Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston - Research Paper Example

Your Their Eyes were Watching God By Zora Neal Hurston The novel “Their eyes were watching God” by Zora Neal Hurston is considered an important part of African-American literature. The novel is the story of Janie, an African-American, who through a series of events learns what true love, is and how that love empowers her. In the meantime she learns to live on her own terms, gaining independence that her peers both long for and are afraid of. Gaining self-awareness and in the process learning to judge people better and becoming less concerned about their views. The writer mentions the life of Janie in phases each phase shaping her character. I choose to review the novel in line with the phases of Janie’s life. The first phase is Janie’s childhood. Janie narrates the events to her friend Phoebe about being bullied by other black kids, being taunted about his father, having to live without a mother, being raised in a white community, daring to sense love for the first time and being restricted from it forever by being forced into a marriage with Logan Killicks. Every event in a child’s life plays an important role in shaping their life, nothing in Janie’s childhood life could have passed a clue to readers about her being able to voice her opinion and follow her heart in the later story. The only little rebellion she manages to muster is when her Nanny asks her to get married “Me, married? Naw, Nanny, no ma’am! Whut Ah know ‘bout uh husband?” (Hurston, 17). Since it’s a self-revelation on part of the protagonist the story does not exactly mentions events the way they would have been from somebody else’s perspective and hence are a biased view of events that tend to mention the main events that influenced the protagonist. The era, in which it was written, it only seems right that blacks would have to go through all of the suffering. The author correctly summarizes the position of African-American women as “..de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see” (Hurston, 19-20). For a woman who has lost her youth and life in this struggle and who has seen her daughter loose it under similar conditions, the author captures her angst perfectly. The next phase is her marriage to Logan Killicks at age 16. Having lost her first fight and submitting to her Nanny’s wishes, Janie gets married to Logan Killicks who sees her as nothing more than a worker. The realization that she will not be loved the way she had imagined brings in her the desire to be able to do things the way she wants to do. “With Logan, Janie goes through a process similar to the one she went through with her grandmother. At the end, however, instead of giving in to his voice, she acts on her feelings, establishing, if not her own voice, at least her independence from the past which deprived her of authority” (McCredie, 26). It is in this phase that we first see in Janie the strength to break free of the norms. The next phase starts with her marriage to Jody Sparks. As she escapes from her oppressive relationship with Logan, she embarks on a new journey with Jody Sparks, hoping that Jody might well be the one love she had always yearned for. However, unlike what she’s expected of him, he becomes a dominant partner who wants a trophy wife to strengthen his identity as a mayor. Even though she chooses to remain silent for most of the part learning to separate her inner self from her outer self, she matures in the process, becoming further aware of what she really wants from life. “Janie does display her pent-up emotions by speaking back to Jody, he is so taken aback that he is speechless and resorts to a physical expression of feeling, rather than an articulate one of authority: Janie had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men cherish .... But Janie had done worse, she had cast down his empty armor before men and they had laughed…” (McCredie, 27). The author shows that despite being tied down by her second husband Janie shows little rebellion, it is not because she was a coward but because she chose to learn the ways of life. When Jody dies, Janie sees it as an opportunity to finally live her life on her own terms. Being financially secure, helped her take the next step. To be able to love someone and to be able to live with that person needs freewill, and this freewill also brings the much necessary independence. Janie does the same and is able to live independently. Her marriage to Tea Cake was the real relationship, the kind she had longed for. It was though this relationship she understood the pleasure of being in a relationship. “Their Eyes is, almost everyone agrees, a novel about Janie's progressive liberation, her emergence out of objectivity into subjectivity. Her relationship with Tea Cake is the liberating relationship, the one which seems to allow Janie to emerge fully as a subject” (McGowan, 111). Even though one would argue that the relationship was not ideal especially since Janie was so used to being dominated that the little independence she got was enough for her. When Cake hits her, it would be completely unacceptable for feminists today, however, considering the time in which it was written, it has to be accepted that Janie had discovered “her” independence. One cannot argue that she was not independent because what we see as independence today would have not been possible in that time. Hence it is wrong to put the same concept of independence as it exists today and then analyze the character of Janie. This journey of Janie helps her to realize that her coming from a biracial background is nothing she should be afraid of, or should be ashamed of. She realizes that people tend to gossip about everybody else, so it does not matter the way she chooses to live because she cannot live on conditions set by others forever. As she explains to Phoebe, that they were the kind who were just interested in her story and who envied her for her independence and who wanted her to live the same life that they’ve lived. Being able to walk through a crowd confidently without being concerned about what others thought of her that was the confidence that she got through her experiences. This confidence was gained through self-awareness, the understanding that who she really is. “Her first two marriages fail because Logan Killicks and Joe Starks insist too severely on Janie's obedience to them and to conventional sex-role and class-role stereotypes. Janie heroically defies the roles imposed upon her, and eventually finds the love she had first envisioned under the pear tree when she marries Tea Cake Woods” (Miller, 75). I would like to conclude by saying that even though critics don’t consider it as the best literary work but it does stand out as the story of a young girl who through he experiences is able to gain what she was really looking for, love for herself, God and the ability to love someone who loves her for her. References Authority and Authorization in Their Eyes Were Watching GodWendy J. McCredie, Black American Literature Forum Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 25-28Published by: St. Louis UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904269 "Some Other Way to Try": From Defiance to Creative Submission in "Their Eyes Were Watching God"Shawn E. MillerThe Southern Literary Journal Vol. 37, No. 1 (Fall, 2004), pp. 74-95Published by: University of North Carolina PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078398 Liberation and Domination: Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Evolution of CapitalismTodd McGowanMELUS Vol. 24, No. 1, African American Literature (Spring, 1999), pp. 109-128Published by: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/467909 Like Love, "A Movin Thing": Janie's Search for Self and God in "Their Eyes Were Watching God"Nancy ChinnSouth Atlantic Review Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 77-95Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3200714 Read More