Their Eyes Were Watching God A Study

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Tobey Teague

Gallagher

Comp. 1002

Their Eyess Were Watching God: A Survey

Zora Neale Hurston & # 8217 ; s Their Eyess Were Watching God treats society as something that inhibits instead than progresss the cause of our personal freedom. This is apparent throughout the novel & # 8211 ; from the beginning, when Nanny lectures Janie on white society, to the terminal, when Janie returns to Eatonville from her clip spent in freedom with Tea Cake. Gayle writes: & # 8220 ; The image depicted in the doctrine of her & # 8216 ; Nanny & # 8217 ; was one of stagnancy and circumscription, one which denied freedom & # 8221 ; ( Gayle 146 ) . Through the first half of the narrative, Janie is forced to populate in a society that she did non take. She is forced to get married Logan Killicks, who by most steps of society would be the perfect hubby. After all, he has sixty estates and he owns his house. But this society inhibits Janie & # 8217 ; s personal freedom because she does non love Killicks, can non convey herself to love him, and she is literally stuck out in the sticks at & # 8220 ; a only topographic point like a stump in the center of the forests where cipher had of all time been & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 21 ) . Added to that, Nanny was incorrect sing Killicks. He does non give her security. He treats her like a mule.

Along comes Joe Starks, assuring her a better life if she will run off with him and go his married woman. Desiring to get away the solitariness and bottleneck of a loveless matrimony, Janie allows Joe Starks to emancipate her from Killicks, every bit good as from her place and the milieus in which she was reared. She sneaks off with Joe with visions of rescue and freedom.

What better topographic point for two inkinesss to hold a fresh beginning, a fresh life, a fresh society than in a town whose population is one 100 per centum black? And free from the mighty white adult male & # 8217 ; s govern? And free of old memories of bondage handed down by Nanny? Eatonville! It was Janie & # 8217 ; s new get downing with her new hubby, a new town where, certainly, she would experience free to love and would bask the freedom that accompanies a love that is free. But there was a job, and the job was her new hubby, who took her freedom and twisted it into a shred chapeau that was much excessively tight for Janie & # 8217 ; s head. Joe Starks took the lazy freedom that was the Eatonville at their reaching and transformed it into a society that inhibited Janie & # 8217 ; s personal freedom.

From the minute he and Janie measure into the town bounds of Eatonville, Joe begins to take over, take a firm standing that in order for Eatonville to be a town, it must hold a city manager, a station office, a meeting topographic point, and it must integrate & # 8211 ; the furnishings of society. & # 8220 ; So possibly Ah better Tell yuh in instance you don & # 8217 ; t cognize dat if we expect tuh move on, us got tuh incorporate lak every other town. Us got tuh incorporate, and us got tuh have uh city manager, if things is tuh be done and done right & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 43 ) . Society comes to Eatonville through Joe Starks and his shop. The shop is the meeting topographic point for the town and it is where the station office is located. Joe Starks is city manager, landlord, postmaster, and proprietor of the place of society, which is the shop. But from the beginning, he restricts Janie & # 8217 ; s freedom. When the citizens of Eatonville want her to state a few words, Joe cuts them and Janie off short: & # 8220 ; Thank yuh fuh yo & # 8217 ; regards, but mah married woman Don & # 8217 ; t cognize nothin & # 8217 ; & # 8216 ; bout no speech-makin & # 8217 ; . Ah ne’er married her for nothin & # 8217 ; lak digital audiotape. She & # 8217 ; s uh adult female and her topographic point is in de place & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 43 ) . And Janie & # 8220 ; went down the route behind him that dark experiencing cold & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 43 ) .

When the town common people sit on the shop & # 8217 ; s porch and talk and laugh and do gags, they are outside the shop, on the margin of society instead than dead in the center of it, and on the margin they have more freedom. They can express joy and do noise ; they can ptyalize without a cuspidor and even speak about the city manager. As Hurston writes: & # 8220 ; When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the images of their ideas for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the idea images were ever crayon expansions of life made it even nicer to listen to & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 51 ) . This is freedom, and Janie longs to sit on the porch and bask some of the freedom provided by being on the margin of society, but Joe won & # 8217 ; t let it. He forbids her to fall in in the laughter and the gags, stating her it is beneath her. So, as Janie longed for the freedom of the porch, the margin of society, she came to detest the interior of the shop, society itself, because it took her freedom from her. Hurston writes: & # 8220 ; She had come to detest the interior of that shop anyhow. That Post Office excessively. Peoples ever coming and inquiring for mail at the incorrect clip. . . . The shop itself kept her with a ill concern. . . . Such a waste of life and clip & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 54 ) .

