their eyes were watching god essay

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Justin Ayala Neale Hurston's work provides the African-American community with a one of the first literary symbols of racial health - a sense of black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings. Appropriately, Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937, provides an enlightening look at the journey of one of these undiminished human beings, Janie Crawford. Janie's story - based on principles of self-exploration, self-empowerment, and self- liberation - details her loss and subsequent attainment of her independence of her own reality, as she constantly learns and grows from her difficult experiences with gender issues and racism in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston’s grasp on the reader’s imagination is demonstrated with her masterful use of imagery and phrasing. Janie’s dialogue and vernacular carry the reader along with seemingly innocuous pieces of vivid perception. In reality

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Page 1: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

Their Eyes Were Watching God 

Justin Ayala

                      Neale Hurston's work provides the African-American community with a

one of the first literary symbols of racial health - a sense of black people as complete,

complex, undiminished human beings. Appropriately, Hurston's Their Eyes Were

Watching God, published in 1937, provides an enlightening look at the journey of one

of these undiminished human beings, Janie Crawford. Janie's story - based on

principles of self-exploration, self-empowerment, and self-liberation - details her loss

and subsequent attainment of her independence of her own reality, as she constantly

learns and grows from her difficult experiences with gender issues and racism in

Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Hurston’s grasp on the reader’s imagination is demonstrated with her

masterful use of imagery and phrasing. Janie’s dialogue and vernacular carry the

reader along with seemingly innocuous pieces of vivid perception. In reality Hurston

has put the reader in such a position that they hardly realize they are ingesting

something deep and true. Their Eyes Were Watching God recognizes that there are

problems to the human condition, such as the need to possess the fear of the

unknown and the result of stagnation. Hurston does not leave us with the

hopelessness; rather, she extends a recognition and understanding of humanity's

need to escape emptiness. The truth of life, as with death that it is done alone and at

the end of it all there should be a sense of self with a positive resolve.

Page 2: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

Janie’s search begins in her Nanny's yard, as Janie lies beneath the pear tree

when; "the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into

the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace

and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every

blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned

to behold a revelation" (11). Janie's youthful idealism leads her to believe that this

intense sensuality must be similar to the intimacy between lovers, and she wishes "to

be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!" (11). The image suggests a wholeness - as bees

pollinate blossoms paralleling human sexual intercourse - which Janie finds missing

in her marriages to both Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, but finally discovers in her

relationship with Tea Cake.

After joyfully discovering an archetype for sensuality and love under the pear

tree at age sixteen, Janie quickly comes to understand the reality of marriage when

she marries Logan Killicks, then Joe Starks. Both men attempt to coerce Janie into

submission to them by treating her like a possession: where Killicks works Janie like

a mule, Joe objectifies her like a medal around his neck. In addition, Janie learns that

passion and love are tied to violence, as Killicks threatens to kill her, and both Joe

and Tea Cake beat her to assert their dominance. Yet Janie continually struggles to

keep her inner Self-intact and strong, remaining resilient in spite of her husbands'

physical, verbal, and mental abuse. Janie’s resilience is rewarded when she finally

meets and marries Tea Cake, who represents the closest semblance to her youthful

idealism regarding love and marriage. Rather than self-destruct under the constant

Page 3: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

realities of racism and misogyny she receives throughout her life, Janie Crawford

does the opposite at the close of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

The novel's final image states what Janie does throughout the story - taking

her difficult past in and growing stronger and wiser as a result of it. Author Zora Neale

Hurston believed that freedom "was something internal…. The man himself must

make his own emancipation" (199). Likewise, in her defining moment of identity

formation, Janie "pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the

waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She

called in her soul to come and see" (183). At the end of a novel focusing on self-

revelation and self-formation, Janie survives with her soul - made resilient by

continual struggle - intact. Janie’s grandmother was one of the most important

influences in her life, raising her since from an infant and passing on her dreams to

Janie. Janie’s mother ran away from home soon after Janie was born. With her father

also gone, the task of raising Janie fell to her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny tells Janie

“Fact uh de matter, Ah loves yuh a whole heap more’n Ah do yo’ mama, de one Ah

did birth” (15).

Nanny’s dream is for Janie to attain a position of security in society, “high

ground” as she puts it (19). As the person who raised her, Nanny feels that it is both

her right and obligation to impose her dreams and her ideas of what is important in

life on Janie. The strong relationship between mother and child is important in the

African-American community, and the conflict between Janie’s idyllic view of marriage

and Nanny wish for her to marry for stability and position is a good illustration of just

Page 4: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

how deep the respect and trust runs. Janie has a very romantic notion of what

marriage should be. “ While Nanny’s idea of a good marriage is someone who has

some standing in the community; someone who will get Janie to that higher ground.

