Their Eyess Werw Watching God Essay, Research Paper
Subject Analysis
Alice Walker depicts Zora Neale Hurston & # 8217 ; s work as supplying the
Afro-american literary community with its premier symbol of & # 8220 ; racial
wellness & # 8211 ; a sense of black people as complete, complex, unrelieved
human existences & # 8221 ; ( 190 ) . Appropriately, Hurston & # 8217 ; s Their Eyess Were
Watching God, published in 1937, provides an edifying expression at
the journey of one of these unrelieved human existences, Janie
Crawford. Janie & # 8217 ; s narrative & # 8211 ; based on rules of self-exploration,
self-empowerment, and self-liberation & # 8211 ; inside informations her loss and
subsequent attainment of her artlessness, as she invariably learns
and grows from her hard experiences with gender issues
and racism in Their Eyess Were Watching God.
After gleefully detecting an original for sensualness and love under
the pear tree at age 16, Janie rapidly comes to understand the
world of matrimony when she marries Logan Killicks, so Joe Starks.
Both work forces attempt to hale Janie into entry to them by
handling her like a ownership: where Killicks works Janie like a
mule, Joe objectifies her like a decoration around his cervix. In add-on,
Janie learns that passion and love are tied to force, as Killicks
threatens to kill her, and both Joe and Tea Cake beat her to asseverate
their laterality. Yet Janie continually struggles to maintain her inner
Self integral and strong, staying resilient in malice of her hubbies & # 8217 ;
physical, verbal, and mental maltreatment. Janie & # 8217 ; s resiliency is rewarded
when she eventually meets and marries Tea Cake, who represents the
closest gloss to her vernal idealism sing love and
matrimony.
Another male figure playing conspicuously in Janie & # 8217 ; s life is the white
adult male who raped her grandma ; her line of descent determines, hence,
that Janie will look whiter than other black adult females. This just
skin color finally attracts the ambitious Joe Starks, yet besides
contributes to Joe & # 8217 ; s objectification of Janie. Yet, outward
visual aspects aside, Janie & # 8217 ; s individuality takes form in response to the
white male dictatorship that made her ain birth possible.
For illustration, Janie & # 8217 ; s hubby Jody paints his house & # 8220 ; a gloaty,
bubbling white, & # 8221 ; ( 44 ) humiliates the citizens of Eatonville in similar
ways as the white adult male would, and forces Janie into the slavish
servitude reflected by the identity-confining caput shred he makes her
wear ( 51 ) . Yet, Janie battles Joe & # 8217 ; s dictatorship by stating him off merely before
he dies in Chapter Eight, so reclaims her ain individuality by firing
up & # 8220 ; every one of her caput shred & # 8221 ; ( 85 ) . Similarly, Janie encounters Mrs.
Turner, Hurston & # 8217 ; s symbol of internalized racism, who doesn & # 8217 ; t & # 8220 ; fault
de white folks from detesting [ African-Americans ] & # 8217 ; cause Ah can & # 8217 ; t base
& # 8216 ; em mahself & # 8221 ; ( 135 ) . Again, nevertheless, Janie remains true
to herself as she continues to organize her ain individuality by declining to
go forth Tea Cake and category off as Mrs. Turner suggests.
Rather than self-destruct under the changeless worlds of racism and
misogynism she receives throughout her life, Janie Crawford does the
face-to-face at the stopping point of Their Eyes Were Watching God. The novel & # 8217 ; s
concluding image states what Janie does throughout the narrative & # 8211 ; taking her
hard yesteryear in and turning stronger and wiser as a consequence of it.
Author Zora Neale Hurston believed that freedom & # 8220 ; was something
internal? .The adult male himself must do his ain emancipation & # 8221 ; ( 189 ) .
Similarly, in her defining minute of individuality formation, Janie & # 8220 ; 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 ; ( 184 ) . At the terminal of
a fresh focussing on self-revelation and self-formation, Janie survives
with her psyche & # 8211 ; made resilient by continual battle & # 8211 ; integral.
Metaphor Analysis
Pear tree: In her Nanny & # 8217 ; s back pace, Janie lies beneath the pear tree
when, & # 8220 ; the unhearable voice of it all came to her. She saw a
dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom ; the 1000
sister-calyxes arch to run into the love embracing and the enraptured tremble
of the tree from root to tiniest subdivision creaming in every flower and
foaming with delectation. So this was a matrimony! She had been
summoned to lay eyes on a disclosure & # 8221 ; ( 11 ) . Janie & # 8217 ; s vernal idealism
leads her to believe that this intense sensualness must be similar to
the familiarity between lovers, and she wishes & # 8220 ; to be a pear tree & # 8211 ; any
tree in bloom! & # 8221 ; ( 11 ) . The image suggests a integrity & # 8211 ; as bees
pollinate flowers paralleling human sexual intercourse & # 8211 ; which
Janie finds losing in her matrimonies to both Logan Killicks and Joe
Starks, but eventually discovers in her relationship with Tea Cake.
