Yellow Mule In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Julie A. Haurykiewicz addresses the symbol of the mule in Their Eyes Were Watching God by comparing it to the silencing of the main protagonist Janie Crawford. Attention is also brought to the idea of muliebrity or the state or condition of being a woman, throughout the article. Haurykiewicz recognizes that Janie is often unheard or silenced before demonstrating her points, and that during these acts, the mule is often present. The first time the mule is presented in the story is when Janie’s Grandmother states that “the black women is de mule uh de world.” Janie’s Grandmother has first handily experienced the oppressions of blacks before and after the Civil War.

The “Rock Pile” by James Baldwin and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston are two stories that examined black male resistance to emasculation. The men in these stories lived in patriarchal societies, and they reaped the benefits of a structure that favored men. In both of these stories, the male characters are dominant figures in their households, and when they felt like their manhood was being attacked, they retaliate viciously. In “Their eyes were watching god”

When Janie doesn't have control over her story, the town’s assumptions about her lead to her isolation. Janie has just gotten back from Jacksonville after Tea Cake’s funeral when she passes the women from Eatonville sitting on their

Jody controlled major aspects of Janie’s life, such as her appearance, when he forces her to keep her hair up. Janie does not like that Jody feels the need to control her: “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it... that was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was” (Hurston 55).

Janie realizes what she deserves in a marriage and runs off with Starks to live a happy life with him. Things do not go as planned for Janie as she starts to realize how manipulative Joe Starks is of her. Starks has full control over Janie with his tyrannical behavior and takes things even further when he establishes complete dominance over Janie. Janie soon realizes that Starks has taken advantage of her “It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie suffers from hardship in two relationships before she can find her true love. Janie explains to her best friend, Pheoby, how she searches for love. Therefore Pheoby wants to hear the true story, rather than listening to the porch sitters. Throughout the book Janie experiences different types of love with three different men; Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. At 16 Janie marries Logan Killicks.

Janie disliked the rag, but said nothing because it please Joe. Janie would do anything to please her husband's. Hurston shows this through her text, “This business of the head rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it”. This not only reveals the willingness Janir has to please her husbands, but also resembles the power her husbands had over Janie.

Symbolism has the power to transform ordinary objects, actions, or words into profound representations of complex ideas and emotions, captivating the imagination and deepening the emotional connection between the audience and the novel. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel brimming with symbolism, illuminating the story's deeper meaning beyond its surface-level plot. The novel follows the story of Janie Crawford, a young African American woman who embarks on a journey of love, relationships, and self-discovery. Hurston uses various symbols throughout the novel to represent different aspects of Janie's life. Five symbols are essential to understanding the novel's plot, themes, and characters.

Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Look into a Woman’s Perspective Often overlooked, the female perspective is one that is unique and different from typical male perspectives. Author Zora Neale Hurston reveals such a perspective to readers in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Within this work, Hurston centers the story around main character Janie Mae Crawford and her life throughout the years. From adolescence to adulthood, Hurston uses symbolism to represent Janie’s perspective as she navigates through her journeys of joy and sorrow. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the pear tree, the horizon, and the bee and blossom as symbols of Janie’s ideals and dreams.

Jody wanted Janie to know that women were less than men and that they don’t think for themselves, he almost compares women to animals, “Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves” (Hurston 180). Once he passed away, Janie took a more feminist stand in her life, she started doing more of what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it. Letting her hair down is an important point in the novel because it shows strength, “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 below her waist”

She was a rut in the road,” (Hurston 76). By this Janie was not well respected by Jody, she was not able to say how she felt. Considered being the wife of a rich man, she was treated less than

Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of how one man, Tea Cake, changes how a grown woman named Janie views life, opportunity, and happiness. Zora Neale Hurston employs parallelism in order to reveal the dynamic of this relationship between Janie and Tea Cake and writes, “He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (Hurston 128). At the very end of the book, Hurston writes again, “Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net.

Is it worth risking everything in order to be happy? In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, an African American woman named Janie makes many challenging decisions in order to be happy. This novel takes place in the 1920’s which creates many obstacles that Janie must overcome in order to achieve happiness. There are many stereotypes and inequalities during this time that make life extremely difficult for Janie. Although Janie allows others to mistreat her at points throughout the novel, she is overall an excellent role model for young readers because she overcomes several stereotypes of African American females during this time period, and she makes many difficult decisions based solely on her own happiness.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie merely wants to love someone, but that choice is ripped out of her hands when Nanny makes her marry someone she does not love. This marriage as well as another one does not work out because she never learns to love them. Finally, she meets Tea Cake, and falls madly in love with him even though he is a lot younger than she is. He is someone that she can truly love while still being able to be herself. They go through their struggles as well and sadly, he dies by the end of the novel.

“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.