...Their Eyes Were Watching God is a book we're motif connects to the story. Community, race, and folklore all connect to the meaning of the book. Community and how does it connect to this story?. Janie a main character of this book who helps community tie into the book. First of all, Janie Crawford an African American girl talks to a town folk man. This relates to motif because motif relates to community and in this novel Janie is not apart of the community. Janie is not a town folk but she still talks to the folk of that town. On top of that, people in the community don't accept Janie in their town so she is considered as an outsider. On page 2 paragraph 3 of their eyes were watching god it says “it was a weapon against her strength and if...
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...In the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there is an exploration of the paradigm of sexual identity from nature through the pear tree, the bee and the flower, and the hurricane. The film follows the transition from childhood to adulthood of Janie Crawford, a mixed girl of black and white. Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of the development of Janie's ideals of love and independence. As a child, Janie sees a bee pollinating a flower in the pear tree of her backyard and from there becomes determined to find true everlasting love. According to Robert Solomon, “This "traditionalist" definition of sexual identity has sometimes been associated with one or more of the following additional positions: that certain...
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...In “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Janie married three men with different personalities. Throughout the book, as readers we witness the types of love she experiences with her ex-husbands. Her troubles of love included running away, suffering abuse, and gossip from the townsfolk. Life was difficult for Janie, from her family history to her role as an African American woman in the ‘30s. Even though she was described as very beautiful, Janie stood out from everyone due to her past. “Seeing the woman as she was made then remember the envy they had stared up from other times”(Hurston 17). Because of her wish to find true love, Janie discovers it with the cost of being alone and losing people along the way. Janie’s first marriage was an arrangement made by her grandmother, Nanny. She didn’t want to be with Logan Killicks, but Nanny told Janie that love was going to come to her. “Ah ain’t gointuh do it no mo’, Nanny. Please don’t make me marry Mr. Killicks”(Hurston 32). She tried being married, but never felt any sort of love for him. Janie said to her grandmother “Cause you told me Ah gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t”(Hurston 40). After Nanny passed away, Janie’s life was difficult without any more family left. In chapter 4, she leaves Logan for another man and decides to marry him instead....
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...Throughout life we have many desires and one of the things we want the most is love. We want to be loved and Zora Neale Hurston addresses the reality of love in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this revolutionary book, love is the primary theme. It takes the reader through one woman’s desire for love, and the reality of what love is. Hurston is telling us that love is something that you must work to find and to keep, and for the main character Janie this was not what she imagined. When Janie is young she paints love to be this hallmark moment, where two people fall madly in love with a sexual desire for each other. “She was stretches on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold sun and the punting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and...
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...In the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Janie Mae Crawford married three men, Logan Killicks, Joe “Jody” Starks, and Vergibal Woods or Tea cake. Janie is initially attracted to each man but she becomes detached to each except one. As each of the marriages progress Janie goes through many fights and bumps in the road and from each challenge she faces, she learns about herself and want she wants from life. Janie’s first marriage is with Logan Killicks. Janie’s is caught kissing a boy named Johnny Taylor under a pear tree during the springtime. Nanny spots them and says that Janie is now a full grown woman even though Janie denies it. Nanny then says that Janie should be married right away, even though Janie does not want to marry. Nanny arranges...
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...Classic Novelist, Zora Neale Hurston, writes of the end of Joe Starks in the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” through many different types of rhetorical devices. Hurston's use of personification, metaphors, and similes in the pages 84 and 85 in chapter eight are used to show the way Janie feels about the passing away of Joe. She adopts a very descriptive and rhetorical way of writing and a rather gloomy tone to revisit some of the trends Janie’s character shows throughout the novel and also create a more interesting passage for the audience. Previously in the chapter, Janie discovers that Joe is dying of kidney failure after having a doctor visit him in his soon to be death bed. On page 84, Janie begins thinking of the fate of Joe,...
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...In 1973 a book called Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Zora Neale Hurston. The author portrayed a middle-aged black woman’s story of fulfillment and her chase after the horizon. The book was a masterpiece, that tugged at the heart strings and left readers wanting to chase the horizon in their own lives. In 2005 director Darnell Martin brought the book to life in a film adaptation of the same name. The film was a disappointment in comparison to the novel that was so moving. Many important pieces were left out and gave the movie a watered down feeling that missed the true essence of the story Zora Neale Hurston was hoping to portray. Despite the movie’s shortcomings, it still has its own morals and lessons The lesson of the movie is self-fulfillment and being able to be happy and content with life regardless of the hand that the person is dealt. And the movies message is correct, sometimes people face situations they can’t change and outcomes they can’t control, but what they can...
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...“De nigger women is de mule uh de world…” (14). The book Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a captivating story about Janie Crawford and her life. During this time Janie struggles between keeping her own power, and others taking it from her. Janie is overpowered by many in this novel, her Nanny, first husband, second husband, and by many others in her new life. Although she loses her power through these relationships she always retrieves them, and asserts her power. One example of Janie’s loss for power is when her Nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks, an old man who has sixty acres of land. Janie is forced to marry Logan because Nanny thinks she would be better off with someone like him, someone dependable,...
