Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - Essay Example

Their Eyes were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston, who is one of the best-known African American wrote a novel set in 1937. The main character in this book, Janie, tells her story to her best friend Phoeby who reluctantly tells it to the entire community. As her community watches and critiques her every move, Janie stays firm in her beliefs; believing that life is not over at the age of forty but instead, just beginning. Janie’s story focuses on three major periods in her life, during the marriage of three different men. The identity of one is what allows the character in us to grow, change and develop. Janie’s attempts to find love through many difficulties. Though she endures plenty of hardships, she stays strong and faithful to her best friend, her life and most importantly, to herself. Janie is the offspring of a former slave’s daughter who was unfortunately raped by her school teacher. Leafy, Janie’s mother becomes pregnant with her and once she is born, Leafy goes down a dangerous path involving alcohol and lucrative nightlife. Leafy runs away and leaves her daughter with her grandmother, Nanny. As Janie grows up, her grandmother transfers all and any hope she had for her child to her grandchild Janie. She wants prosperity and a better life for her and though she knew her daughter would not have it, she kept her hope alive for her granddaughter in hopes that she would walk a straight and narrow path. "Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin on high, but they wasnt no pulpit for me. Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ahd take a broom and a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her She would expound what Ah felt” (Hurst 21). This story is consider to be a “feminist triumph tale.” (Newman) Nanny watches Janie kiss a neighborhood boy when she is sixteen years old. She fears that one day Janie will become some mans’ slave or “mule.” Nanny oranges for Janie to marry an old man who is looking for a wife. Even though Janie had no interest in this man, her grandmother wanted her to be taken care of and be given those things she could not have as a child. She assumed by marrying this man, she would have these things. Janie however believes marriage must involve some degree of love. Thus starts her journey of self-discovery. This story continues to remind people of the limits of the control that reason accords them. (Davie) Janie begins to find her identity the minute she involves herself with the boy at the young ripe age of sixteen. She feels inside of her a desire for something greater. She yearns to fulfill what it is she has inside of her, and that is the idea that marriage, and relationships must involve some form of love. Marriage is not just a contract but also a vow to love each other and stay together. Many think that her identity came from the three relationships which failed. But others think that her alleged murder sparked a new sense of identity in her. Her ability to free herself from the confinement of her two marriages and make her appear to be a strong woman, and is another view of the cultural power she supposedly possessed. Alice Walker considers Hurstan’s stance on things as politically self-asserting. (Simmons) One of the most important scenes in this story which is seen very early on is when Janie is watching a bee pollinate a pear tree. The reader is taken through Janie’s life and watches her psyche flourish in the form of symbols. (Keiko, 1). According to Keiko, Hurston seems to rely on symbols to her get point across. As symbolism permeates the premises of this story, Hurston considers Janie to be The New Negro Woman. As Janie shows her growth through symbolism using her hair, a pear tree and a mule, it is clear that she grows into a strong African American woman. She compares this process of pollinating to that of love. She believes that love is a process that needs to be nourished and pollinated but it takes two, with the same desires and the same hopes to make this happen. She also says "Love is lak de sea. Its uh movin thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and its different with every shore."(Hurston, 230) This book is considered controversial because it is said that Hurston, the author and writer of the book glosses over black oppression. But the reason behind that could be the fact that she was not treated poorly by blacks, instead, she was held in high regards and considered a representation of the black community. (Whitley) Often times Janie is compared to a mule mostly because she is stubborn. “De nigger woman is de mule of de world so far as Ah can see” (Hurston, 14) Logan Killick, the man that Nanny has chosen for Janie does not want a lover, or a partner but instead a domestic helper. He did not know how to treat Janie and did not understand that she needed room to grow, similar to a plant. He only provides her with material things like land for her to grow things but misses the point when he suspects that she is going to leave him. As he sobs because he is mad that she will leave him, the reader is able to understand his heart. He is not capable of giving her what she needs because he does not know how and therefore, it is time for her to move on. The symbolism of the mule appears repeatedly, but never with more meaning than when Janie tires of her first husband, Logan, and runs off with Jody Starks to Eatonville for a life where she is only expected to “sit on de front porch and rock and fan” (Hurston, 28) She is the only one that can help him take care of the farm. After she is forced to help him on the farm, she runs away from him and to another man who takes her to Eatonville, another town. Her