Mules: Janie & # 8217 ; s grandmother novices comparison between black
adult females and mules, declaring & # 8220 ; De [ African-American ] adult female is de
mule uh de universe so fur as Ah can see & # 8221 ; ( 14 ) . In add-on, both of
Janie & # 8217 ; s foremost two hubbies ain mules, and the manner they severally
handle them parallels the manner they treat Janie. Logan Killicks plants
his mule demandingly ; Joe Starks, holding bought Matt Bonner & # 8217 ; s mule
from him, puts it out to crop as a position symbol instead than utilizing
it.
Janie & # 8217 ; s hair: Forced by Joe Starks ( who refuses to let other work forces
to crave after his married woman & # 8217 ; s hair ) to be worn up under a caput shred throughout
their matrimony, Janie & # 8217 ; s hair maps as a symbol of the entry
Joe demanded of her. Janie resignations to Joe & # 8217 ; s will externally by
have oning the caput shred, yet remains firm internally against Joe & # 8217 ; s
maltreatment. Therefore, her hair suggests that Janie & # 8220 ; had an interior and an
outdoors now and all of a sudden she knew how non to blend them & # 8221 ; ( 68 ) . After
Joe & # 8217 ; s decease, Janie burns all of her caput shred in a symbolic act of
release.
Their Eyess Were Watching God: The novel & # 8217 ; s rubric is taken from
Chapter 18, as the hurricane strikes the Everglades. Tea Cake and
Janie & # 8220 ; sat in company with the others in other hovels, their eyes
striving against petroleum walls and their psyches inquiring if he meant to
step their puny might against His. They seemed to be gazing at
the dark, but their eyes were watching God & # 8221 ; ( 151 ) . This transition,
taken in concurrence with other happenings in Their Eyess Were
Watching God, signifies God & # 8217 ; s arbitrary will, which provides Janie and
her comrades with a sense of destiny and fate. Janie recognizes
that people have to be watching because life comes down hard on
them, as evidenced in the instance of many characters throughout the
novel.
Top Ten Quotation marks
1 ) Janie, on her gossipmongering neighbours, emphasizing the importance of
storytelling and unwritten tradition: & # 8220 ; Ah don & # 8217 ; t intend to trouble oneself wid tellin & # 8217 ; & # 8216 ; em
nothin & # 8217 ; , Pheoby. & # 8216 ; Tain & # 8217 ; t worth de problem. You can state & # 8216 ; em what Ah
state if you wants to. Dat & # 8217 ; s merely de same as me & # 8217 ; cause mah lingua is
in mah friend & # 8217 ; s mouf & # 8221 ; ( 6 ) .
2 ) Janie, to the work forces of Eatonville: & # 8220 ; Sometimes God gits familiar wid
us womenfolks excessively and speak His interior concern. He told me? how
surprised Y & # 8217 ; all is goin & # 8217 ; tuh be if you of all time find out you don & # 8217 ; t know half
as much & # 8217 ; bout us as you think yo do. It & # 8217 ; s so easy to do yo & # 8217 ; self out
God Almighty when you ain & # 8217 ; t got nothin & # 8217 ; tuh strive against but adult females
and poulets & # 8221 ; ( 70-71 ) .
3 ) On Janie: & # 8220 ; She was a rut in the route. Plenty of life beneath the
surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels & # 8221 ; ( 72 ) .
4 ) Janie, after Joe & # 8217 ; s decease: & # 8220 ; To my thinkin & # 8217 ; mourning oughtn & # 8217 ; t tuh last
no longer & # 8217 ; n heartache & # 8221 ; ( 89 ) .
5 ) Eatonville dwellers, on Janie: & # 8220 ; It was difficult to love a adult female that
ever made you feel so desirous & # 8221 ; ( 111 ) .
6 ) On Tea Cake: & # 8220 ; Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing
love. So her psyche crawled out from its concealing topographic point & # 8221 ; ( 122 ) .
7 ) On waiting for the mighty hurricane: & # 8220 ; They sat in company with the
others in other hovels, their eyes striving against petroleum walls and
their psyches inquiring if He meant to mensurate their puny might against
His. They seemed to be gazing at the dark, but their eyes were
watching God & # 8221 ; ( 151 ) .
8 ) Tea Cake, on Janie: & # 8220 ; ? wear & # 8217 ; Ts say you & # 8217 ; se ole. You & # 8217 ; se uh lil miss babe
all de clip. God made it so you spent yo & # 8217 ; ole age foremost wid person
else, and saved up yo & # 8217 ; immature girl yearss to pass wid me & # 8221 ; ( 172 ) .
9 ) Janie, on love: & # 8220 ; ? love ain & # 8217 ; t somethin & # 8217 ; lak uh grindstone digital audiotape & # 8217 ; s de
same thing everyplace and do de same thing tuh everything it touch.
Love is lak de sea. It & # 8217 ; s uh movin & # 8217 ; thing, but still and all, it takes its
form from de shore it meets, and it & # 8217 ; s different with every shore & # 8221 ;
( 182 ) .
10 ) Janie: & # 8220 ; It & # 8217 ; s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh travel at that place tuh
cognize
at that place? .Two things everybody & # 8217 ; s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got
tuh travel tuh God, and they got tuh happen out about livin & # 8217 ; fuh theyselves & # 8221 ;
( 183 ) .
