Their Eyes Were Watching God: Comprehension and Analysis Blog

After finshing up the book, I was finally able to observe Janie’s growth of character from the beginning to the end. Janie has not only found her voice and freedom but has grown strenght from her journey and is at peace with herself. In Janie’s first two marriages she realized that both of her husbands “had stopped talking in rhymes to her… had creased to wonder at her long black hair and finger it” (Hurston 25).

In her relationship with Tea Cake he never once stopped admiring her beauty or make her hide or stay isolated because of it. Tea Cake wished to show Janie the world and with him Janie eperienced many new things. “Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance. Tea Cake gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to the movies. Tea Cake making flower beds in Janie’s yard…”(Hurston 105). Like Jody, Tea Cake brings Janie to work with him but only because he wishes to spend more time with her. Even after death Janie can still feel Tea Cake’s love for her. Janie can be content with herself now because Tea Cake has showed her all the beauty in the world and in the short time they were together shows her love unlike anything Janie has every experinced. While speaking with Pheoby in the last chapter, Janie states, “Dey gointuh make ‘miration ’cause mah love didn’t work lak they love, if dey ever had any…. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore” (Hurston 182). Is this something Janie would of been able to say after Jody died? Because of Tea Cake Janie knows love in her heart something that in her entire life she never knew. I feel that because of this Janie knows that Tea Cake will never be dead to her and she will always have the memories of their happiness. My final question is, if Janie has gotten her ultimate dream of love does this mean that the horizone is a projection of Janie’s inner peace and happiness?

-Monica

While reading the ending of the novel, in chapter 19, right after the trial sequence some men were talking about the trial right outside where Janie was staying, they said, “Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please” (Hurston 180).  I noticed how this was contradictory to what Janie’s grandmother said earlier in the novel, “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world” (Hurston 14).  I was wondering what everyone has to say about this and if they noticed it also. I also it is interesting of the gender of the people who say it and their perspective. Men say the women and it good while women disagree. I also think the men who said that were black like Janie’s Grandmother, but I am not sure.

                                                                       - Andy

             Chapter 17 is a very short chapter right before the climax of the entire story. Although it has a small amount of text, it is an important connecting device to the climax. When I read the first page of chapter 17, I was surprised that Tea Cake beat up Janie, but I was even more surprised that Janie did not defy him. At first, I understood this incident as Hurston’s strategy to make an appropriate connection between before and after chapter 17. However there is something with deeper meaning; it shows how much Janie has developed herself to use her silence to express herself. Beside Jody, Janie’s silence was a symbol of her weakness and helplessness but after his death, helped by Tea Cake, she found her voice back and now she knows how to use it suitably. Her silence is only her strength in chapter 17!
 
By the way I have a quick question, is tomorrow day 1 or day 2??
 
Chris Kim

One thing that really stood out to me in Chapter 6 was Matt Bonner’s yellow mule.  I saw a huge connection between the mule and Janie’s situations.  First of all, it is interesting that Hurston chose to make it a yellow mule.  Yellow is usually a reference to light-skinned African-Americans like Janie.  Also Nanny earlier referred to women as the “mules of the world.”  So, I connected the yellow mule to Janie.

When Janie was married to Logan, he forced her to work and treated her like a beast of burden.  This could be paralleled to Bonner’s treatment of the mule. Then, when Janie married Jody he allowed her to live a life of ease, basically as a trophy wife.  Since Jody lured Janie in with his big ambitions and money, in a way he “bought” her affection and took her away from Logan.  He also bought the mule away from Matt Bonner and made it his own.

Finally, the mule became a centerpiece of the town and the subject of many legends and tall tales.  Janie, as the mayor’s wife, is also a major symbol in the town and is often in the spotlight.

Although this connection is clear, one thing I don’t understand is why Jody would not let Janie go to the mule’s funeral.  If the mule symbolizes Janie, why did Hurston choose to let is die and get eaten by vultures?

Perhaps the mule’s death could be a symbolic freeing of Janie’s soul.  Maybe one part of her died with the mule and she is now ready to stand up to Jody.

-Ariel

While reading the poem “November Cotton Flower” by Jean Toomer, a question arises that we feel relates closely with the last scene in chapter 8. This question is: What might this sudden unexpected apperance of beauty symbolize? This question refers to the cotton flower that appears in Winter in the poem, but we also feel this can be applied to Janie’s sudden realization of her own beauty; “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there” (Hurston 83). This quote depicts a sudden unexpected apperance of beauty durring Janie’s metaphorical winter. Janie should be mourning her late husbands death (this symbolizes the winter) but she has grown through life experences and age and comes to realize that although she is no longer young, she is still beautiful. In other words, Joe repressed Janies beauty during their twenty year marriage and only when she was free of him could she see herself as an individual; beautiful in her own right.

All of this relates to the American dream because Lincon’s ultimate lesson to the American public is that one cannot find happiness by trying to gain fame and weath but instead can inspire hope in ones self and hope in others by eliminating prejudice. Janie’s sudden realization of her beauty in this period of mourning relates to the American Dream because she observes that she is important as an individual and can succeed by herself. She is motivated by her own strength and strives not for propriety but for freedom from her decessed husband and his hold on repressing her beauty.

So our final thought on the matter is if it really is unexpected for Janies beauty to shine through in her darkest moments? Or should it be expected to have a glimmer of hope during a metaphorical winter?

