Throughout life everyone tries to find their identity. For some people finding their identity is easy or natural but for others it could take years before finding themselves. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston; the author follows the protagonist, Janie Crawford. Her journey involved three marriages which helped serve as a stepping stone in her search for love and self-discovery. Having to transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, Janie struggled with the life she dreamed of living. Growing up she symbolized a blossoming pear tree which represented the true meaning of love and marriage to her. It was at that moment when she knew what kind of love to search for and wouldn't stop until her life was as perfect as the pear tree. There are three significant plots throughout the novel that lead her to both love and self-discovery: marrying Logan Killicks, Jody Starks, and Vergible Woods.
Growing up Janie was raised by her grandmother, Nanny. Once Janie was sixteen her Nanny married her off to a man named Logan. The reason for marrying Janie off at such a young age was because her nanny knew she wouldn't live for much longer and she couldn't bare the thought of Janie not being taken care of in life while she was gone. Logan who is a wealthy farmer with sixty acres of land marries Janie and quickly moves her into his house. It didn't take Janie long to know Logan wasn't the one to achieve the love she had in mind. Additionally, Janie decided to tell her Nanny that Logan wasn't meant to be loved. She said she did not like the way he looked, "his belly is too big, now, and his toe-nails look lak mule foots" (Hurston, 24) and "he don't even never mention nothin' pretty" (Hurston, 24). Instead, of showing her the affection she dreamed of Logan had her perform manual labor on his land. She came to the conclusion after her Nanny passed that he did not fit her mesmerizing image of a pear tree and that she didn't love him.
Janie's experience underneath the pear tree affects her views of love and her decisions for the rest of her life. Hurston uses words and phrases like: virginity, gold, panting breath, sanctum of a bloom, arch to meet the love embrace, and frothing in delight, all of which are connected to sexua...
" The imagery details how once the light of the day is gone, the town becomes comfortable to express their thoughts. ... They passed nations through their mouths. ... They feel high and mighty by exercising their opinions and judgements, as if they are a judge issuing a verdict in court. ... But women act in the present, their dreams have to fit within reality, and that is how they must live their lives; they aren't afforded the luxury to dream and hope for their lives as they'd please. ... In the final two paragraphs, "They scrambled a noisy "good evenin'" ...
The variety of passionately displayed themes, interactions, and events presented in The Bluest Eye provide an understanding of Toni Morrison's inner thoughts and beliefs which were highly impacted by her various life experiences. ... Their talents helped to motivate Morrison to write about the things that she is most familiar with, such as her African American culture. ... She believes that it reminds people about their heritage and shows them their place in the community. ... Expanding on the representation of Jesus or God in The Bluest Eye, Alexander understands the problem of how a ...
Through the analysis of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Shelley's Frankenstein, Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, it is not difficult to draw the common thread between the five literary pieces: the setting of each propagates an emotional conflict that guides the protagonist' actions and thoughts. ... It is also the setting where Victor creates the monster that destroys his family and leads to the emotional devastation of his own life ""when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, m...
He is systematically brainwashed, made to watch his comrades and converts die for his sake. ... The Japanese officials were cunning in using the peasants, almost as blackmail, in order to force the missionaries to recant their faith. It is one thing to endure suffering, it is quite another to watch a loved one go through it. ... His father was indolent; a debtor and a "weak- individual in Okonkwo's eyes. ... His actions, though understandable, were inherently selfish, and his "cause- was mostly personal. ...
She's portrayed as Carl Jung's psychological analysis of Self. ... When Addie finally dies in her bed, after her life of pride, "Her eyes are like two candles when you watch them gutter down into the sockets of iron candlesticks." ... Dewey Dell truly is a creator of earthly existence, serving as a literary figure of reality and facts. Such is true when she's riding on the wagon to New Hope, stating, "I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God." ...
Morrison describes how African-American girls during this time period were encouraged to aspire to be white. ... The literary lenses I will use to demonstrate Morrison's intent will be based on Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye's various literary theories. ... Pecola Breedlove is a young black girl who is the hero in this analysis. ... Due to the notion of where beauty lies that was implanted in her mind at such a young age she is obsessed with the need to achieve this beauty and longs to obtain blue eyes as it occurs to Pecola that "if her eyes were different, that is to s...
During the romantic Americn literary history, Natheneil Hawthorne ranks first in nearly everyone's mind. ... They were so free from the control of Britain that their economy, especially, the commerce and the society had greatly developed and it was along with the independent awareness --- the American Nation formed and the American people tried to govern their own country by their own will. ... They formed their religious community and set up a civil government for the general good of the colonies they were going to found in New England. ... Hester and Chillingworth were both the immi...
Thus, people could obviously secure larger and more reliable satisfactions than by their individual or family efforts. ... Family drama, or "domestic" drama, is centered on characters‟ intimate relationships, their actions towards each other and their responses to the surrounding circumstances and events. ... Specifically, Stephanie Coontz, in "The Way We Never Were" (1992), refers to a „family drama‟ as "a staged play that contains any group of two or more persons who engage in ongoing intimacy and obligation, whether they do so because of birth, marriage, adoption or choice.... Th...
