Summary:
The title "Their Eyes Were Watching God," signifies the struggles that the people in the story must go through and who is the power that brings them to or from it. I feel that the "God" in the title takes on many roles depending on the person, place and point in time. It involves all of the characters in the story in one way or another.
A Woman's Worth
The title "Their Eyes Were Watching God," signifies the struggles that the people in the story must go through and who is the power that brings them to or from it. I feel that the "God" in the title takes on many roles depending on the person, place and point in time. It involves all of the characters in the story in one way or another.
The story starts off with Janie coming back to town after some time away. While some of the women in the town sit around, they watch and talk about her while her friend Pheoby goes to her. Janie and Pheoby are happy to see each other, but Pheoby question her as to what has been going on since she's been gone and Janie correctly guesses that the town women had inquiring minds. So she begins her story from the very beginning. This brings up the first "Their" in the title. Nanny, her grandmother was a slave who was raped by her owner and bore his child. Having to escape to save her family, she landed with the Washburns. They were a nice, white family who treated her family very well. Although the story hints that Nanny was a Christian woman, the "God" that she watched was the white man. Nanny thought of the Washburns as she and Janie's protectors because they were superior beings. She allowed Janie to be swept into a false world by letting her play as equals with the white children on the land, and never acknowledged her heritage. This initial foundation placed in Janie's head how to be. When Janie became sixteen and her "womanhood" was upon her, Nanny's "God" changed.
Up to this point, Janie had wondered about her "God." "Oh to be a pear tree-any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world." (p.307) She was longing for love. However, Nanny had other plans. Her "God" came in the form of Logan Killicks as a protector of Janie. However, Janie's "God" was still love and she clearly didn't have that in her marriage. She feels like a mule when she's around Logan even though she has the spirit of a stallion. She is still watching her "God" as is evident when Joe Starks comes to town and she leaves with him.
Janie's quest to find "God"was not successful. She was soon aware that being with Joe Starks was not the love thing that everyone said it would be. She was soon conscious to the fact that being married to Joe was not her heart's will, the will of her "God." This is where she begins to struggle. She has to look at the town's folk watching their new "God" who was Joe, while she was still longing for her own. Joe had his 'God" in the form of independence, power and recognition, the town had him. Her inner search led her to struggle for two decades until Joe's death and the next phase of her quest for "God."
This leads us to a time in Janie's life where she is older and wiser and independent. She is just living her life the way that she wants to for once. She has found "God" in her independence. That could be why she had a guard up when Tea Cake had entered the picture. She had once though she would get love in Logan, and then in Joe, and it didn't happen. She was now much stronger, and in control of herself to let someone come in and try to take away her "God" that she had watched in her dreams. Little did she know that she would find "God" in Tea Cake. Janie never imagined that she would fall for him, but when she did, she fell hard. She found another "God" in Tea Cake. He let her be herself and loved her just the way that she was. This allowed her to be open to the love of herself and Tea Cake. She had waited all of this time, and finally after watching "God" in her dreams, it has happened.
The greatest love story that Ms. Hurston developed however, is not the love Janie shares with Tea Cake. It is the love Janie is finally able to give herself. This is the heart of all our lives and the story we all, women and men, alike, would be better off learning and living.....Love ourselves and keep our eyes open so that we can continue to watch the wonders of God. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/books/bookclub/theireyes0405
What Janie was unaware on, is that "God she was watching and yearning for, is the Lord. God is love. I believe that she truly gets this during beginning of the hurricane when she is sitting with some of the people at her house and they are all watching god. They are all wondering what lies ahead. The same way that Janie wondered what lied ahead. She had learned respect for a higher power and says that they need to be quiet and let God do his work. The same way that he led her and all the while she was unknowingly watching him. The more that she watched "God" the more he led her to her ultimate desire of self love through independence.
In conclusion, I would have to say that over all, while everyone was "watching God," they were really watching the forces that be do some moving and shaking. They were all watching something or someone greater than they change things. It was a force that brought about independence to some, love to some, security to some, power to some, fulfillment to some, and the want of these things to those that are left. God moves in mysterious ways, and the quest of Janie's moved in mysterious ways to her, but ended up the way intended by God.
This is the complete article, containing 977 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
