Their Eyes Were Watching God Essays (1482 words) -

Their Eyes Were Watching God The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God contains beautiful imagery that conveys the thoughts of the author towards the antagonist of this story, Janie Crawford. Through her four distinct lives as Janie Crawford, Janie Killicks, Janie Starks, and Janie Woods she realizes that each day the sun rises a new change is apparent in her life. The experience of each distinct life makes her realize more about herself than she ever knew before. She comes to a self-revelation about herself. Even though it takes her the entire novel to realize her sexual awakening from the blossoming pear tree to experience unadulterated love, she does so as the sun falls and rises past the years of her maturing life. The novel starts out with Janie at the ripe age of sixteen realizing her sexual peak. She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. (Hurston: 11). Nanny realizes that Janie has become ready for marriage, after settling for a kiss from a tall and lean, yet poor boy by the name of Johnny Taylor. So, Nanny arranges a marriage between Janie Crawford and Logan Killicks to start Janies new life as Janie Killicks before she would be able to get entangled in the humble life of a poor black man like Johnny Taylor. She was a former slave, so Nanny believed in the value of financial security and respectability. Therefore, she forced Janie into marrying Logan Killicks when she was still in her teens. A year passed by with Janie realizing that she did not love Logan and would never love him, so she felt it was time for a change. Janie left Logan for the high-spirited and charming Jody Starks. They sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged. (Hurston: 33). Janie realized that it was time for a change and to take a chance in attempt to attain love by her own means. Nanny wouldve disapproved of the big talk behind a black man like Jody Starks; however, he would create an even more financially stable setting for Janie to live in than in the marriage she set up Janie with the farmer, Logan Killicks. Marrying Joe without even divorcing Logan, she settles with him in her new life at Eatonville. He buys two hundred acres of land, quickly becoming mayor of the all-black town with Janie becoming Mrs. Mayor. She is forced to run the grocery store, which she doesnt like and is often ordered around and ridiculed by her husband. Joe was now showing his true character since before they got married he said he would love her and treat her with the utmost respect, but this wasnt the case at all. Living with the pain caused by her second husband for almost two decades, she realized that he wasnt the man she was looking for. She was thirty-five now and was beginning to mature. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods-come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didnt value. (Hurston: 76). More now than ever she realizes that Joe was a harsh and cold man she never loved. Also, this foreshadows Jodys sickness and the chance for Janie to tell him that he was a stubborn old man that had covered his physical ailments by exploiting others just before he dies. Nine months after the death of Jody, without expecting a man to dazzle her into a relationship, Janie finds a young, nice-looking man who is fun to be with. Well, Ah love tuh find out whut you think after sun-up tomorrow. Dis is just you night thought. (Hurston: 105). After Tea Cake says this, Janie starts to realize that even though she doesnt admit it to herself at first that she loves Tea Cake, she is actually starting