Their Eyes Were Watching God Theme

Janie didn 't start living until Joe died and she met Teacake. With Teacake Janie felt alive, they understood and respected each other. Their marriage was full of love and compassion, two things that Janie always wanted. Her marriage with Teacake ended in a tragedy, but Janie felt like she lived a life full of new beginnings, and she was content with that. All the men in Janie’s life

While he is much more appealing and romantic than Logan, Janie still realizes that he cannot offer her the “pear tree love” that she has been searching for. During this marriage, Janie begins to ask herself many new questions. It is during Joe’s inauguration as mayor that the climax of their relationship is reached; when he refuses to let her speak for herself, Janie comes to the realization that having the option to make her own decisions is something that she has never really had. This awareness gives her a new perspective of love, which leads to Janie’s inward resentment of Joe. While she wishes to join in the checker games and conversations on the porch, she conforms to his commands by avoiding them.

In Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie’s hair is described ad nauseum; in fact, it is described so often that one cannot help but notice its importance to the text as a whole. The author uses Janie’s hair to demonstrate Janie as an independent woman. To Janie, her hair is one of her defining features, and it becomes a surrogate for her identity. While Janie works inside her and Jody’s store, Jody forces her to wrap up her hair in a head-rag. To Janie, the “business of the head-rag irked her endlessly”, even though she did not want it wrapped up, Jody did.

Eventually, Janie decided to leave Logan for another man she met names Joe Starks, and her quest for love continued with her new marriage. Janie was instantly attracted to Joe’s innate power because he gave her hope that she could reach the “horizon” (page 36). Joe took over as mayor of Eatonville and his influence increased dramatically with his improved confidence. He made decisions for Janie, just as her grandmother had, and forbid her from living like every other townsperson. For example, Janie was not allowed to associate with any customers in the store she helped Joe run, she could not wear her hair down in the store, and she had to dress a particular way because of Joe’s raging jealousy.

He becomes Mayor of the town he started and tries to makes Janie suppress her spirit. A symbol of the suppression is the head rag that he insists that Janie wears in the store. She as not to show people her hair and Joe did not want her talking to the townspeople. “He didn't want her talking after such trashy people. “ You’se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie.”

Nanny, Leafy, and Logan Killicks, were not nearly as important to the love story of Tea Cake and Janie as later parts of the

The stories Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin all center around three different women and their different life experiences. Each story also tells how the lives of these three women are affected by their husbands. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” along with Janie and Mrs. Mallard each have different relationships with their husbands, but they each feel they are being controlled or oppressed by them. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s story is told through her three marriages, all three with their own problems.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Janie is held back from growing to her full potential. Janie is married three times and in each marriage there is one item that restrains her. In her marriage with Joe she was forced to wear a head rag to cover her hair because it is so long and beautiful. The red rag resembled the restraint Joe put on Janie.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s flaws about love continuously brought her to the same ending with all of her husbands, no matter how long the marriage lasted. In The Odyssey, Calypso was trapped on an island to fall in love with men who washed ashore. The fatality of her faults was her over affection and her need for love while being so alone on her island, Ogygia. Their weaknesses are exact opposites, specifically in their relationships with men. The flaws are role in relationship, attachment to men, and lastly, their submissiveness to men.

Although she is the protagonist, the supplementary characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God have a different definition of what portrays as desire. Desire for them, relates to a feeling of want that can be accomplished through someone else, and also as a feeling that effects other character’s feelings. The antagonists demonstrate desire as a feeling or wanting to control someone else’s desires of wanting, like Janie. The importance of Janie going along with these peer-developed desires is that through completing them, she finds her own self-fulfillment and self-discovery. Gorman Beauchamp discusses in Zora Neale Hurston’s Other Eatonville, the connections that Hurston made between her own life and Janie’s life within Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In the end she stayed alone and unhappy driving herself to suicide. Janie on the other hand, followed her heart hoping to find a love like spring. Although she married Logan Killicks as an act of obedience she entered with hope of a finding love. After discovering that her love with Logan was only a fairytale she ran away with Joe Starks believing that he could be the love like spring that she search for (a little of this mixed with luxury). His money and charm were what truly caught her attention.

Janie holds anger for her grandma because of the grandmother’s decision, but eventually, after she matures, Janie realizes that Nanny was merely doing it

In her epiphany from Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie realizes her intrinsic capacity as an individual, and frees herself from Jody’s covetous ways in the act of letting down her hair. In the quote, “She tore off the kerchief from her plentiful hair... the glory was there,” Janie’s hair symbolizes her power and strength because it holds glory. By Janie releasing her hair, she finally notices the greatness that she has, which allows her to now view herself as eminent individual whom has independence. Because Jody made her tie her hair up as a device to hinder her individuality and identity in their marriage, he is intimidated by her reluctance to comply with his controlling demands.

Janie does this for her Nanna, not herself. The idea of a perfect marriage, often represented by a pear tree, grows in Janie’s heart and mind. Her marriage to Logan kills this dream. “My first dream was dead, so I became a woman.” This is the first major sacrifice Janie makes.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses speech as a tool to show the progression of the story. Janie Crawford, the main character of the novel, finds her true identity and ability to control her voice through many hardships. When Janie’s grandmother dies she is married off, to be taken care of. In each marriage that follows, she learns what it is to be a woman with a will and a voice. Throughout the book, Janie finds herself struggling against intimidating men who attempt to victimize her into a powerless role.