Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis

Finding Yourself To be different is to be unique and to stand by your own judgment. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Hurston, is a coming of age novel with a heartwarming romance in the 1930s by showing the integrity of the narrator, Janie Crawford whom tells her viewpoint of what it took to find love, by first finding herself. Alike, from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s excerpt Self-Reliance and Henry David Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience, these transcendentalist thinkers also believed individuals should be able to trust their selves to make the right decisions in life by following their instincts, and to not abide to society’s obligations. And so, the readers are shown how society was the puppeteer, while Janie was the puppet lost in the
Like the horizon, it is far off to the distance and it can never be touched, but you can still feel the warmth of the setting sun. Janie at first thought she understood and captured her happiness when Joe Starks, her second husband, a well suited gentleman enters her life, she leaves her previous husband and Joe and Janie ride off onto “the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged” (Hurston, 33). Janie believes Joe was her carriage ride to happiness as they rode down towards the horizon and wed. It is true, Joe did treat Janie fairly as he bought her a life of luxury by coming to Eatonville and making a Mayor out of himself. However, he secluded her from society’s interaction and hid her in his shadows and therefore Janie lost her happiness and her will power to speak her mind. Janie has concluded that she “hates disagreement and confusion, so [she] better not talk. It makes it hard tuh git along” (Hurston, 57). She has hushed her lips and let the talking be talked by her husband. Janie’s happiness has diminished into a thin ray over the horizon. One the contrary, Emerson once said, “trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string” (Emerson, 78). Emerson is referring the iron string to knowledge, and how knowledge is a part of every person, but some people choose to not listen to
As Emerson once said, “Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today” (Emerson, 82). Emerson is applauding the sense of being misunderstood because every life’s decision is a compromise between one’s will and society’s obligation. So, that is why Janie’s viewpoint of love had differ multiple times because her first two marriages where defined by society, whereas her marriage with Tea Cake was her own decision. Janie’s marriage with Logan was due to Nanny’s will, while the marriage alongside Tea Cake was due to her own freewill. Alike, the marriage with Joe was violating her freedom because she “pressed her teeth together and learned to hush” (Hurston, ), as opposed to Tea Cake, who allowed Janie to voice her opinions and listened. The love between Tea Cake and Janie was challenged by society. For a marriage is between an older man and a younger woman, it is balanced by the wealth one person carries, and the stability a man can offer. However, as Janie once said, “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, 191). Every person falls in love one way or another, to Janie, she choose Tea Cake for the realization that wealth and