Whenever Janie tried to arise against the society that Joe had forced upon her, Joe retaliated by reminding her of all the good things he has given her and stating her that she should be proud to be called Mrs. Mayor. Equally far as Joe is concerned, Janie & # 8220 ; wasn & # 8217 ; t even appreciative of his attempts and she had plentifulness cause to be. Here he was merely pouring honor all over her ; constructing a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the universe and she here sulking over it & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 62 ) . But Janie is get downing to recognize that she has done what so many others have done before her sing society. She has traded security for freedom, and the idea did non travel down good. She wants more than the high chair of security and award that has been forced upon her. She wants freedom. & # 8220 ; Everybody can & # 8217 ; t be lak you, Jody. Person is bound tuh want tuh laugh and drama & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 62 ) .

It was inevitable that Janie can non populate up to the outlooks of the Mayor and society, and more significantly, it was inevitable that the Mayor and society could non populate up to the outlooks of Janie, who wanted a freedom that her hubby and his society refused her. She came to understand this one twenty-four hours when Joe slapped her because of the nutrient she had prepared for dinner was non up to outlooks, and after slapping her and verbally mistreating her, he stomped back to the shop in order to take safety inside his manmade society. While she stood in the kitchen, her ears pealing from the smack, Janie realized something of import about herself and freedom. & # 8220 ; She had no more blossomy gaps dusting pollen over her adult male, neither any glossy immature fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of ideas she had ne’er expressed to him, and legion emotions she had ne’er let Jody cognize approximately. Thingss packed up and set away in parts of her bosom where he could ne’er happen them. She was salvaging up feelings for some adult male she had ne’er seen. She had an interior and an outside now and all of a sudden she knew how non to blend them & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 72 ) . Janie has learned how to demo one face to the universe around her and her secret face to her interior ego and the freedom for which she desired. She has begun to divide the world of her restricted life in the society of the Eatonville shop and the freedom of her dreams.

When Janie dichotomizes her life, so to talk, dividing her dreams from her milieus, something happens that amendss her pursuit for personal freedom even more. She quits contending, at least for a clip, and without a willingness to contend for freedom, so freedom does non stand a opportunity. & # 8220 ; The old ages took all the battle out of Janie & # 8217 ; s face. For a piece she thought it was gone from her psyche. No affair what Jody did, she said nil. She had learned how to speak some and go forth some. She was a rut in the route. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 76 ) . However, the of import portion of the quotation mark is: & # 8220 ; For a piece she thought it was gone from her psyche & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 76 ) . But there was still a spark of visible radiation in her psyche, a gleam that shown on the personal freedom of which she dreamed. Equally long as this flicker still abided in her psyche, she could predominate over the inhibiting factors of society. She begins to predominate the twenty-four hours & # 8220 ; she sat and watched the shadow of herself traveling about be givening shop and bow downing itself before Jody, while all the clip she herself sat under a fly-by-night tree with the air current blowing through her hair and her apparels & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 77 ) . The gleam of freedom in her psyche is beginner to glow. Society has non wholly defeated her. And shortly after, freedom & # 8217 ; s light Begins to glow for Janie because she has the bravery to contend for it. She snaps at Joe in forepart of the assemblage of town common people: & # 8220 ; Naw, Ah ain & # 8217 ; t no immature gal no minute & # 8217 ; but den Ah ain & # 8217 ; t no old adult female neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age excessively. But Ah & # 8217 ; m uh adult female every inch of me, and Ah know it ( accent added ) . Dat & # 8217 ; s uh whole batch more & # 8217 ; n you can state. You big-bellies unit of ammunition here an

vitamin D put out a batch of crow, but ‘tain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ large voice. Humph! Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de alteration uh life” ( Hurston 79 ) . This, of class, is the supreme abuse to Joe and is a direct assault on the society in which he has created and the citizens of that society who have heard Janie’s comments. This is the unmaking of Janie and Joe, but it is the beginning of Janie’s battle for her personal freedom.

