Their Eyes Were Watching God Internal Events

Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, manages to give the internal events a sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. These internal events include awakenings, discoveries, and changes in consciousness. Throughout the novel, the main character, Janie, hopes to find the kind of love she witnessed between the bee and the blossom on the pear tree (Hurston 11). During her journey for love she gains independence and freedom, she also finds happiness. These changes are due to the many different types of love she experienced. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie deals with external conflicts that end up changing her as a person. Many of these conflicts were caused by the types of

Joe is the man Janie runs off with after she gains independence from Logan. Joe sees Janie as a trophy wife, that she was not an actual person with emotions. Similar to the love received from Logan, this love caused to become very independent. Joe wanted Janie to always listen and do what he said. He also had her wear head rags in public because her hair would cause other men to “figuratively wallowing” (Hurston 55). The head rag symbolizes constrains that Joe had on her. Because of the constrains she faced with Joe, this made her want more independence. When Joe died, she “burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist”(Hurston 89), which is a sign of liberation and defiance of Joe’s restrictions. In African-American culture, braids and other hairstyles were a way for people to convey their marital status, age, religion, and social rank. This is why she braids her hair; she is not only showing her freedom after being constrained by Joe, but also that she was now single. With this now independence she had now found, she rejected every man except for

She listened to her grandma when she told her she was to marry Logan and be soon love will follow. When love did not follow, she left Logan. This was one of the first lessons Janie learned about love and being happy. The next lesson she learned was that things will not always be what they seem. This lesson was taught by the love she had with Joe. When Janie first meet Joe and married things were great. Then the relationship turned sour when she realized that he also wanted to control and not see her as equal. The final lesson she learned was you have to let people go even when you love them. Janie had to shoot Tea Cake because he had rabies and was about to kill her. Janie knew she had to shoot Tea Cake not only because he was going to kill her but because she had to put him out of his misery. She killed him in the name of