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Thesis Statement For Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Thesis statement: Zora Neale Hurston had a belief that in relationships men tried to control women. "Their Eyes Were Watching God": Folk Speech and Figurative Language." Http://edsitement.neh.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2016 This article is talking about how Hurston use of folkloric language in the passage Their Eyes Were Watching God shows how the female character in the book tries to develop herself without the aid of a man. The analytical article states that the main character dreaded her marriages that she was in. the article stated that Hurston’s creative literary style combined folkloric language and literary techniques. She used these techniques to show the readers the lives that women had. The author of the article manifest that every women …show more content…

Each individual article analyzes the book as how the main character Janie dealt with her marriages. The articles analyzes how the main character found out that marriage didn’t compel love. The reasoning was that male dominance affected the relationship between the main character and the husbands she was married with. Hurston’s feminist views manifested the relationship between a man and a women in her style of writing. "Heroism or Weakness? ." Stone. Professor Kathy Freeman, n.d. Web. 03 May 2016. This article analytically manifest the purpose of the book. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God conveyed the life of the main character. The main character was a young African American women that yearned to be the owner of her own life. However Hurston manifested in the book that the main character wanted to find independence, but the main character is shocked by the fact she cannot be independent. She cannot find the independence she wants because a man will always define her. Hurston structured the book to show that the dominance of the male figure, and how her husband ultimately controls her actions. Mendoza-Marroquin

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Zora Hurston a superior author who wrote short stories and often used folklore, and religious references in her writing. Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God uses symbolism throughout the book followed with a vast amount of metaphors and similes. She used this unique style in order to draw in the reader's attention and to get them to feel as if they were there. Hurston starts every chapter out with either a metaphor or a simile. For instance the very first sentence of Their Eyes Were Watching God is a metaphor, “ Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”

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In this book, Hurston uses symbolism to illustrate that contentment is more meaningful than fitting into society. Janie’s hair plays a big role in this book. It brings out her power and unique identity, but Jody takes that away from Janie. Jody sees that Janie’s hair attracts some of the townspeople, so he makes Janie wrap her hair and hide it.”

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Hurston’s metaphors help the reader to understand the great deal of oppression that the handkerchief symbolizes. The author’s metaphors such as “girl was gone”, “woman had taken her place”, and “the glory was there” emphasize that Janie is able to reveal her true beauty in overcoming her struggles. The author implies that by Janie uncovering her hair, she is revealing the constant shadow that has prevented her from her self-examination and in finding her true identity. The author’s metaphors are used to help the reader understand that the moment for an individual to overcome a struggle is profoundly beautiful and

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In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie, is influenced by others to change her ideals. Hurston vividly portrays Janie’s outward struggle while emphasising her inward struggle by expressing Janie’s thoughts and emotions. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the protagonist is concisely characterized as having “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” as Janie does. Janie conforms outwardly to her life but questions inwardly to her marriages with Logan Killicks, her first husband, and Joe Starks, her second husband; Janie also questions her grandmother's influence on what love and marriage is.

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston acknowledges the idea of sexism when she addresses that Janie Starks, the protagonist, never got to fulfill her dreams. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, wanted the best for her granddaughter so she married her off to a man named Logan Killicks, a man who had a small farm and good wealth “Janie and Logan got married in Nanny’s parlor of a Saturday evening with three cakes and big platters of fried rabbit and chicken,” (Hurston 3). Years has passed within the marriage and Janie never found love for Logan. Logan comparing her to his ex-wife, discriminated Janie’s place of position, “Mah fust wife never bothered me ‘bout choppin’ no wood nohow. She’d grab dat ax and sling chips lak

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All people grow and develop at different rates, with factors such as heredity and environment strongly influencing one's development. The age-old debate of nature-vs-nurture is at the forefront, as always. The people one meets, and the experiences one goes through play vital roles in forming that person. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford grows as a woman with the men she was married to. Through the tides of life and relationships she realizes how a person is truly supposed to live their life.

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In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, she uses her characters to challenge the gender roles of that time. In her book, women are the submissive and weaker gender. They cannot gain power without a influential or wealthy man backing her up which is usually connected by marriage. Considering since women have no powers in society, in marriages they also don’t have much power, therefore the husband suppresses their wives and doesn’t give them any freedom. Because the females are scared of the males, they don't fight back and just keep it in.

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1568 Words | 7 Pages

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God reveals the role of masculinity as well as femininity in one’s life. Janie’s various relationships develop her sense of femininity, as the different men who she becomes involved with all possess different masculine traits. The progression from Logan to Jody to Tea Cake allows Janie to find her own feminine identity due to the different hardships she endures throughout her relationship with the three men. The vast difference in characteristics of the three men emphasizes the role that masculinity plays in a consensual, reciprocal relationship, and what ideal reciprocity looks like.

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1660 Words | 7 Pages

In The Eyes are Watching God, the author Zora Neale Hurston expresses the struggles of women and black societies of the time period. When Hurston published the book, communities were segregated and black communities were full of stereotypes from the outside world. Janie, who represents the main protagonist and hero, explores these communities on her journey in the novel. Janie shows the ideals of feminism, love, and heroism in her rough life in The Eyes. Janie, as the hero of the novel, shows the heroic qualities of determination, empathy, and bravery.

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Hurston reflects the struggle of black women in the early 1900s America. However this author's purpose was to describe how in these times anger and societies denial were the recipe for strength and revival. Hurston uses religious allusions, swaying psychological perspectives, and crude gender roles to relocate the readers from our modern day lives to inside Janie’s consciousness and how a black woman overcame and shattered societal expectations. Soon after Janie was forced into a planned marriage, she realized it got in the way of her self quest to find love.

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722 Words | 3 Pages

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel portrays Janie, a middle aged black woman who tells her friend Pheoby Watson what has happened to her husband Tea Cake and her adventure. The resulting telling of her story portrays most of the novel. Throughout the novel, Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of love, or being in a relationship versus freedom and independence, that being in a relationship may hinder one’s freedom and independence. Janie loves to be outgoing and to be able to do what she wants, but throughout the book the relationships that she is in with Logan,Jody and Tea Cake, does not allow her to do that.

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711 Words | 3 Pages

Her Story, Her Voice The unique story that is Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story of voices collected together to create one big voice. Hurston uses many characters’ voices to help Janie find her own, actual voice and tell her story by the end of the novel. The story by Zora Neale Hurston is a frame story which is a story within a story. Hurston, like many other authors, uses the frame narrative to help the story come full circle and create a sense that the reader is part of the story.

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1464 Words | 6 Pages

Over time, women have slowly gained more and more rights. They have become more prominent in society, making more decisions that influence their lives, as well as the lives of other people. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston highlights how the gender roles of men and women differ including women being less powerful than men, how Janie had the strength and determination to gain her own happiness, and how stereotypical roles should not play a part in society. Some people view Janie as a woman who should be dependent on her husband, following the traditional roles of women, being satisfied with her life as the less powerful sex.

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston develops a contrast between the male and female genders of the time period of the story, and the male and female gender of today. Hurston wrote this novel in or about a time when women were considered simple-minded , women were disempowered by the empowered man in the relationship, and women can only gain power through marriage. But when Janie kisses Johnny Taylor, her view of men changes after seeing “a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!

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Zora Neale Hurston’s writing in Their Eyes Were Watching God, reflects the Harlem Renaissance through Janie 's individuality, and departs from the Harlem Renaissance with the common recurrence of black woman empowerment. In the novel, Hurston reflects the ideas of the Harlem renaissance with the ways in which Janie rebels and goes against norms for women.

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