Their Eyes Were Watching God Thesis

Joe starks then ends up dying and Janie starts to live for herself for awhile. A couple months later Janie then finally meets the man who is perfect for her, Tea cake. He takes care of her and wants nothing but the best for her. Once she lost Tea cake, she becomes independent and decides to go back

Joe realizes that Janie’s hair makes her sexually attractive to men, so to his knowledge Janie must cover her hair to claim that her sexuality belongs exclusively to him. Janie’s hair is not only as symbol of her beauty but also for her behavior for immodest attention. Later in the book Joe dies from a fatal liver failure, “Before she slept that night, she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist. That was the only change people saw in her. So, one of the things Janie does is uncover her hair then she burns her head rags and lets her hair

Janie’s hair is the object of affection for her husband, Joe Sparks and all the men who walk into the store. It symbolizes Janie herself. Her hair is as free as her personality. It weaves itself into the lives of Janie’s husbands. That’s why Joe Sparks wants to keep it covered up.

Tie back into hook-. ... The novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, highlights women who quest for better love lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. In the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” which took place in Eatonville, Florida Janie

Nanny, Logan, and Joe all tried to control Janie in some way. Nanny forced Janie to get married to a man she didn’t love or want. Logan Killicks does almost everything for Janie, and as Nanny points out, “He’s kissin’ yo’ foot and ‘tain’t in uh man tuh kiss foot long. Mouf kissin’ is on uh equal and dat’s natural but when dey got to bow down tuh love, dey soon straighten up.”

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie struggles to create a voice for herself and learns when her silence is more powerful than her words. Janie uses her voice at times when she feels powerless or when someone is silencing her. When Janie is in situations where she is being silenced or confronted, she chooses to be either speak out or stay silenced. When Janie is silent, she is able to set herself up in a position of taking her power back from those who try to make her feel powerless. As the novel goes on Janie learns how to be silent at times when her words aren’t as powerful as her silence.

People come into our lives for different reasons. Some leave a positive impact, while others bring negativity. Readers and critics alike have treasured Zora Neale Hurston’s 20th century novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, for generations particularly for its complex portrayal of the different main characters. The people a person meet and the experiences that person many go through in their lifetime can alter a person significantly. Through the tyrannical words of Joe Starks and the inconsiderate actions of Nanny, Janie in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is negatively influenced as her actions and thoughts alter her life.

When tea cake shows up janie 's feels something she has never felt before, she is set free but the townspeople don 't think so. “‘Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money him bein’ younger than you?’” (Hurston pg.133)Janie is in love with Tea Cake because he loves her for her youthful young side that was forced into hiding for so long because of her previous husbands. However the rest of the community is discouraging her and trying to keep her in the image as a mayor 's wife. They told Janie that Tea Cake was after her money

In the beginning Janie feels as if Tea Cake’s age would effect their relationship. She has strong feelings for him, but on the other hand people are saying he will run off with her money. Janie proves them wrong and runs off and gets married to Tea Cake. He makes Janie feel wanted, she feels like she could be herself. Janie states, "We been tuhgether round two years.

The young girl was gone, but a handsome women had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there” ( Hurston 87). Joe found her to be an affront, so he made her hide her hair and slowly suppressed everything that made her

Janie hitting Tea Cake supports Oprah’s theme of unfailing love by showing that their relationship can withstand a fight. “Janie does find love, but a love story, it is not” (Ceptus). In the novel Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship does not show true love because Janie loves the idea of Tea Cake not him. Janie, having a history of marrying older men, thought that marrying Tea Cake would be a pleasant change from older men.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel portrays Janie, a middle aged black woman who tells her friend Pheoby Watson what has happened to her husband Tea Cake and her adventure. The resulting telling of her story portrays most of the novel. Throughout the novel, Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of love, or being in a relationship versus freedom and independence, that being in a relationship may hinder one’s freedom and independence. Janie loves to be outgoing and to be able to do what she wants, but throughout the book the relationships that she is in with Logan,Jody and Tea Cake, does not allow her to do that.

White Hair and Internalized Racism Their Eyes Were Watching God takes place in the south in the early twentieth century, not far from the grasps of slavery. Although not mentioned extensively in the book, racism and discrimination were prevalent during the time period. Janie, the mixed-race protagonist and granddaughter of a slave, is fortunate to have hair typical of white people. Hurston describes the effects that Janie’s special hair has on her life.

Janie Crawford Killiks Starks Woods is the main character in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, where she learns what's it's like to go from marriage to marriage looking for love. In the novel, Hurston utilizes the pivotal moment when Janie realizes that marriage doesn’t always mean love to show Janie's coming of age and psychological development which is used to show that love doesn't always come first. Logan Killicks was Janie's first marriage, which was brought about after Nanny (her grandmother) decided that she need to be married after she caught Janie and a young boy kissing when she was 16. After that Janie finds herself being thrown into some random marriage with some man she barely knew, and for a reason

Also, the fact that Tea Cake does not hesitate to teach Janie how to play checkers proves that the caring man contains a more modern conception of women and their role. The sense of equality in their roles continues when Tea Cake offers Janie the option of laboring alongside him in the Everglades fields. Although Janie’s previous husbands wished for the woman to also take employment, Janie resented it. Logan desired for Janie to engage in hard labor due to the fact that the old man thought of the young woman as an object—like a workhorse—to dominate and utilize. Similarly, Joe wished that Janie would acquire work in the store in order to publicly display the protagonist as his trophy wife and to prove that he held absolute control over her.