Critical Essay Their Eyes Were Watching God free essay sample

Critical Essay: Their Eyess Were Watching God Essay, Research Paper Critical Essay: THEIR Eyess WERE WATCHING GOD It all begins with parents. However, although genetic sciences play a cardinal function in what sort of individual one becomes, environment is the other major factor that influences a individual? s development. The people a individual meets and the experiences one has are really of import elements impacting development. With the three matrimonies Janie has, she develops as a adult female. In each matrimony she learns valuable lessons, taking to increasingly break relationships, recognizing how a individual is to populate his/her life. In Their Eyess Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie? s three matrimonies lead her to self-knowledge and therefore to fulfilment. Janie? s matrimony to Login Killicks provides her with the realisation that matrimonies make non needfully vouch common love. Her pre-marital construct of love and matrimony is symbolized in the natural brotherhood of bee and flower: She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the sing bees, the gold of the Sun and the puffing breath of the zephyr when the unhearable voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom ; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to run into the love embracing and the enraptured tremble of the tree from root to tiniest subdivision creaming in every flower and foaming with delectation. So this was a matrimony! She had been summoned to lay eyes on a disclosure. ( p.11 ) In this dream, Janie conveys her thought of matrimony being the apogee of love, of two separate entities going one and turning together. To the remainder of society, as represented by Login Killicks and her grandma, matrimony is non about love, but is instead a concern trade that merely includes protection and reproduction. Her grandma says, ? ? Tain? T Logan Killicks Ah wants you to hold, babe, it? s protection. ? ( p.15 ) These beliefs run contrary to everything that Janie has wished and hoped a matrimony to be: ? Ah wants things sweet wid mah matrimony lak when you sit under a pear tree and think. ? ( p.24 ) , a matrimony that is filled with an equal and physical love. When she inquiries her grandma, Nanny continually indoctrinates her with positions of matrimony she does non accept. She eventually relents and marries Login Killicks. As her matrimony unfolds, Janie Begins to oppugn herself and why she had yielded to positions that she neer believed in. ? Did marriage stop the cosmic solitariness of the unmated? Did marriage compel like the Sun the twenty-four hours? ? ( p.21 ) . Finally, she comes to the realisation that, ? matrimony did non do love. Janie? s foremost dream was dead, so she became a woman. ? ( p.25 ) In her matrimony to Joe Starks, Janie shortly learns that her new muliebrity serves merely to reflect his place and wealth. From the beginning of their relationship, marks indicate that Joe is non needfully the love Janie is looking for. ? On the train the following twenty-four hours, Joe didn? t make many addresss with rimes to her, but he bought her the best things the meatman had # 8230 ; ? ( p.34 ) The consequence money has on Joe? s life is already evident. He buys her merely material things because he is ownership-oriented. Janie notices the job early in the relationship and confronts Joe about it, stating? it jus? looks lak it keeps us in some manner we ain? t natural wid one nother. You? se ever off talkin? and fixin? things, and Ah feels lak Ah? m jus? markin clip. Hope it shortly gits over. ? ( p.46 ) His response greatly depicts his position of her. ? Over, Janie? I god, Ah ain? t even started good. Ah told you in Delawares really beginnin? dat Ah aimed tuh be a large voice. You oughta be glad, cause digital audiotapes make uh large adult female outa you. ? ( p.46 ) Janie realizes that she can non be unfastened with Joe ; he is no longer the adult male she had met by the H2O pump. Joe has many of his ain involvements, none of which are concerned with J anie. ? She found out that she had a host of ideas she had neer expressed to him # 8230 ; She was salvaging up feelings for some adult male that she had neer seen. ? ( p.72 ) He continues to handle Janie as a contemplation of himself when he wants her to appear attractive ; love at merely a material degree. ? Jody told her to dress up and stand in the shop all that flushing # 8230 ; and he didn? t mean for cipher else? s married woman to rank with her. ? ( p.41 ) Joe besides suppresses Janie, both as a adult female and a human being, and sets a bound on her self-realization, handling her more like an object than a adult female. He lumps adult females in with mere things: ? Person got to believe for adult females and chilun and poulets and cattles. ? ( p.71 ) All in all, throughout her matrimony she learns that wealth does non convey felicity. Finally recognizing that she is merely another ownership of Joe Starks, she says, ? You done lived wid me for 20 old ages and you don? t half cognize me atall. And you could hold but you was so busy worshippin? de plants of yo? ain custodies, and cuffin? folks around in their heads till you didn? t see uh whole pile uh things yuh could have. ? ( p.86 ) After Joe dies, she besides concludes that she had been losing something in her life, and realizes the following adult male she meets is perfect for her. Janie? s development as a adult female becomes complete after life and larning with Vergible? Tea Cake? Woods. Tea Cake catalyzes the concluding phase of development of Janie as a adult female. From Tea Cake, Janie learns to love and what it feels like to be loved. He represents everything Janie has of all time wanted in a matrimony: She couldn? Ts make him look like any other adult male to her. He looked like the love ideas to be oppressing scent out of the universe with his footfalls. Crushing aromatic herbs with every measure he took. Spice hung about him. He was a glimpse from God. ( p.106 ) Tea Cake non merely encourages her growing to independence, but contributes to it by learning her accomplishments such as hunting and draughtss, while at the same clip, praising her for her endowments. He farther proves this by taking her fishing, runing, dance, and horticulture with her. For a piece, Janie and Tea Cake even work the Fieldss together. For the first clip in her life, Janie enjoys life because she experiences what it feels to be loved. She says ? # 8230 ; we ain? T got nothin? tuh do but make our work and come place and love? ( p.133 ) . Tea Cake has none of the fiscal stableness of the first two work forces, but has an openness of head that allows Janie to get away from people? s outlooks. He makes Janie recognize that she must make up ones mind what she wants out of life, and discovers she hated the restrictions Nanny imposed on her self-realization: ? Nanny had taken the biggest thing God of all time made, the skyline # 8230 ; and squeeze it into such a small spot of a thing that she could bind it about her granddaughter # 8217 ; s make out tight plenty to choke her. ? ( p.89 ) From her matrimony with Tea Cake, Janie eventually lives her dream of love and believes it is something really few people of all time acquire to see. Janie? s matrimony with Tea Cake brings her to a concluding phase of self-fulfillment. Janie clearly progresses in her development as a adult female through the matrimonies she has had with three really different work forces. Logan Killicks is her starting topographic point and from him she learns that she was losing a common love. Although Janie feels Joe Starks would supply her with what she thinks is love, it is merely a show to win her over, finally giving manner to his subterranean motivation of constructing a name for himself. His decease gives Janie a new opportunity, leting Tea Cake the privilege of being the following to get married Janie and the chance to learn her what it is to love and to be loved. Janie began the procedure of going a adult female when her first dream was broken and continues and completes her growing as a individual through the joys and sorrows, the letdowns and fufillments of her three matrimonies.