Their Eyes Were Watching God Coming Of Age Examples

The film Their Eyes Were Watching God, based off of the novel by author Zora Neale Hurston, is a story of a young woman named Janie who spends the film narrating her life story to a friend. Janie’s story is one of self-exploration, empowerment, and the ability to express her freedoms both as a maturing woman and African American, throughout her life experiences. As she navigates through sexism and racism to find herself it becomes more evident that it will be more difficult than she initially thought to reach a point of happiness.

To begin with, Janie’s first marriage is to Logan Killicks. She meets him through her grandmother and is basically forced to marry him. In the novel, Janie complains to her grandmother “Cause you [Grandmother] told me Ah mus gointer love him,and, and Ah don’t” (Their Eyes were Watching God 23). This quote demonstrates how Janie feels throughout her marriage to Logan. He treats her like a labor mule and complains that she is too lazy to do anything. From her first marriage, she learns that she has to be with a man she

Janie’s marriage to Logan was not anything special. In the beginning Logan was acted like a good husband and would do all the work on his land, and Janie would stay in the home, cooking and cleaning. Eventually, after a couple of months of being married, this so-called honeymoon stage was over. Logan now acted as if he owned Janie and she was his slave, commanding her to do whatever he wanted, not listening to what she wanted. Janie felt constraint; she felt like she was losing her freedom to Logan, she felt like she was not Janie anymore, she was now Mrs. Logan Killicks and she was now obligated to do whatever he commanded of her. Janie was tired of being in an unhappy marriage; she did not love Logan like Nanny said she eventually would: “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”, and she did not like the way she was being treated. One day while she was outside she saw a man walk by, she thought he was very attractive so she drew attention to herself and the man came over. After having a conversation

Their Eyes Were Watching God was written in 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston. This story follows a young girl by the name of Janie Crawford. Janie Crawford lived with her grandmother in Eatonville, Florida. Janie was 16 Years old when her grandmother caught her kissing a boy out in the yard. After seeing this her grandmother told her she was old enough to get married, and tells her she has found her a husband by the name of Logan. Logan was a much, much older man. This book later follows Janie through two more marriages to Jody Starks, and Tea Cake. All three marriages extremely different from one another, along with Janie’s role in each marriage. Janie always had her own individual personality, her true self, but she also had an outer personality, the person she would pretend to be for each of her husbands. The Book took us through a journey of each of these marriages and through the journey of Janie finding herself.

this oppression, Janie has no concerns about leaving town. In the beginning of her marriage, Janie keep her opinions to herself and does what she is told.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story that is centered around sexuality, power, and gender discrimination. The main character, Janie Crawford¸ is a mulatto. She was raised by her grandmother, a former slave, since the day she was born, “Ah was born back due in slavery…” (Hurston 16). She and her grandmother, Nanny, lived in West Florida on where they lived in the house in the Washburns’—the family that Nanny worked for--back-yard. Nanny scraped together and bought a house that had a pear tree in the back-yard. It was there under the pear tree in her grandmother’s back yard that Janie saw herself as sexual being that began her journey, “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the

Janie’s marriage with Logan did not match up with what she wished for. He tried to treat her well, but she was unable to accept the faults in their marriage. After meeting the romantic Joe, she was charmed by his big talk of the bright future, and, soon later, they eloped and moved to a new town. At first, Janie was very happy with their relationship, but, as time continued on and priorities changed, she came to find many cracks and bruises in the fruits of their labor. Arguing all the time, much more than she did with Logan, it can be seen by both parties that the other was not who they thought they were. However, they did not leave or abandon each other as expected, and they have similar methods of avoiding conflict: keeping their thoughts

Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston is about the life of Janie Crawford, a girl of mixed race, trying to find true love. The novel talks about how she growths emotionally and matures through different marriages. Janie’s first marriage is planned by Janie’s grandmother AKA Nanny with good intensions to a farmer by the name pf Logan Killicks. Unfortunately, Nanny's arrange marriage doesn’t go to well. Janie becomes annoyed with Logan even though he is reliable he has no inspirations. Logan is also abusive, he threatens to kill her when she does not obeying him. Janie divorces Logan for Joe Starks a confident, high class man. Joe moves Janie to Eatonville, Florida, which is America’s first all-black city. There she lives a wealthy life as the wife of the mayor.

Janie did not want to marry Logan Killlicks but she was also trying to be a little positive about it too. She felt lonely so she thought that maybe this marriage will bring her a good friend and husband and she won’t have to feel alone anymore. She just wanted to feel loved and have someone who cared for her by her side, “Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn't seem so destructive and mouldly. She wouldn't be lonely anymore”

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Mae Crawford, the Protagonist, is involved in three diverse relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie grows into young woman through marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.

Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the plot was focused on both Janie's series of romantic relationships as well as on Janie's individual quest for self-fulfillment and spiritual nourishment. In the novel, Janie's marriages are what most greatly impact her individual quest, but in doing so they actually force Janie to become aware of what it is that she wants for herself as an individual. Janie's experiences within her marriages, are what drive her to recognize that what she most actively seeks is a voice for herself—to be someone who can speak and be listened to. The distinctive personalities of Jody and Tea Cake in particular bring to light Janie's progress toward finding a voice. While Jody stifles Janie and does not allow

In chapter three of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie was married to Logan Killicks and began to live with him on his isolated area of land. Janie was under the impression that her love for Logan would begin almost immediately after the two were married. Janie believed this due to the fact that her Nanny had told her so beforehand. When Janie arrive at Logan’s house she went inside and began to wait for her love for him to begun. After three months had passed and she still felt nothing for Logan she began to worry and went to visit her Nanny for advice. When she arrived at her Nanny’s house she began to tell her of her issues and as usual Nanny became irritated. She told her to do what she was told by Logan and that eventually her love for him would begin to show. I feel that Janie would never truly be able to feel any type

Throughout the majority of the book, Janie was explaining to her best friend, Pheoby, what had happened from her youth until that day, when she returned to Eastonville without her third husband, Tea Cake. Janie is attracted to each of her three husbands in different ways. Her first husband, Logan Killicks, was whom her grandmother arranged her to marry because she wanted Janie to be financially supported and respected rather than truly loved. Janie then leaves Logan because after a year of being pampered, he starts asking her to help on the farm and she feels she is being disrespected and used. She learns from this, that you should love the person you marry, not marry them because they have the money to support you.

Picture yourself searching for true love like the bee and flower action. Difficult to image? This is the life of Janie Crawford, the lead character in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie Crawford is a girl of mixed black and white heritage which was not an easy time to be of the mixed race around the turn of the century. As an adolescent, seeing a bee pollinating a flower in her backyard pear tree becomes her obsession of finding true love. In Their Eyes Were Watching God the roles that nature played in the novel are love, relationship, and hurricane.

Both Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Burnett’s The Secret Garden can be tentatively defined as coming of age novels. Before delving into the works, however, the term coming of age should be properly defined. Its most common