Andrea Prof.

Gosiak English 211 December, 6th 2013

Introduction

During the 1920s, this was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, when black authors, poets, painters, playwrights, actors and musicians had gained great exposure.

But on the other hand, the country was still segregated, and black people living in the south often had no electricity, were denied the right to vote, and attended one-room schoolhouses. In some cities, black males were automatically victimized in any crimes, and some were even lynched without so much as a trial. Many blacks were often left to constantly struggle and fight for an identity.

Self-identity plays a very important role for Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. She spends the next twenty-five years of her life searching and attempting to develop a sense of who she is. Tracy L. Bealer explains how the narrative builds upon Janies growing sense of self in that, Janie's life is an deliberate attempt to recreate this moment of psychic transcendence and physical fulfillment through a succession of romance relationships.

Although her struggles against society and her achievements for independence all played a major role in helping her to develop and shaped her identity, her underlying quest required her to experience life, other people, places and the world.

This paper will focus Janie Crawford's exploration of her search for an identity heir as she found her niche in life via her relationships with men who helped shape sense of identity.

When she tells her story to her friend Pheoby, she begins with her revelation that initiates her quest for who she is. It is here where we experience her search for a name, an identity and freedom for herself.

A reflection of the men in her life There is notice that a father figure is completely absent in Janies case, and therefore she seeks for that someone who could give her a little affection. The absence of a prominent father figure is one possible explanation for these characters remaining involved with incredibly dominant male figures. Logan Killicks, sometimes play more the role of substitute parent than that of a husband (Roark 207). He was a much older farmer who vowed that Janie marry him. After moving in with Logan, he treated her almost like another man. He made her do all sorts of things and hard work that only men should have done. He was inconsiderate of her feelings, her dreams and desires. She complained that nothing beautiful was ever said or done for her. Janie is empty and miserable. She had no love nor relationship with Logan Killicks. This may have been the moment that Janie realizes that being married does not necessarily mean that there will be love or a role for herself. From this pivotal moment, she begins to seek and define who she is. Jody Starks comes along at a transitional period in Janies life. He appears to be the perfect replacement for old Logan with his smooth-tongued domineering power, he promises to help her fulfill her dreams and desires. Yet, all this time it is Jody who sets out to achieve his dream in the political world in which he succeeds in becoming the mayor, postmaster, storekeeper, and the biggest landlord in town. Janies desire is to become part of Jodys rich and social lifestyle, but Jody doesnt allow her to interact with people. Janie learns that Jodys exertion of power only restrains her. She is dominated by his power. He shapes her into his vision of what a mayors wife should be. He makes her tie up her hair and he forbids her to just be herself.

Janie silently submits to Jody, hiding her hair that demonstrates her lack of ability to have her own voice and her own identity.

After several decades of marriage, Janie finally asserts herself. Janie argues with Joe that he never allowed her to show him who she really was. Jody insults her appearance and Janie tells the people in town how ugly and impotent he is. In retaliation, he savagely beats her. Their marriage breaks down, and Jody becomes quite ill.

When Jody dies, it is at this pivotal moment of his death that she begins to shape her identity, expressing herself as she unties her hair and starts to release the restraints Jody placed on her.

Jody gave Janie many things including lots of money, but he couldn't give her an identity.

Self Identity is not restricted to the present. It includes your past and future. It represent individuals ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming. They correspond to hopes, fears, standards, goals, and threats.

Janie has already begun to find her own voice, when she met Tea Cake. Tea Cake was the foundation that helped push Janie toward her goals. He played a crucial role in her development of self-awareness. He helped her to better understand herself.

The sense of self that Janie gains from the love that she shares with Tea Cake enables her to embrace a new situation and maintain her inner peace. She finally gets to experience all the things that were missing from her other relationships. Tea Cake and Janie spent most of their time together, laughing, fishing and hunting, having conversations, and spending time with friends. Tea Cake let her be herself. He encouraged her to be what she wanted to be, to follow her dreams, her thoughts, and her ambitions.

Their erotic behavior can be contrasted to Janies erotic occurrence under the pear tree, as Tracy L. Bealer notes: Janie's experience under the pear tree fully engages her body's polymorphous capacity to experience pleasure. Rather than submit to a hierarchical understanding of sensory perception that privileges the objective distance offered by sight or hearing, all of Janie's senses blend into one another to produce delight. The embrace between the bee and the flowers imprints itself upon Janie as an idealized vision of love.

The Hurricane The hurricane was a precursor as to what is about to happen between Janie and Tea Cake and a major turn in the characteristics of Janie. A terrible hurricane bursts into the Everglades two years after Janie and Tea Cakes marriage. Tea Cake becomes ill and is convinced that Janie is cheating on him. By teaching her how to shoot a gun, ironically, becomes the same tool that ultimately killed him.

