Their Eyes Were Watching God
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there are many lessons on a person's search for identity. Janie's search for identity throughout this book is very visible. It has to do with her search for a name, and freedom for herself. 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. Through her marriages with Logan, Joe, then Tea Cake she figures out what is for her and how she wants to live. So in the end, she is where she wants to be. In Janie's early life she lived with her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny and Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white folks. While Janie was growing up she played with the white children. While she was in this stage, she was faced with much criticism and was called many names, so many that everyone started calling her alphabet, "'cause so many people had done named me different names." Soon she started piecing together what she knew of her odd identity. Then one day she saw herself in a photograph and noticed that she looked different, that she had dark skin, and she said, "before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest." From this point, Ja
o be Mrs. Mayor Starks. Throughout this marriage Janie seems as though she was losing more and more of her identity and freedom in this marriage. By the end of the marriage, she did not have her kitchen and house work that she loved to do, and she had lost her name. local man, Logan Killicks. In this marriage Janie resisted. She felt as if she was losing her freedom was well as her identity, she wasn't Janie anymore she was now Mrs. Logan Killicks, and she was some what obligated to do what he wanted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the timely demise of Joe, another man came into Janie's life, Vergible Woods, a.k.a. Tea Cake. He was an unpretentious man without the status of high class, unlike Logan and Joe. He was just what Janie had wanted. Tea Cake gave Janie the freedom to do whatever she wanted. He allowed her to play checkers and talk to whom ever she wanted. The name issue arose again in this relationship. When Janie was with Tea Cake most of the people called her "Janie." By this time she had finally found her identity. She was just an average person who wanted freedom and who didn't always like having complete security. In her marriage to Tea Cake, Janie finally had peace and love. She wanted to do most of whatever Tea Cake was doing. She did not feel any obligation to work with Tea Cake, she just wanted to. So when she returned to Eatonville in her overalls, she had
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Approximate Word count = 970
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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