Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston: Character Analysis

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Outside Reading Form/Structure Plot: Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, dances around Janie Crawford’s endeavor to aspire to her dreams and pursue happiness in her life. The novel is a narration of Janie Crawford’s progression through life, with the use of extended flashbacks presented through friend Pheoby and is organized in a timely matter. Although the beginning starts off with Janie being old and stuff, the next pages goes back to Janie’s life from where she was born and how she got to the place she was sitting now. The novel focuses on Janie’s relationships and thoughts as she travels in the search for love, freedom and happiness. The novel begins when Janie starts to tell her life story to her best friend…show more content…
“Ah know exactly what Ah got to tell yuh, but it’s hard to know where it start at.” (Hurston 8) Janie explicitly expresses her ideas and thoughts which are portrayed in her actions throughout her novel. The agenda of Janie Crawford’s life is subconsciously because the story was about her life, and she did not have control over what happened next or who she fell in love with. Her point of view affects the novel as a whole because she only represents her thoughts and emotions not of those other…show more content…
This idea is demonstrated through Jody and Tea Cake’s actions. Jody displays that he has a lot of power amongst the people due to the fact that he is mayor. Soon enough, he believes that he is a very strong man and that no one could ever interfere with him or have the audacity to embarrass him. However, rebellious Janie lost her temper and soon yells at Jody in front of many town people and embarrass him. Because he was so furious that Janie had done so, he responded by hitting her. “So he struck Janie with all his might and drove her from the store.” (Hurston 80) Jody wanted to prove that he was the one who had power. However, soon after Jody dies due to a disease. “The she starched and ironed her face, forming into just what people wanted to see, and opened up the window and cried, “Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah husband is gone from me” (Hurston 87) This limit to the scope of one’s power proves the central problem with Jody’s power-oriented approach toward achieving fulfillment: ultimately, Jody can neither stop his deterioration nor silence Janie’s strong will. Title: I believe that the title Their Eyes were watching God is appropriate. Throughout the novel, Janie consistently refers to God and because her knowledge of God made her to the character she is now. “She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful

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