The passage also relates to an even deeper desire, which is the ultimate goal of the love that Janie seeks: a sense of enlightenment, of oneness with the world around her. The language of this passage is evocative of the erotic, naturalistic romanticism of Walt Whitman. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace (Hurston, 193). Through the realization of her dream of love, Janie discovers herself, and this self-discovery is a joy that she will carry throughout her life. She has peace, because she finally knows who she is, and she is strong enough not to back away from that person. After Tea Cakes death, Janie remains strong and hopeful and was never dependent on Tea Cake.

Protection and Security The grandmothers primary desire was to marry Janie as soon as possible to a husband who can provide security and social status for her. Janie is not raised with her mother and has very little knowledge of her family history. She knows that her grandmother and mother were both raped by white men. Janie also never knew her father.

Through her marriages with Logan, Joe, then Tea Cake she figures out what is for her and how she wants to live.

Love and Relationships versus Independence Self-revelation Janie has been to the horizon and back. She has gone out of scope and searched for her dreams. Janie pulls in the horizon that she has spent her whole life searching for. She calls her soul to come in and see. Where once her soul was separate from her, it is now a part of her.

Power and Conquest as Means to Fulfillment Her strengths That about of melancholy settles over Janies room is not a sign that she has failed to reach her horizon. Rather, it allows her to demonstrate the strength that she gained along her journey. As she reflects on her experiences, the day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse . . . commences to sing a sobbing sigh, once again, impersonal forces harass Janie. But the memory of Tea Cake vanquishes the sadness and fills Janie with an understanding of all that she has gained and become.

Janie has already realized that suffering and sacrifice are necessary steps on the path toward self-discovery. In The Natural (1952), Bernard Malamud writes: We have two lives . . . the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness. This maxim is certainly applicable to Janies situation. She

has grown, struggled, and suffered; having found her voice, she is now able to begin anew. Although the body of her lover is gone, his legacy remains with her, in the person that she has become. She has achieved the unity with nature that she sought so long ago under the pear tree. Although the forces of the world may be unknowable and at times painful, she is at peace with them. Her act of pulling in her horizon around herself reflects the harmony that she has finally established with the world around her. She has found true love, which has enabled her to find her voice.

She has gone through life her search takes many turns for the worse and a few for the better, but in the end she finds her true identity.

Political Stances The 1920s was a period of tension in relations between whites and blacks in America. During World War I, over 200,000 Black soldiers experienced nations in Europe in which their color was not a major handicap. When they returned home after the war, many expected a greater measure of equality.

Those black families that moved north, experienced more civil rights, on paper, and a less restrictive lifestyle than those black families in the South. But there was still much segregation in the North. De facto segregation as opposed to de jure segregation in the South. There were many race riots during the decade of the Twenties.

During the Twenties, black nationalism began to grow. Organizations, like the Universal Negro Improvement Association, began to grow. Founded in 1909, the NAACP began to campaign against lynching during the Twenties. In the South and Midwest, the KKK saw a resurgence of its power during the decade.

Hurston's novel foregrounds the socio historical racial injustices that infuse a unique tension into African American gender politics. Though Janie does learn to assert her own will and subjectivity throughout the course of the novel, she must constantly combat the pervasive hierarchies that make black women vulnerable to

oppression.

Language: Speech and Silence One of the most interesting aspects of Their Eyes Were Watching God is Hurstons, early twentieth-century Southern black vernacular speech. Use of language to express the difference between Janies relationship with Tea Cake and her relationship with Jody. Janie summarizes the novels attitude toward language when she tells Pheoby that talking dont amount tuh uh hill uh beans if it isnt connected to actual experience.

Community The final chapter shows Janie at full strength and with the utmost self-assurance. She is able to reject the community that has treated her poorly and, of her own volition, return to Eatonville. CONCLUSION: You Always Hurt the One You Love. Janie has, as she claims, achieved the horizon and found her enlightenment.

Through the use of symbolism in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford embarks on a journey of self-discovery in which she learns what it is to be a woman. According to Dilbeck, by the end of the novel, Janie realizes that a woman is to be loved, respected and self-sufficient (102).

During the journey of her relationships with dominant male figures suppressed her identity as well as her ability to achieve self-actualization. At that time, she is unsure of who she is or how she wants to live.

As she goes through life her search takes many turns for the worse and a few for the better, but in the end she finds her true identity.

Janie was not dependent on the men in her life for happiness but to help her find happiness and security within herself.

Sources: Tracy L. Bealer. "The Kiss of Memory": The Problem of Love in Hurston^s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Dilbeck, Keiko. "Symbolic Representation of Identity in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." Explicator 66:2 (Winter 2008): 102-104.