Nanny wants Janie to marry Logan Killicks, but according to Janie “he look like some

ole skull-head in de grave yard” (13). Even more importantly to Janie, though, was

the fact that the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree. Nanny tells

Janie, “So you don’t want to marry off decent like . . . you wants to make me suck the

same sorrow yo’ mama did, eh? Mah ole head ain’t gray enough. My back ain’t

bowed enough to suit you!” (13). After they have the fight over Logan Killicks, Nanny

says something, by way of an explanation of why Janie needs to marry up the social

ladder, that reveals a good deal about the reality of being an African-American

woman. She says “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see”

(14). Janie, out of respect for her grandmother, went off to start her role as a wife.

Considering Nanny's dreams for Janie, why is Janie’s marriage to Logan ironic?

Nanny told Janie that black women were the mules of the world. White men handed

their burdens and their work to black men, who in turn gave them to black women.

Nanny did not want Janie to be anyone's pack mule. She believed that financial

security and respectability would save Janie from this fate. She saw Logan Killicks as

a man who could provide Janie with these things.

Nanny did not think love was at all important in Janie’s marriage. She even

admonished Janie for complaining that she did not love Logan after two months of

marriage. Ironically, Logan came to see Janie as a pack mule when he was

Page 5: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

disappointed that Janie did not come to love him. When it became clear that Janie did

not return his affection, he tried to force her into the servitude that Nanny feared. He

planned to make her work in the fields at his side in addition to doing all the cooking

and the cleaning. He wanted to buy a second mule so that Janie could help him plow

the fields. Whereas Nanny disdained the role of love in Janie’s marriage, the very

lack of it on Janie’s part caused it to fail. Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks was the

first stage in her development as a woman. She hoped that her forced marriage with

Logan would end her loneliness and desire for love. Right from the beginning, the

loneliness in the marriage shows up when Janie sees that his house is a "lonesome

place like a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been" (21).

This description of Logan's house is symbolic of the relationship they have. Janie

eventually admits to Nanny that she still does not love Logan and cannot find

anything to love about him. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's

first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (25). Janie's prayer is her final plea

for a change in her life. She says, “Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah

could do. De rest is left to you" (24). Nanny's actions robbed Janie of the freedom to

live her life on her own terms. Janie did not want to marry Logan, but she did so

because Nanny told her that she would eventually come to love him. Ironically, Logan

wanted to force Janie into the servitude that Nanny feared.

Also, he was disappointed that Janie never returned his affection and

attraction. If he could not possess her through love, he would possess her by

demanding her submission. At heart, his actions arose from the fear that Janie would

Page 6: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

leave him. Janie's grandmother initiates comparison between black women and

mules, declaring "De [African-American] woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah

can see" (14). In addition, both of Janie's first two husbands own mules, and the way

they respectively treat them parallels the way they treat Janie. Logan Killicks works

his mule demandingly; Joe Starks, having bought Matt Bonner's mule from him, puts

it out to pasture as a status symbol rather than using it. Janie's grandmother initiates

comparison between black women and mules, declaring "De [African-American]

woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see" (14). In addition, both of Janie’s

first two husbands own mules, and the way they respectively treat them parallels the

way they treat Janie. Logan Killicks works his mule demandingly; Joe Starks, having

bought Matt Bonner's mule from him, puts it out to pasture as a status symbol rather

than using it. It is through the journey of her life that Janie realizes that she is living

Nanny dreams rather than her own. She also recognizes that with protection comes

obligation-Killicks feels he deserves to slap her around. With that discovery, she

makes the choice to escape with Jody.

Janie's search for love is parallel to the human search for meaning and what

life consists of. There is no one answer, either of despair or happiness. Hurston has

portrayed a world of true individuality, where every experience will end differently with

each person. To paraphrase Hurston: Life is not like a grindstone, but the sea.

Hurston does not promise it will bring happiness to all; she simply shows us the life of

one woman who did end up with happiness and contentment. Janie states: "If you kin

see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people that

Page 7: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

never seen de light at all" (159). By imparting this philosophy to the reader Hurston

gives a direction to Janie’s journey and a powerful message to the reader. Life

experiences are universal in nature, while affected by race are not unique to any one

race. At the same time there is no set path. All anyone can hope to achieve (or has

control over) is the self and what feelings are left and the end. According to Hurston,

life is "all according to the way you see things" (89). If one has the intuition to look out

over the horizon and dream, take a chance, acknowledge fear, he or she will be able

to live life to the fullest. Once well traveled there can be a impression of meaning and

substance that lives in the quite of one’s soul not in the recognition of others. 

Bibliography

Hurston, Zora Neale . Their Eyes Were Watching God . New York : HarperCollins.

1937