Their Eyes Were Watching God: Comprehension and Analysis Blog

Janie’s hair, as mentioned in chapter one, is the signature of her personality, strength, and beauty.  However, when she goes down to Eatonville with Jody, Jody begins to act superior and controlling.  He demands that Janie wear her hair up in rags and deny it’s straight silky beauty. This is to appear unattractive to other men and to keep all spotlight and strenght on Jody himself.

I found a connection with this to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah.  Samson’s long hair made him strong.  In the middle of the night, Delilah cut it all off to make him weak, for she was jealous.  Indeed, Samson did become unbearably weak the following morning.  I think that Janie’s unusually straight (white) hair is a symbol of her strength and her ability to prevail over Jody’s overpowering attitude.  Once she lets her hair down, it will be as if she is letting her guard down. 

***It is interesting, once again, how in the Samson and Delilah story vs. Jody and Janie’s story, the gender roles are reversed. Hmmmm… 

                                                                                                              -Alana

It struck me how independent Janie is within two different situations. Within one, she is calm, collected, obedient (when she talks to Nanny), and within another she is rebellious and independent (after her conversation with Starks opens her eyes), but within both she seems to be hindered by the inability to form her own opinions. This seems to speak of the role of women in Hurston’s world. Janie is constantly being told what to do. When Joe Starks says to Janie, “You ain’t got no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday,” she tells her husband when he asks her to use that plow that “Youse in yo’ place and A’m in mine” (Hurston, 28, 30). When she had fist heard of her marrying Logan, Janie was distraught, and after a fierce convincing by her Nanny, she is convinced that she is “gointer love him” (Hurston 22).

It seems as though Janie personifies the woman who Hurson defines as a subject to her surroundings. This woman must learn to grow, to become her won woman and be able to think on her own. When she and Jo Starks venture into a new town, a similie for her need for growth is seen when Joe discovers there is no mayor in the town.

“Ain’t got no Mayor! Well, who tells y’all what to do?”

“Nobody. Everybody’s grown.” (Hurston 33).

            Perhaps once Janie is able to free herself from the people who tell her what to do (her Nanny, her husbands, ect.) She will be able to grow and have her own identity, and possibly black women of Hurston’s time will be able to grow and stand on their own feet, and none of them will need a mayor.

–Mary

Chapters 3-5 begin to introduce the reader to cultural influences from Florida.  The biggest historical influence from Florida at that time is probably the town of Eatonville.  When Joe and Janie show up, it is a town that is to be run and populated by all black people.  And that is in fact what is starts to turn into quite successfully into.  The Eatonville of the story represents the Eatonville of real life, which was indeed a small town in Southern Florida completely run by black people.  Hurston’s father was a powerful man in Eatonville, even the mayor for a while, and there was indeed a man named Joe Clarke: “…as well as the home of Joe Clarke’s store porch. The porch became a stage as neighbors sat around on milk crates skillfully transforming simple gossip into folktales” (Gale Research).  These overwhelming similarities leads the reader to believe that Their Eyes Were Watching God is an allegory for Zora Neale Hurston’s life.

     Another similarity between Zora’s life and Janie’s is that Janie is raised (and very much loved) by her Nanny.  Similarly, Hurston was reported to be very close with her mother: “Lucy Ann Hurston, a former country school teacher, was delighted with her daughter’s spiritedness” (Gale Research).  When Lucy Hurston dies when Zora is nine, Zora’s relationship with her father becomes increasingly strained and eventually falls apart.  Likewise, after Nanny dies in Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie’s relationship with the main male in her life, Logan, falls apart.  Are there more subtle ways shown to the reader so far in which the story is like Hurston’s life?

                                                                                                  -Kara Buchan

I think the role of women in Their Eyes Were Watching God is an interesting interpretation of women’s rights during that time period.  It would seem that the women are caught half way between two worlds.  On one hand, they are African-Americans who have just earned their right to freedom.  Then they are also women, who are in fact not entitled to all the same rights as men.  Janie, as a black woman, manages to escape actual slavery, but finds in the real world that black men have assumed the position of slave holders.  Logan Killicks tells Janie that: “You ain’t got no particular place.  It’s wherever Ah need yuh.  Git uh move on yuh, and dat quick” (Hurston 30).  He sees her as a slave.  I think it is interesting that in this particular scene, Logan is discussing going to purchase a new mule, yet he is talking to Janie like she is a mule that he can load up with his chores and she will go out and make his work easier. 

            Contrary to the wishes of her Nanny, husband, and even the society she lives in, Janie lives her life the way she wishes.  She embraces both her womanhood and blackness.  Her Nanny marries her off to Logan which is: “frustrating and futile for Janie, as her desire is to explore the world, to take risks, and to savor life’s possibilities- all qualities of and reserved for men in western cultures” (Lester 81).  It is an interesting action coming from Nanny who is indeed the patriarch and matriarch of her family.  She is land owner and the sole provider for the household, so she herself has taken on the more masculine role of the family.  Yet she slaps Janie for her insistence on wanting to travel and find love, Nanny will not allow Janie to have the same patriarchal lifestyle that she now leads.

            As Nicole mentioned in her post, the story is about Janie’s search for her identity.  Can we conclude from Janie’s current taste for freedom that her identity quest will take her towards a more manly identity?  Is it Janie’s embracing the rights of men even though she is a woman that makes her the heroine that women across the country love her for?  Or is it her integration of male characteristics into her womanhood that make her the heroine?

                                                                                                   Kara Buchan

During previous stories, such as The Catcher in the Rye, we discussed seeing vs. being seen as well as imaginary audiences.  Usually, the norm is that God, or other people in heaven, watch people on earth.  However, the title suggests that people on earth are watching the invisible life above: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Why is the situation reversed?

This story expresses a clear doubt of any sort of God.  It speaks of many harsh truths and realities: “Their Eyes alludes to the politics of rape and lynching” (Batker, 1).  Moreover, in chapter 3, when Janie gets married, and is finally happy for the first time, her reception and ride to her new home was disasterous.  “Nut nobody put anything on the seat of Logan’s wagon to make it ride glorious on the way to his house.  It was a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been.  The house was absent of flavor, too” (Hurston, 20-21). This shows that Janie has a clear doubt that God exists and rights every wrong.  The fact that she is looking at God, for me at least, depicts a sense of waiting; waiting for something good to happen. 

Between Janie’s hardships, the Nanny’s hardships, and the hardships of other characters, it creates a sense of doubtfullness that their is a God.  God is a sense of faith, and at this point in the story, Janie seems to lack faith.