& # 8211 ; Their Eyess Were Watching God Essay, Research Paper

Their Eyess Were Watching God

It is human nature to look for felicity. Some people find it in stuff ownerships, some find it in money, but most of us find it in love. To happen true love is a hard undertaking particularly now in the times of cell phones and Jaguars. Money and power play a large function in today s society, and some people would instead hold those things than a love of another human being. In some rare instances it is non even a individual s determination who she ( about every clip it s a adult female who is being given away ) will get married. Although it does non go on really frequently, there are still instances where a adult female is being married off to a adult male by an agreement made by her parents, to see stableness and security of that adult female. The standing in the community means a great trade, merely like Zora Neale Hurston s Their Eyess Were Watching God illustrates.

Janie, the chief character in the book, was raised by her grandma. Ever since Janie s female parent ran off it was merely the two of them populating together. As a child Janie lived in the house where her grandma was a nursemaid for a white household. She was treated the same as the white kids, they ate together, played together, even got punished together. Janie, unlike most of the inkinesss at that clip, did non see any favoritism while she was turning up. That was the edifice block of her strong personality. There was some tease in school about her life in a white folks place, but she did non pay much attending to that.

Now if I may travel off the topic for a minute I would wish to state how attractively and descriptively the book is written. There is one transition in peculiar that I truly enjoyed reading:

It was a spring afternoon in West Florida. Janie had spent most of the twenty-four hours under a flowering pear tree in the back-yard. She had been passing every minute that she could steal from her jobs under that tree for the last three yearss. That was to state, of all time since the first bantam bloom had opened. It had called her to come and stare on a enigma. From bare brown roots to glittering leaf-buds ; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her enormously. How? Why? It was like a flute vocal forgotten in another being and remembered once more. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nil to make with her ears. The rose of the universe was take a breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking minutes and caressed her in her slumber. It connected itself with other mistily felt affairs that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness ( 11 ) .

Nanny s dream ( Nanny was how Janie called her grandma ) was for Janie to achieve a place of security in society, high land as she put it. As the individual who raised her, Nanny felt that it is both her right and duty to enforce her dreams and her thoughts of what is of import in life on Janie. From that, of class, came a large struggle. As the book shows the strong relationship between female parent and kid is of import in the African-American community, and the struggle between Janie s idyllic position of matrimony and Nanny s want for her to get married for stableness and place is a good illustration of merely how deep the regard and trust tallies. Janie had a really romantic impression of what matrimony should be. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom ; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to run into the love embracing. . . so this was a matrimony, is how Janie pictured matrimony. Nanny s thought of a good matrimony was person who has some standing in the community, person who would acquire Janie to that higher land. Nanny wanted Janie to get married Logan Killicks, but harmonizing to Janie he look like some ole skull-head in de grave yard Hurston ( 28 ) . Even more significantly to Janie, though, was the fact that the vision of Logan Killicks was profaning the pear tree. Nanny told Janie So you don t want to get married off decent like. . . you wants to do me suck the same sorrow yo mamma did, eh? Mah ole caput ain t grey plenty. My back ain T bowed plenty to accommodate you! . After they had the battle over Logan Killicks, Nanny said something, by manner of an account of why Janie needs to get married up the societal ladder, that revealed a good trade about the world of being an Afro-american adult female. She says De nigger adult female is de mule uh de universe so fur as Ah can see Hurston ( 29 ) . Janie, out of regard for her grandma, went off to get down her rol

vitamin E as a married woman.

For the most portion, Janie s experiences as a married woman were typical of what many adult females go through, at least in footings of the functions that she was cast in. In contrast to the function of the female parent, which is one of giving and nurturing, the function of married woman is characterized by giving up one s ego in the matrimony. Janie, although she tried really difficult, could non do herself love Logan Killicks. Their matrimony didn T last long. Logan changed ; he did non give any regard to Janie s feelings, in fact he didn T privation to hear what she had to state. As he saw it she was merely at that place to make whatever he ordered. Logan realized more and more that Janie was non happy with him, he tried to coerce her into the traditional married woman function by holding her bash more and more of the take downing work around the farm. The last straw was when he asked her to acquire a shovel and travel a heap of manure.

She leaves Logan behind for a immature adult male, Joe Starks, who she thinks is her reply to the pear tree. In some ways her matrimony with Joe Starks is more of a adversity on Janie than her matrimony to Logan. Although she stays married to Joe until he dies, she shortly begins to understand that she has exchanged the physical and emotional bondage of her matrimony to Logan for rational and societal bondage by Joe. The scene where Joe Starks is elected city manager illustrates this point, as the crowd wants to here from Mrs. Mayor Starks ( she no longer has her ain individuality ) . Mah married woman Don T know nothin bout no speech-makin. Ah ne’er married her for nuthin lak digital audiotape. She s uh adult female and her topographic point is in de place Hurston ( 69 ) . It shortly becomes apperant that Joe was merely interested in holding a married woman to utilize as a show piece. Janie wanted to experience a portion of the community, but Joe kept her stray so that she would go on to be his award and non go merely another adult female in the town. After old ages of matrimony Janie began to recognize that her hubby started to alter. He reminded her more and more of Logan. There was a fright in Joe. A fright of fring Janie because, he thought, of his age. He was much older than Janie and that ate him from the interior. He stopped giving Janie complements, alternatively he would state her that she was an old and unattractive adult female, that no adult male wants her. He did all that merely to experience better about himself. But nil could interrupt Janie s spirit, non even his decease. Joe died when Janie was 35. She was still a immature adult female full of hopes and dreams. She was besides really rich. Nanny was right It wasn t love that gave Janie all the material ownerships that she now had. But holding all this Janie ne’er experienced one thing she treasured the most, she ne’er experienced true felicity.

This is where Tea Cake comes into the image. Janie met Tea Cake non long after the decease of her 2nd hubby. She fell in love, existent love, love that she waited her whole life for. Tea Cake was genuinely different from other work forces, he was loving and lovingness, and he did non inquire anything in return but to be loved. He showed Janie that it is traditional male attitudes toward adult females that keep them in their submissive functions. With him she felt free.

After a piece Janie and Tea Cake left town to acquire off from the image the people still had of Janie as Mrs. Mayor Starks. This meant a new individuality for Janie & # 8211 ; but this clip she was able to construct her ain individuality and what she gave up for Tea Cake she gave up volitionally, because she loved him. Janie was able to hold this sort of relationship with Tea Cake because he was carefree ; he was non caught up in the societal or political functions than most work forces strive for & # 8211 ; he merely wanted to hold merriment and support Janie. Populating with Tea Cake were the happiest old ages of Janie s life. This was the 3rd and concluding matrimony. But no affair how fantastic this matrimony was, it ended in a grief. One twenty-four hours there was a large storm and Janie and Tea Cake had to go forth the house because the H2O was coming in fast. The had to run to a higher land. That was when Tea Cake got bitten by a Canis familiaris. It was a huffy Canis familiaris that bit him and shortly after the incident he got ill. It got to a point where no physician could assist him. Janie saw his agony, but she besides saw something different in his eyes, something that did non belong.

Janie killed Tea Cake when he tried to kill her. But she did non kill the Tea Cake she knew and loved. That Tea Cake was long gone, and Janie knew that. She besides knew that she accomplished everything she wished for in life, so she returned to the town where she was born to populate out the remainder of her old ages.