that Hurston focused on which created the themes she stressed. The novel portrays a journey of a woman and the struggles she faced from everything from race to relationships. The relationships stand as obstacles that Janie faces and that she learns from,