Posted by: Monica and Alyssa
(Sorry for the late post! We were both away over break)

Something that has always boggled my mind is when someone is racist towards someone in their own race. A prime example of this is Mrs. Turner. She is a lighter skinned negro, and feels superior to any darker skin negro, and she is not afraid to hide her opinions. Mrs. Turner is immediatley drawn to Janie for the same reason, because she has much lighter skin, and white hair. Mrs. Turner will often visit with Janie and discuss her harse opinions with Janie. Mrs. Turner’s main concern stems from the fact that Janie is married to Tea Cake, she would classify Tea Cake as a “common nigger”. The term “common nigger” is deamed to anyone with dark skin, who works in the field. Mrs. Turner just can not understand how Janie, who is much lighter skin, and therefore classier, than her dark skinned husband, could marry someone like Tea Cake. Mrs. Turner’s initial reaction was the Tea Cake must of had a lot of money when Janie married him.

“Whut make you think dat, Mis’ Turner?” (Hurston 135).

“Tuh git hold of uh woman lak you. You got mo’ nerve than me. Ah jus’ couldn’t see mahself married to no black man. It’s too many black folks already. We oughta lighten up de race (Hurston 134-135).

In Mrs. Turner’s mind the only way a woman like Janie would marry a man like Tea Cake is if he had a lot of money. And in fact, in Janie and Teak Cake’s situation the case is just the oppisite. Janie is the one with all of the money, so clearly she married Tea Cake only out of love for him.

Mrs. Turner says some very inetesrtign things in that one quote: “Ah jus’ couldn’t see mahself married to no black man” (Hurston 135). Mrs. Turner is black, and she is married to a black man.  In her eyes, she doesnt see this because they are lighter skin. Ultimatley she is dividing a line within her own race. She is saying even though i am from the same race as you i am better because my skin is lighter. Where does Mrs. Turner get this notion from? Is it a reprecussion of the attitudes of whites towards blacks? Is it steming from a desire to be white?

EMIILY DESTEFANO

         “Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West” (Hurston 79). “He stands in his high house that overlooks the world” (Hurston 80).  Death is something that Janie encounters in chapters 8-11. However, it is not the death of her husband that she faces but the death of her old life. Through this death the old Janie is reborn. Death is an archetype that remakes Janie the person that she once was.

          Through the death of Joe (Jody) Janie becomes whole again. When they got married he forced Janie to live like the mayor’s wife. He opresses he spirtually, mentally, and physically. For example he isolates her from the society and people in the town and he makes her put he hair up in a scarf, and as it was discussed in early blogs Janie’s hair is an important part of her. It is the part that will forever keep her young and therefore keep her alive. He gets ride of all that is Janie, which is a free, strong-minded, independent woman. When Jody dies Janie is allowed to become herself once again and therefore she is reborn as a whole new woman. “The young girls was gone, but a handsome woman has taken her place….She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair” (Hurston 83).Also, because of Janie’s rebirth as a “new” woman Janie begins a new journey. She faces the challenge of being a new person in an old world, but she is determined and ready to face it, “she had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she find them and they find her” (Hurston 85). She indeed does find someone. She goes on to meets Tea Cake.

        I saw Tea Cake as a symbol of her new life. He is everything that Jody wasn’t, poor, loving, young, and he had an optimism for life in general. He is the person that is going to make Janie’s life complete because he promises to give her the world. My question to you guys is in what ways does Tea Cake symbolize Janie’s new life? Do you see Tea Cake as a new beginning to a better life in the journey that Janie’s is about to undergo or is he the beginning to Janie’s end?

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Leena John

Elements of folklore are prevalent in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. The most obvious examples don’t occur until Chapter 2, as Chapter 1 serves mostly to describe the setting. Many of the folk elements can be examined into their small contribution to the larger picture of folklore. For example, when Janie is describing her childhood and states that “Before ah seen de picture ah thought ah wuz just like de rest,” she is confirming a sense of the culture in which she lives (Hurston 9). Growing up and playing with the white children she didn’t think anything of racial status. When she sees herself and realizes she is black, and more importantly, that black sets her apart from her surroundings, it affirms a cultural understanding of racial separation. This carries much the same purpose as when Janie’s Grandma states, “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as ah can see” (Hurston 14). Although the narrator is simply reminiscing about something her Grandmother once said, on another level these situations serve as windows into the culture in which the characters live and, are therefore, elements of folklore. Similiarly, when Janie is caught kissing Johnny Taylor and is called inside by her Grandmother, the narrator states, “That was the end of her childhood” (Hurston 12). This statement alludes to tradition. Janie’s Grandmother believed she was growing old enough to marry based on what she witnessed. In today’s society, this of course would not be the case, however, this element of folklore allows the reader to accept something that is different from there own life.

After reading the first chapter, i noticed that figuartive language plays a huge role in the first chapter.  During class on thursday, we analyzed a passage from the first chapter, and as we could tell it was filled with multiple personifacations, metaphorss, repititon and many other examples of figuartive language.  My favorite line was “but nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody even thought to swallow spit until after her gate slammed behind her,” because the repition allows the author to portray the importance of the moment (Hurston 2).  It also describes the shocking image of Janie, by showing that she is very attractive and that the citizens of the town are suprised to see her.

 Another thing i noticed was that Janie is extremely similar to Holden, from Catcher in the Rye.  She is telling her story to a friend, much like Holden did.  It is hard to tell whether or not she is reliable, because she arrived at her home unexpected and mentioned the burial and death of someone.  She does not seem to be in a good state of mind.  Although not in an insane asylum liek Holden, I still dont trust what Janie is telling us.

Hello Class!

We will utilize this venue to maintain an open dialogue discussing our understanding and analysis of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Each student is assigned to a group responsible for facilitating and maintaining a discussion on a set of assigned chapters.  Facilitators are to explain the content of assigned chapters, point out elements of style and literary techniques utilized by author, and analyze the impact on the content and author intent.  Information for literary criticism research must be incorporated into the discussion.  In addition, facilitators need to pose questions to the class which probe figurative interpretation and understanding.  Both faciliatators and the class will be assessed on the level of involvement and effort they exhibit in the discussion.