Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis
Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on a beautiful mulatto woman named Janie Crawford. This piece of literature carves a tale of what was once an awful time to be an African American. It begins with a brief section of what was the end of the story, and the flash-forward quickly ends after the first chapter. Chapter 2 picks up at the story's true beginning. At the start of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, a sixteen year old black girl growing up in rural west Florida around 1920 to 1935, is raised by her grandmother. The Civil War had been over for 40-50 years; however, America, particularly amongst the southern most states, is not changed dramatically after Lincoln's Reconstruction. African-American racism, prejudice, and just plain uneducated bias heavily exists throughout most of the United States. Janie Crawford goes through major self discovery when the story starts. Janie's grandmother, her only caretaker at this time, grew up as a slave. Knowing how bad things could be if not properly taken care of - by a wealthy land owner - Janie's grandmother did only what she knew best. She had Janie marry at the tender age of sixteen. The depressing thing about this was
Tea Cake takes two hundred dollars from Janie to go gamble with it with his rough, rowdy friends. Joe overhears his wife and buys the mule for five dollars. She spoke against Joe Starks in front of the townspeople. The town thinks that Janie is glad her husband passed away because she stops wearing the mourning color "black. When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life. Tea Cake lives vividly in Janie's mind and he will continue to live on in her memories. Janie needed to be left alone and live her childhood, but would not get that yet. A small fat girl would try to flirt with Tea Cake by touching and teasing him. She grew from a somewhat independent woman to a respectable, wise woman free from obligation. After those eleven years had passed, Joe had aged to a disgusting state. " (The Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature 344) This insult killed Joe's reputation, which he had worked hard to maintain for the past twelve years! Janie had obviously taken a major step in her growth towards total independence and finding true love. Janie grew, in that she stood up against the wishes of her grandmother and her husband.
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Acceptance Essays