new found “love”, Joe Starks who reluctantly wants Janie as a trophy wife. This man is very successful eventually owning his own little store, buying land to build the store and hiring workers to work the land. He wants to be able to show her off, as if he earned her. He wants the image of his perfect wife to reinforce his powerful position as mayor of the town. He asks Janie to run the store but has a list of restrictions on her which keeps her bound to the premises. Janie’s hair is what makes her stand out as independent and powerful, as demonstrated when she returns to Eatonville: Hurston notes “the great rope of hair swinging to her waist” (Hurston, 2). The town people wonder,“[w]hat dat ole forty year ole “oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal?” (Hurston, 2). While married to Jody Starks, the most domineering of Janie’s husbands, she was made to bind up her hair up: “Joe never told Janie how jealous he was. He never told her how often he had seenthe other men figuratively wallowing in it [. . .]” (Hurston, 51).Joe gives Janie material wealth in return for her subservient self. His jealousy restricts her from the inside out. He is determined to keep her but realizes that keeping her would and could cause problems for himself. He is not aware of how great she really is. After Starks dies Janie finds herself at another dead end emotionally. It is interesting to note however, that as soon as Jody dies, Janie is free to do as she pleases, there are no more talk of her being similar to mules; Janie is free of her “load,” no longer required to bear the expectations of men or others. She is financially independent and has many options in the area of suitors. Eventually she falls in love with a drifter and gambler named Vergible Woods who normally goes by Tea Cake. It only took a guitar serenade for the two of them to read their vows to each other, get hitched and flee to Jacksonville. At this point, she is seeing that love can be a complicated thing and that relationships take work. Her marriage to Tea Cup has its ups and downs and even includes some jealous from both sides. But she has supposedly found the love she has been looking for. While being married to Tea Cup, a horrible hurricane hits the area in which they live. They both survive but Tea Cup is bit by a rabid dog while saving her from drowning. He gets rabbies due to the dog bite and tries to shoot Janie with his pistol. It is not his fault that he is in this position but the one to feel responsible is Janie. She ends up shooting him with a rifle for self-defense and kills him. She is charged with murder and is acquitted by an all white jury. Everyone has their own intentions when it comes to relationships. Even Janie was unclear of what she actually desired. The frequency in how many times she “changed her mind” only shows how unsettled her heart was. She finally found the person she wanted to be with only to see him turn against her due to some freak accident. She defends herself and kills the only person she truly and deeply loved. Though she is charged with murder, she is forgiven and gives Tea Cup, the only man she loved, an amazing funeral. Her love for him ran so deep. Growth engulfs this amazing character. From the beginning she saw that arranged marriages, without love would not work out. She was able to see that being held up like a trophy only encased her more. She wanted freedom, she wanted to be able to feel freedom and did not want the oppression she knew both her mother and grandmother were under. Janie was an extremely faithful woman. Her role as a woman was typical of that time though the only thing which threw her off during the 1930s was her quest for love. But she was faithful in that she stayed until she could not stay anymore. She tried, on several instances to make the relationship work but she knew deep down in her heart, that she was not feeling what she wanted to feel. The first kiss that she was caught doing at sixteen was the kiss that dictated the definition of love for her. The kiss engulfed her and told her sometimes quite simple, that love existed. Irony strikes because life as one sees it is not realistic until one lives it. Though she had found love, and acceptance from the drifter, though there were plenty of problems, she knew that love was there. They both were well-enamored with each other. But then tragedy and disaster, though it didn’t destroy them immediately, put a dent in their relationship eventually leading to murder. As Janie’ story is evaluated and analyzed it is interesting to note that Janie takes on the last name of each of her former husband’s. She feels a connection to each man though her last one is where she found love. Love is a complicated thing and living life through the search for something as big and as dynamic as love leads one to experience life as it is present for them. Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches. All which Janie suffered only made her a stronger person. Their Eyes were watching God only speaks of the people viewing and watching what God would do. Always a faithful people, the African American community, always reaching out to a power that is unseen, Janie trusts that not only was God watching her as she grew and developed into such a dynamic character, but he also kept his eye on her as she was accused of murder. He was there for her in every instance and reached out a hand to her as he watched her enter and exist her relationships in search for something more real, and more true to her heart. Not only was God watching her, but she was watching God as he moved and worked in her. He was her spirit, he was her joy, her passion and essentially, he was the love that she was looking for. He came in many forms throughout the