Themes: So many have been conversed over already

So there have been many themes presented in There Eyes Were Watching God so far. Each one has its own importance and amount of emphasis. Considering so many have already been discussed on this blog, I am going to try and present a new idea as being a theme in the novel. While it might not be the most important or mentioned a lot, I believe that it is still there, just in a small amount. This theme is that everyone has their own fate which is unchangeable. That is technically the definition of fate because fate means "something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune". Yet Hurston is displaying her belief in fate and that it usually does not tie to all the actions that take places in a person's life, but just their time of death. The element of fate that is usually referred to in the novel is death. Characters, especially Janie, consistently mention the idea that people have set times for when they will die. An example of this is when Tea Cake is inquiring whether or not she wished she had stayed in her house in Eatonville because if she had she would not have been stuck in the hurricane with him. Janie response is that "people don't die till dey time come nohow, don't keer where you at" (159). She is commenting on how, no matter what you do with your life; where you go, the decisions you make, or who you are with; death will come when it is good and ready. Death will come when it is supposed to come.

Another example of fate being inevitable, specifically in the sense of death, is when Joe dies. Janie comes in to talk to him before he dies and says "Yeah, Jody, don't keer whut dat multiplied cockroach told yuh tuh git yo' money, you got tuh die, and yuh can't live" (86). I'm am not sure about what the cockroach is referring to, but I do know that the end of the quote is Janie's way of telling Joe that he will die. No matter what doctor he calls, or how scared and against his death he is, it will still overtake him. Joe is in dissension with Janie when she tells him his death will be soon and inevitable, but there is nothing that he can do to change his fate.

Another part of this theme of fate being unchangeable is that it is also unknown. People don't know what their fate is or when death will be bestowed upon them. There are no innuendos about what or when a person's fate will be. Tea Cake's death because he had rabies was his fate. A fate that no one could have changed because once the doctor diagnosed him, it was too late.

While this theme may not be one with much support or examples, I do believe the idea is present in There Eyes Were Watching God.