Their eyes were watching god by Zola Neale Hurston is about love and how it is an essential part of life. With love, it makes one feel they 've finally lived a full and satisfying life.
Throughout the book, Janie was looking for noting but a man to love and to call hers. She didn't care what anybody thought of her, or if she was the talk of the town, she just wanted to find someone that would love her and treat her how a man should.
In chapter 13, Hurston says "you be keerful bout dis selling out and going off wild strange men. You'se takin uh mighty big chance." (Neale Hurston 115)
In the last chapter of their eyes were watching god, Hurston says "The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace... So much of life in meshes." (Neale Hurston 193)
Direct characterization: "Ah couldn't recognize dat dark child as me.... don't you know yo' ownself?... Ah'm colored" (Neale Hurston 9)
Indirect characterization: "What she doing coming back here in dem overalls?- Where's that blue satin dress she left here in?- Where's all that money her husband took and died and left her?- where she left dat young lad she left here with?- Betcha he off wide some gal so I young she ain't even got no hairs?- Why don't she stay in her class?" (Neale Hurston 2)
Direct characterization: "Five-thirty a tall man came into the place... he broke the pack of cigarettes and thrust one between his full purple lips.... Those full, lazy eyes with the lashes curling sharply away like drawn scimitars. The lean, over-padded shoulders and narrow waist. Even nice!" (Neale Hurston 95-96)
Indirect characterization: "Tea Cake and Mrs. Mayor Starks! All the men that she could get, and fooling with somebody like Tea Cake!" (Neale Hurston 110)
Symbol:
Janie’s hair is a symbol of her power and unconventional identity; it represents her strength and individuality. Many men were obsessed with how long and beautiful her hair was, and it was typically masculine power and which blurs gender lines and thus threatens Jody.
In chapter 6, the author says "joe caught Walter Standing behind Janie and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her hair braid....that night joe ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store. She was in the store for HIM to look at, not those others." ( Neale Hurston 55)
Credits:
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