Their Eyes Were Watching God Relationships

In Zora Neale Hurston’s book “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” there were many unique characters that helped Janie figure out more about herself. Hurston created four characters in Janie’s love life, and each completely altered how she visualized love and trust. She figured out whether she hated love or loved love, likewise, she figured out who would give her that love and who she could trust the most; the first characters were her grandmother Nanny, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. Throughout the telling of her story, she slowly realized who she wanted to be. Each relationship put her through its own unique set of bumps and bruises, but after each of the relationships, she left wanting to find more of herself. She trusted these characters,

She did not appreciate anything he did give her, just mad about what he did not give her. The whole book, to some people, is just a long version of how she did not like what everyone else wanted her to do, but still did it anyway, and then took it back. Except, throughout the book, Janie learned that marriage is not always something beautiful like she expected, but she continued to try. Unfortunately for her, she was raised by her single grandmother after her mothers rape, so she had no role model of love to look up to so it was harder for her and she had to make certain “sacrifices” according to Pemela Glenn Menke in her article “Black Cat Bone and Snake Wisdom New Orleanina Hoodoo, Haitian Voodoo, and Rereading Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”. She states “She is "possessed" by him and by the male images of God; she must dispossess her "self" to secure her historical and spiritual freedom. The sacrificial rituals Janie performs to end this "possession" use the weapons of her victims. She first achieves her victims' "dreams" and then cuts them away in the quest for her own.” (Menke

This led to her putting herself above him in the end and killing him; even when people were trying to say it was wrong to kill him, she knew she had to to save herself. Her grandmother also had different expectations of love than Janie, she was raised around the submissive dominant relationship between a man and woman. While Janie, on the other hand, grew up around white men and women who got to think for themselves, she ended up having her own opinion but she had to learn eventually not everyone was going to listen to it. In the article “Third Times the Charm: Romantic Love and Their Eyes were Watching God” Sydney Adams states “She accepts nothing short of symbiosis and refuses to give up hope for her girlish idea of romance, but she is not without her doubts and setbacks.” (Adams 4). Adams recognized the fact that Janie only found herself through these relationships and pulled herself out of them. In conclusion, Janie was not going to have a healthy relationship throughout her life, no matter who she ended up with. And still, she truly came out to be a strong independent