As Joe is lying on his deathbed, he accuses Janie of holding had no understanding for him. Janie disagrees. She knows better. She knows her ain bosom. It isn & # 8217 ; t that she had no understanding for Joe ; it & # 8217 ; s that society ( that which Joe represents ) stole the freedom to be sympathetic. Janie tells Joe: & # 8220 ; Naw, Jody, it wasn & # 8217 ; t because Ah didn & # 8217 ; Ts have no understanding. Ah had uh munificent uh digital audiotape. Ah merely didn & # 8217 ; t ne’er git no opportunity tuh use none of it. You wouldn & # 8217 ; t allow me & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 85 ) . Even in decease, Joe blames Janie. He is covetous of her yearning to be independent and free.

With Joe & # 8217 ; s decease, Janie is ready, willing, and determined to hold the personal freedom that had been denied her all her life. She makes a statement to herself the really dark of Joe & # 8217 ; s funereal. & # 8220 ; Before she slept that dark she burnt up every one of her caput shred and went about the house following forenoon with her hair in one midst plait singing good below her waist & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 89 ) . Symbolically, Janie has taken a solid measure in the way of personal freedom. She has freed her hair from the confines of the caput rags that Joe and society had bound to her caput. Her hair now swings freely, as do Janie & # 8217 ; s ideas of the hereafter.

Still, Janie & # 8217 ; s personal freedom lacked something basic. It lacked love of another individual, a individual with whom she could portion the freedom of her ideas every bit good as her life, a individual who would stand for freedom to Janie. This individual is introduced midway through the novel in the character of Tea Cake. Merely proceedingss after run intoing him, the freshness of Janie & # 8217 ; s personal freedom Wellss inside her when Tea Cake invites her to play a game of draughtss. & # 8220 ; He set it up and began to demo her and she found herself glowing indoors. Person wanted her to play & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 96 ) .

Tea Cake becomes the representation of freedom for Janie. While an ethical and moral adult male, he is free from the regulations of society. He shoots dice. He takes Janie fishing at dark, delving worms by the visible radiation of the Moon. He wants freedom, non things. He wants Janie, non her things. And Janie comes to believe this, to cognize this. The forenoon after her first dark with Tea Cake and Tea Cake is non in the house, Janie feels the freedom that he has given her, and Tea Cake becomes freedom to her. & # 8220 ; So much had been breathed out by the pores that Tea Cake still was at that place. She could experience him and about see him bucking around the room in the upper air. After a long clip of inactive felicity, she got up and opened the window and allow Tea Cake leap Forth and saddle horse to the sky on a air current. That was the beginning of things & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 107 ) . It is the beginning of Janie & # 8217 ; s newfound personal freedom through Tea Cake.

Eatonville ( the town, society ) , nevertheless, did non like the relationship between Janie and Tea Cake. The town common people recognized that Tea Cake represented freedom, but to them, Janie represented society. She was, after all, Mrs. Mayor Starks. The citizens of Eatonville could non understand why Janie was attracted to Tea Cake, but that is because the town & # 8217 ; s personal freedom was overshadowed by the society it created. Gayle writes: & # 8220 ; Freedom is a adult male named Tea Cake. Like Janie, he is an foreigner and in the eyes of the townsfolk a Ne & # 8217 ; er-do-well, who has no concern going familiar with person like Janie Starks. Janie, nevertheless, is person like Tea Cake. His hunt for a life-style outside that prescribed by tradition is every bit determined as hers. His committedness to a life of opportunity, to life by the axial rotation of the dies, to traveling outside of conventional values, stirs the rebellious spirit in Janie, enables her to travel wholly outside the prescriptions of past mores & # 8221 ; ( Gayle 146 ) . The town common people did non understand personal freedom, and Janie understands it for the first clip with Tea Cake. Even Janie & # 8217 ; s best friend, Phoeby, wants her to get married the funeral place proprietor from up in Sanford, but Janie has no purposes of get marrieding into the society of decease once more. She has found freedom, and she means to maintain it. She proves this to society by traveling off with Tea Cake. He wants to be free and he wants Janie to be free. And freedom is far off from society. It is in the Everglades where, as Tea Cake tells Janie, & # 8220 ; folks don & # 8217 ; t make nothin & # 8217 ; . . . but do money and merriment and folly. We must travel dere & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 128 ) . After he drifts off to kip, Janie looks down on Tea Cake & # 8220 ; and felt a self-crushing love. So her psyche crawled out from its concealing topographic point & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 128 ) . Her personal freedom is released in the freedom of Tea Cake.

