Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston
(Grand) Motherhood: Be the Nanny to Her Janie
The most important person a girl looks up to and connects with is her mother. However, the girl may sometimes lack a mother figure, and may look to another: father, brother, sister, and if alive, grandmother. Janie Mae Crawford and Nanny share a complex relationship as her mother figure disappears and it is left to Nanny to nurture the protagonist, influencing many of her choices in the near future. Creator of character Nanny and Janie Mae Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston depicts the complexity of Nanny and Janie’s love in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston effectively describes the difficulty of the mother-daughter relationship between Nanny and Janie. Janie and Nanny’s bond is compassionate, …show more content…
Nanny’s beliefs often clashed with Janie's. Nanny believed in the thought of living rich. Nanny pushes this belief even when Janie doubts her love with Logan. Nanny confronts Janie’s want for “some dressed up dude” but only “got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he crosses the street,” (Hurston 23). Nanny reminds Janie that she should look for wealth in a man, not his looks. The hardship of slavery in Nanny’s past has influenced her to believe this and she aims to implement it in Janie. However, Janie continues to deny the belief of wealth over love and vies for independence from Nanny. Janie leads to hate Nanny and realizes that she “had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity,” and Nanny had betrayed her by “by pinching it [the horizon] in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her,” (89). Nanny’s past life constrained Janie and had held her down and though Janie may have met Nanny’s needs, she ignored her own standards. The only thing that held her down was her pity for Nanny. The novel outline that Janie’s independence from Nanny’s criteria would clash and if Nanny were still alive, they would have fought. Nanny’s need for a lavish life and Janie’s need for a broad horizon intensify the relationship. Janie and Nanny’s rivaling opinions are disputable and this develops their relationship to its
The most important person a girl looks up to and connects with is her mother. However, the girl may sometimes lack a mother figure, and may look to another: father, brother, sister, and if alive, grandmother. Janie Mae Crawford and Nanny share a complex relationship as her mother figure disappears and it is left to Nanny to nurture the protagonist, influencing many of her choices in the near future. Creator of character Nanny and Janie Mae Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston depicts the complexity of Nanny and Janie’s love in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston effectively describes the difficulty of the mother-daughter relationship between Nanny and Janie. Janie and Nanny’s bond is compassionate, …show more content…
Nanny’s beliefs often clashed with Janie's. Nanny believed in the thought of living rich. Nanny pushes this belief even when Janie doubts her love with Logan. Nanny confronts Janie’s want for “some dressed up dude” but only “got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he crosses the street,” (Hurston 23). Nanny reminds Janie that she should look for wealth in a man, not his looks. The hardship of slavery in Nanny’s past has influenced her to believe this and she aims to implement it in Janie. However, Janie continues to deny the belief of wealth over love and vies for independence from Nanny. Janie leads to hate Nanny and realizes that she “had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity,” and Nanny had betrayed her by “by pinching it [the horizon] in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her,” (89). Nanny’s past life constrained Janie and had held her down and though Janie may have met Nanny’s needs, she ignored her own standards. The only thing that held her down was her pity for Nanny. The novel outline that Janie’s independence from Nanny’s criteria would clash and if Nanny were still alive, they would have fought. Nanny’s need for a lavish life and Janie’s need for a broad horizon intensify the relationship. Janie and Nanny’s rivaling opinions are disputable and this develops their relationship to its