Their Eyes Were Watching God An Epic
Their Eyess Were Watching God: An Epic Search Essay, Research Paper
Their Eyess Were Watching God: An Epic Search
In the novel, Their Eyess Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston shows how
the lives of American adult females changed in the early twentieth century. Zora Neale
Hurston creates a character in her ain similitude in her chef-d’oeuvre, Their Eyes
Were Watching God. By showing Janie & # 8217 ; s hunt for individuality, from her
childbearing with Nanny to the decease of Tea Cake, Hurston shows what a free
southern black adult females might hold experienced in the early decennaries of the century.
To the racial ties that would impact Janie all the manner through this life long
hunt.
Janie & # 8217 ; s hunt for individuality really started long before she was born.
Because Janie & # 8217 ; s hunt is her household & # 8217 ; s hunt. Nanny and Janie & # 8217 ; s ma gave Janie
a ground to hunt. They were ever held back by their proprietors, and their proprietors
took advantage of them, and raped them. They raped them of their individuality. Nanny
signifies to hedge the worlds of her life and the life of Janie. When Nanny
says, & # 8220 ; Thank yuh, Massa Jesus, & # 8221 ; she is exemplifying that although she is no
longer a slave, the slave consciousness has caused her to see even her
relationship with the divinity about slave and maestro. This makes Janie the leader
of her household & # 8217 ; s hunt. However Nanny realized this, and when she saw that Janie
was old plenty for love she had her married. This guaranteed that Janie would
non go on a loss of individuality.
Even as a immature miss, populating in the mercenary universe of her Nanny and
her first hubby, Logan Killicks, Janie chooses to listen to & # 8220 ; the words of the
trees and the air current & # 8221 ; ( 23-24 ) . This is the first grounds of her seeking beyond
her deadening life. This so leads to her mundane life left empty, because she is
ever looking farther than where she is at the clip. So twenty-four hours by twenty-four hours she gets
more worked up into go forthing Logan, and seeking for love. When she leaves Logan
to run off with Joe, she thinks to herself, & # 8220 ; Her old ideas were traveling to come
in ready to hand now, but new words would hold to be made and said to suit them & # 8221 ; ( 31 ) .
Joe purposes to be a large voice and that is why he comes to Eatonville,
Florida. He feels that he will hold a better opportunity at being a large voice in an
all black town than in a white adult male & # 8217 ; s town. The job is that he has adopted
white adult male & # 8217 ; s values and forces them upon the townsfolk and, most notably, upon
his married woman Janie. Hurston points out the sarcasm of Joe & # 8217 ; s quandary: & # 8220 ; Starks is able
to & # 8217 ; set himself up as Godhead, maestro, and owner & # 8217 ; everyplace in Eatonville,
and non merely in his general shop. His power in Eatonville approximates the
white adult male & # 8217 ; s about entire institutional control of America & # 8221 ; ( 27-28 ) . This
relationship was merely another reverse in Janie & # 8217 ; s epic hunt. However, when
her matrimony to Joe prostrations, she once more decides, & # 8220 ; So new ideas had to be
idea and new words said & # 8221 ; ( 77 ) .
After a long stretch of pointless and eternal yearss in her hunt, Joe
dies. This is one of the greatest yearss in her hunt. By now Janie & # 8217 ; s
relationship with Tea Cake was turning into her greatest love yet. When she
falls in love with Tea Cake, she tells her friend Pheoby, & # 8220 ; He done taught me de
inaugural linguistic communication all over & # 8221 ; ( 109 ) . Her hunt seemed really near to a peaceable terminal.
However, it was far from over, Tea Cake became badly after being bitten by a rabid
Canis familiaris, he feared that he had been conjured. He was leery that Janie wanted to
be free of him so that she could get married a igniter skinned adult male. In an effort to
squelch his fright, Janie said, & # 8220 ; Maybe it wuz uh enchantress ridin & # 8217 ; yuh, honey. Ah & # 8217 ; ll see
can & # 8217 ; t Ah find some mustard seed whilst Ah & # 8217 ; s out & # 8221 ; ( 166 ) .
Janie & # 8217 ; s hunt for an individuality for herself, free of the thoughts she had
grown up with, ties into bigger issues, of import for her race as a whole.
Nanny & # 8217 ; s vision of Janie & # 8217 ; s care free life on a porch someplace is associated with
being white ; somehow the other lives of adult females are made to be less honest
along with their racial ties. Janie & # 8217 ; s straight hair becomes tied up with
whiteness, and because of the society & # 8217 ; s racial pecking order, her hair is a signifier
of power against which her first two hubbies strive. It is merely toward the terminal,
when Janie both lets her hair down and reprobate Nanny & # 8217 ; s vision, that Janie sheds
the same limitations that continue to destine others to personal stagnancy. In
one compelling novel, Hurston ties together the of import issues confronting her
coevals without deflecting from the narrative of one adult female & # 8217 ; s battle with them.