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...Relationships are some of the most important and central parts of human life. They connect people and fabricate human experience in a unique and fascinating way. Not only does an individual discover another person and who they are through a relationship, but they truly discover themselves. Their Eyes Were Watching God, a beloved and respected novel by Zora Neale Hurston, depicts the life and experiences of a woman named Janie. Each marriage Janie shared with her three husbands develops the motif of love and defines Janie’s character, purpose, and true self. Amid the pain, contention, and mistreatment, Janie learns the value of love and subsequently she distinguishes her own value and finds her truest self. At the beginning of this story...
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...While presented with an unfamiliar situation, in order to prevail, one must create a successful plan. In three literary works, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, The Odyssey by Homer, and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, the protagonists, Janie, Odysseus, and Viola, respectively, enter new lands and must adapt in order to survive. After encountering her new husband, Joe, and moving to an all-black town, Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God faces the issue of undermining the values she holds in respect to being her version of an independent woman in order to satisfy him. Years after the Trojan War and still landing into many tough situations in different territories, Odysseus from The Odyssey makes use of his sharp intellect,...
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...Their Eyes Were Watching God The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story of a woman’s growth as a person physically, emotionally, and intellectually while on a journey for life fulfillment. Janie lives her life how her grandmother wants her too, and then tries to take her own course only to find out that she is still unhappy. Finally she finds happiness within herself. During the Harlem Renaissance Janie faces all of these feelings and conflicts. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that included the new African-American cultural expressions across United States during the 1920’s. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the style element of conflict to reflect from the Harlem Renaissance ideal of asserting agency, while she departs from the ideals of the movement with her use of conflict to reflect from the Harlem Renaissance ideal of...
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...Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people”. Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities. I am very interested in the determination that Janie has to find true love. The idea that Janie has about true love is very beautiful and fascinating. The idea she has is what allowed her to find true love. She finds what she was looking for in Tea Cake even though it took some time. As you read you learn about the value of true love. Tea cake promises Janie a great life. He helps her on her quest...
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...In chapters 11-15 of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we are introduced to Tea Cake whom steals Janie’s heart leading to their marriage. Although their love story hasn’t fully played out yet, it is obvious that Tea Cake is the man of Janie’s dreams. Tea Cake understands the concept of love in a way that neither Logan nor Joe ever could. By comparison, he genuinely considers Janie’s as his equal. A consideration that leads to them spending more time together and growing in love. Tea Cake possesses the fundamental pieces that were lacking in both Janie’s prior relationships. Firstly, he sees no difference between Janie and himself. Intellectually, he considers themselves equals. As well as in the relationship, they share equal power. The initial sighting of this came from his simply teaching her to play checkers. A game that till this point had been reserved for other men yet enjoyed by Janie, from a distance. An enjoyment that she was prohibited to realise as a result of Joe’s banning her from the game. On the...
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...In 1937, Richard Wright, author of Native Son, wrote a review on Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, stating it, “Had no theme, no thought, no message” (“Wright Reviews Hurston”). In the novel, Janie Crawford is often seen by the men as a weaker person than she really is. This shows that women are the weaker sex throughout the novel, and that in order to gain power a women must marry a wealthy, powerful man. It shows that women must marry a man to help her in life and that they depend on them as well. In the marriage when women show their leadership side, they are often shut down by the men as they dominate in the relationship. to begin with, Nanny has shown that being married is important for a women. "Don’t tell me you done got knocked up already, less see – dis Saturday it’s two month and two weeks." "No’m, Ah don’t think so anyhow." Janie blushed a little. "You ain’t got nothin’ to be shamed of, honey, youse uh married ‘oman. You got yo’ lawful husband same as Mis’ Washburn or anybody else!" (Hurston page). This says how women should feel pride with the husband and their kids. Also that unmarried women that are pregnant should be ashamed. With women...
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...Progressively since the 1930s, more women have been showing characteristics of being independent and strong. Now, in the 21st century, there are lots of women who stand up for their beliefs and are not afraid of having their voice heard by society. Other people’s thoughts and opinions do not scare them. In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie Mae Crawford, experiences herself go through different phases of being inferior to being bold and resolute in disparate situations over the span of her three marriages. Logan Killicks is Janie’s first husband. They did not marry because they were in love but because of Janie’s grandmother, Nanny. Nanny realizes that she “ ‘ain’t gittin’ ole’ ”(Hurston 15), but that she is “ ‘done ole’ ”(Hurston 15) with not a lot of time left on her hands. She conveys her thoughts by telling Janie that “ ‘One mornin’ soon, now, de angel wid de sword is gointuh stop by’ ”(Hurston 15), and she will no longer be by her side to take care of her. Nanny’s main worry was leaving Janie behind, all alone. Therefore, she decides to marry her off to a financially secure and wealthy farmer. Logan pampers Janie and treats her very...
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