marriages and she was watching him as he helped her develop. He was not the kind of God that is considered to be “out there” but the kind of God who is always present, in the midst of hardships. The story begins with judgment and ultimately ends with judgment. Janie’s free spirit does not allow herself to be affected by such negativity. She chooses her best friend who is the complete opposite of the porch sitters, as her confident. The porch sitters give her mean glares and stares and judge her for who she is and the choices she has made. Little do they know that the choices Janie has made has only made her a stronger person. Janie encounters a lot of people who judge her throughout the entire story. But regardless of the way she is being judged, she is only being fed more strength. The less she reacts to the criticism of her being a free spirited girl, the more she is armed to fight her own battles. And though it is thought that her outside is different from her inner self, she truly has found what she finds is important and that is-love. Critics who have read this story use portions of the story to denote and connote instances in the story which create a parallel. Many state that Janie’s character mirrors Zora’s because she draws on her own life as she brings the character’s she has created in her fictional story to life. The relationship that Janie has with Tea Cup is similar to that of which she lived. She loved the so called Tea Cup and therefore created a character that most represented her. During Janie’s entire life we see that she goes through several identity realizations. The first realization is when she finds out that she is black. She does not really know that she is black until she came upon a picture of her. This is a huge identity shift as she learns to become the person she is based on raise and also her gender. She also is unaware of her name. People have called her so many different things while growing up and therefore, it was hard for her to pinpoint who she was. As you know, one shapes their identity by their name. Some names mean a lot to someone, and to an entire community and other names leave no mark on a person whatsoever. The second identity issue she goes through is the fact that she never really knew her mother. She was raised by her grandmother and knows that both her grandmother and mother were raped by white men. So she does not have a very strong upbringing and is forced to be an adult at the age of sixteen. The identity awareness continues as she becomes a stronger person. In chapter three she realizes that being married does not mean that one has found love or that love has found someone. She grapples with this idea throughout the entire story as she grows to become the woman she is to be. Her marriages make her grow. She also realizes that her grandmother had a different idea of love and fulfilling of dreams and that her grandmother’s ideas of love and dreams were quite different than her own. She chooses to seek out her own thoughts. The last identity realization is how her soul was once separate from her. She has finally found solace and peace and understanding of her ups and downs and calls her soul to come, to reside within her and not separate from her. This is where she finds her connection with God and with nature. She stands strong in who she is and what she believes in. She has gone to the horizon and back and has grasped what it was she was looking for. She calls her soul to come in and see. And what the soul sees, is her own self, black, a woman, and full of grace, beauty peace and strength. Every writer has a story to tell. At times, they chose to tell the story in the form of an autobiography but other times they choose to tell the story through a different voice, one that they create. Sometimes, this voice in considered the alter-ego. The story which resonates in our hearts is the same story that is told via an alternate character. Through life was find that we have the choice to grow and change. Like Janie, each of her relationships caused her to grow, change and become even a stronger person. Without the growth and the change, she would never have reached the point that she has wanted to. And like Zora, Janie became her dream. Finding love comes in many facets. She chose a side, stuck to it and is now exemplifying the importance of love regardless of race, gender or time frame. Works Cited . 1. CNB. WILLA. 26 January 2011. 2 May 2011 . 2. Davie, Sharon. "Free Mules, Talking Buzzards, and Cracked Plates: The Politics of Dislocation in Their Eyes were Watching God." PMLA May 1993: Vol. 108, No. 3, pp. 446-459 . 3. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were watching God. New York: HarperCollins, 1937. 4. Keiko, Dilbeck. " Symbolic Representation of Identity in Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God." Explicator; Winter 2008: Vol. 66 Issue 2, p102-104, 3p. 5. Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. "New Essays on Their Eyes Were Watching God. - book reviews." 2010. CBS Interactive Business Network. 3 May 2011 . 6. Newman, Judie. ""Dis aint Gimme, Florida": Zora Neale Hurstons "Their Eyes Were Watching God"." The Modern Language Review October 2003: Vol. 98, No. 4 pp. 817-826 . 7. Simmons, Ryan. ""The hierarchy itself": Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God and the sacrifice of narrative authority - Critical Essay." 2010. CBS Interactive Business network. 3 May 2011 . 8. Their Eyes Are Watching Their Eyes Were Watching God. 2 May 2011 . 9. Voight, Heather. Literary analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. 2002-2011. 2 May 2011 . 10. Whitley, Peggy. "LoneStar." June 2010. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - LSC-Kingwood. 3 May 2011 . Read More