The Everglades are difficult, but they are besides beautiful. Everything grows bigger there, better at that place, and the land is blacker at that place. Tea Cake is afraid that he has taken Janie from civilisation, but Janie disagrees. She knows that it is difficult in the Everglades, but the crude freedom she has found is so much better than the inhibiting society of the shop. She tells Tea Cake: & # 8220 ; Ah naw, honey. Ah laks it. It & # 8217 ; s mo & # 8217 ; nicer than settin & # 8217 ; round dese quarters all twenty-four hours. Clerkin & # 8217 ; in digital audiotape shop wuz difficult, but heah, we ain & # 8217 ; t got nothin & # 8217 ; tuh make but make our work and come place and love & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 133 ) . Society was harder on her than working in the Fieldss in the Everglades, because the shop restricted her, confined her, and inhibited her personal freedom.

But personal freedom demands a monetary value, and in Janie & # 8217 ; s instance, it demanded a high monetary value. It demanded that she kill the one individual in life who had presented personal freedom. In delivering Janie from submerging, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid Canis familiaris. A twosome of hebdomads subsequently he gets the illness and goes out of his head. No longer does he stand for freedom, because freedom has abandoned his head. He is now locked away in a illness that he can non get away, and Janie symbolically frees him by killing him. Barbara Christian writes: & # 8220 ; Janie and Tea Cake & # 8217 ; s love matter ends tragically for Janie must kill her crazed lover because he has been bitten by a rabid Canis familiaris. But Janie does non see her life as tragic ; she sees it as full and rich. It is basically this message that she brings back to her community, that self-realization instead than security and position is the gift of life & # 8221 ; ( Christian 59 ) .

When Janie returns to Eatonville, she is still a free individual. She wears overalls instead than a frock. And she surely does non have on the shred on her caput. The town common people chitchat, inquiring what happened, while surmising and voicing the worst that could hold happened & # 8211 ; that Tea Cake ran off with her money. In & # 8220 ; Positions on Gossip, & # 8221 ; Dr. Felice Aull writes of Hurston & # 8217 ; s Their Eyess Were Watching God: & # 8220 ; Janie returns under unexpected fortunes and the rustle begins. Hurston presents chitchat as divorced from persons. With the phrase & # 8216 ; Words walking without Masterss ; walking wholly like harmoniousness in a vocal & # 8217 ; chitchat is a merchandise of group consciousness that persists of its ain will. Gossip is non attributable to individual persons & # 8221 ; ( Aull 1 ) . However, it is more than chitchat that Hurston attributes to the group. The group represents society, and it is a society that Judgess her. But Janie does non care what they think or what they talk about. She tells her best friend, Pheoby, the narrative and Tells Pheoby that she can state the others if she wants to, that it doesn & # 8217 ; t affair. She tells Phoeby non to be huffy at the others for their talk, because they are withered from non cognizing freedom. & # 8220 ; Now, Pheoby, don & # 8217 ; t experience excessively average wid de remainder of & # 8216 ; em & # 8216 ; cause dey & # 8217 ; s parched up from non cognizing things. . . . It & # 8217 ; s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh travel at that place tuh cognize there & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 192 ) .

The fresh terminals with Janie back in Eatonville, but it is a changed Janie. She still possesses freedom, because she still possesses the memory of Tea Cake and his freedom, and she ever will. & # 8220 ; Then Tea Cake came tittuping around her where she was and the vocal of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the Sun for a shawl. Of class he wasn & # 8217 ; t dead. He could ne’er be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thought. The buss of his memory made images of love and visible radiation against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her skyline like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the universe and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her psyche to come and see & # 8221 ; ( Hurston 193 ) .

Aull, Felice. & # 8220 ; Positions on Gossip. & # 8221 ; World Wide Web. May 2, 2000.

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