Literature Analysis #7

Literature Analysis #7

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston

1. After a long absence, Janie Crawford is now back at Eatonville, Florida. People gossip about her and her young husband, Tea Cake. Her grandmother's wants to marry Janie and finds the perfect fit, Logan Killicks. One day, Joe Starks and Janie flirt and she runs off with him and they get married. They travel to Eatonville where Jody hopes to have a “big voice.” Jody makes some negative comments about Janie's appearance, so she does the same. Jody beats her for making fun of him and their marriage breaks down. Jody gets ill and he soon dies. Janie feels free for the first time in years. Later when she encouters Tea Cake, a man twelve years her junior, Janie is attracted to him. Despite negative gossip people made, she begins dating Tea Cake. Janie marries Tea Cake and leaves town to go with Tea Cake to Jacksonville. A terrible hurricane takes place in the Everglades, and as they flee the rising waters, a rabid dog bites Tea Cake. Tea Cake doesn’t realize the dog’s condition and three weeks later, he falls ill. Tea Cake becomes convinced that Janie is cheating on him. He shoots at Janie, and in order to save herself, she kills him. She is  put on trial for murder but all-male jury finds her not guilty.

2. One of the themes in this book is about gender issues. Janie needs to get married to a man so that her life would be safe. This leads to the idea that women are dependent on men to protect them.

3.Hurston’s main tones are celebratory and sympathy of the richness of African-American culture. 

4. 1)Allusion: The author makes references to the, Civil War, General Sherman Eatonville, Florida, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Booker T. Washington

2) Metaphor: "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches."

3)Foreshadow: "Nanny sent Janie along with a stern mien, but she dwindled all the rest of the day as she worked. And when she [Nanny] gained the privacy of her own little shack she stayed on her knees so long she forgot she was there herself….Towards morning she muttered, "Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do. De rest is left to you." She scuffled up from her knees and fell heavily across the bed. A month later she was dead.

4)Imagery : "She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible 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 meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid."

5)Symbolism: the head-rag Janie wears represents the constraints imposed on women by men in power.