Analysis of Relationships in Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie’s journey towards spiritual enlightenment and her development of individuality, largely through Janie’s relationships with others. Hurston uses the themes of power, control, abuse, and respect, in Janie’s relationships with Nanny, Killicks, Starks, and Tea Cake, to effectively illustrate how relationships impact identity and self-growth.
It is Janie’s relationship with Nanny that first suppresses her self-growth. Janie has an immense level of respect towards Nanny, who has raised Janie since her mother ran off. The respect Janie has for her grandmother is deeper than the respect demanded by tradition, from a child toward his caretaker, probably because Nanny’s genuine concern for Janie’s well being is so obvious. Her authentic concern can be seen largely through dialogue between her and Janie, for instance when Nanny desperately explains to Janie that she had worked hard to buy a real house so that Janie would no longer be subject to harassment by her black classmates, and that her motivation in marrying Janie off to Killicks was to ensure that Janie wouldn’t end up being used for a “work-ox” (16) or a “spit cup” (20) by men, white and black. Ironically, Nanny’s determination to shelter Janie from oppression ends up serving as the first oppressor of Janie’s individuality that we see in the novel. Nanny pushes her idealized image of security, through marriage, onto a teenage girl whose current desire in life is anything BUT security.
As a sixteen-year-old girl who has just come to realization of her budding sexuality, Janie spends much of her time wondering at the great mysteries of nature and love and life, and as to how she herself fits within them. Here Janie first sets her eyes on the “horizon,” which she herself cannot describe with words, but which is a destination that would ultimately bring her a sense of fulfillment through harmony with the natural world
It is Janie’s relationship with Nanny that first suppresses her self-growth. Janie has an immense level of respect towards Nanny, who has raised Janie since her mother ran off. The respect Janie has for her grandmother is deeper than the respect demanded by tradition, from a child toward his caretaker, probably because Nanny’s genuine concern for Janie’s well being is so obvious. Her authentic concern can be seen largely through dialogue between her and Janie, for instance when Nanny desperately explains to Janie that she had worked hard to buy a real house so that Janie would no longer be subject to harassment by her black classmates, and that her motivation in marrying Janie off to Killicks was to ensure that Janie wouldn’t end up being used for a “work-ox” (16) or a “spit cup” (20) by men, white and black. Ironically, Nanny’s determination to shelter Janie from oppression ends up serving as the first oppressor of Janie’s individuality that we see in the novel. Nanny pushes her idealized image of security, through marriage, onto a teenage girl whose current desire in life is anything BUT security.
As a sixteen-year-old girl who has just come to realization of her budding sexuality, Janie spends much of her time wondering at the great mysteries of nature and love and life, and as to how she herself fits within them. Here Janie first sets her eyes on the “horizon,” which she herself cannot describe with words, but which is a destination that would ultimately bring her a sense of fulfillment through harmony with the natural world