An Epic Search in Their Eyes Were Watching God :: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essays

An Epic Search in Their Eyes Were observance paragon          In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston shows howthe lives of American women changed in the earlyish 20th century. Zora NealeHurston creates a character in her own likeness in her masterpiece, Their EyesWere Watching God. By presenting Janies search for identity, from herchildbirth with Nanny to the death of Tea Cake, Hurston shows what a freesouthern black women might have experienced in the early decades of the century.To the racial ties that would affect Janie all the way through this life longsearch.         Janies search for identity actually started long before she was born.Because Janies search is her familys search. Nanny and Janies mammary gland gave Janiea reason to search. They were constantly held back by their owners, and their ownerstook advantage of them, and raped them. They raped them of their identity. Nannysignifies to evade the realities of her life and the life of Janie. When Nannysays, Thank yuh, Massa Jesus, she is illustrating that although she is nolonger a slave, the slave consciousness has caused her to view even herrelationship with the deity about slave and master. This makes Janie the leaderof her familys search. However Nanny realized this, and when she saw that Janiewas old enough for love she had her married. This guaranteed that Janie wouldnot continue a loss of identity.         Even as a young girl, living in the materialistic populace of her Nanny andher first husband, Logan Killicks, Janie chooses to listen to the words of thetrees and the wind (23-24). This is the first evidence of her searching beyondher boring life. This then leads to her everyday life left empty, because she isalways looking farther than where she is at the time. So day by day she getsmore worked up into leaving Logan, and searching for love. When she leaves Loganto run o ff with Joe, she thinks to herself, Her old thoughts were deprivation to comein handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them (31).         Joe aims to be a big articulate and that is why he comes to Eatonville,Florida. He feels that he will have a better chance at being a big voice in anall black town than in a white mans town. The problem is that he has adoptedwhite mans values and forces them upon the townspeople and, most notably, upon