Theme

Zachary Bailey
March 25th, 2009
Blog 6
C Block

Theme: God and Divine Intervention

The theme of god and divine intervention is present all throughout the story. Even the title Their Eyes Were Watching God relates back to this theme. Throughout the entire story, the reader is bombarded with constant snippets of dialog and narrator appealing to or referring to god, and associating His involvement with events. God's presence in the story is almost that of a guide, dictating the course of the characters lives. While at first this does not seem so obvious, by the end of the story "god" seems to have stepped in and taken a direct hand in Janie's life as the whole world begins to crash down around her.

As the hurricane approaches the everglades, we see almost biblical events. The sky darkens, the winds grow ferocious, and even the animals are fleeing. Just before the true storm hits, however, the characters are roused from their games by a bolt of lightning. "Six eyes were questioning god" (page 159) and as they look out at the sky, as they looked to god, he answered "through the screaming wind they heard things crashing and things hurtling and dashing with unbelievable velocity . . . the lake got madder and madder with only its dikes between him and them" (page 159). The people that stayed, Tea Cake and Janie included, made the decision thinking that they can handle whatever is coming and effectively pitted themselves against god.

As the storm hits and everything boils over, we are witness to the destruction of the storm. During the middle of the storm, the middle of god's fury "They sat in the company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be starting into the dark, but their eyes were watching god" (page 160). They had pitted themselves against god and god pushed back and the whole world crashes down around him. By the time the eye, or at least a short respite, has reached Janie and Tea Cake they have made the decision to flee, and they leave, with the lake nipping at their heels the entire journey.

While this is not the only instance of god in the story, it represents the cumulation of His role, and for the rest of the story Janie and Tea Cake seem to be on their own, completely without god's assistance. Each situation from there on is noticeably lacking in any sort of divine interference, as if to say that, without god, the characters cannot survive. This turns out to be the case, as Tea Cake, while saving Janie from a rabid dog, is bitten. Thinking nothing of it at the time, they reach their destination and attempt to get back on their feet. In only a few weeks however, Tea Cake is dead, shot in self-defense as, in his rabies addled state, he tries to shoot her. This final moment of irony, seems to sum up the idea of the necessity of gods protection, proclaiming, through the even, that without Him they are as children, helpless.

Internal or External Conflict

Zachary Bailey
March 23rd, 2009
Post 5
Internal or External Conflict

Janie's Internal Conflict

Throughout the entire book, Janie is filled with constant inner turmoil. As a girl Janie is told by her grandmother that she is going to be married to Logan Killicks, and Janie is much less than happy about that "the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree, but Janie didn’t know how to tell nanny that"(page 14). Despite her feeling in the matter, Janie is married to Logan and told that she will eventually love him. A year passes however and Janie still feels nothing for him.

Eventually a strange named Jody comes along, fitting into Janie's dream of some majestic man to come sweep her off her feet. After seeing Jody for a week Janie decides to run off with him after he asks her to leave with him. For a while, things between Janie and Jody are great, and everything is all rainbows and butterflies until after a few years in Eatonville. In Eatonville, Janie is slowly crushed by Jody's ego, and the cruel way it makes him treat her. However rather then do anything about it or express her feelings, Janie "SO gradually, she pushed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back to the bedroom again. So she put something there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church." (page 71) simply bottles everything up and learns to live with it.

Janie's entire life up to the point when she meets Tea Cake is just one big mess of inner turmoil. Despite all the things Janie dislikes or wishes were different she rarely every speaks up and never holds her ground, she just goes from one thing the next, grinning and baring it, and never standing up for herself.

Setting & Location

Zachary Bailey
Post 4
March 21st, 2009
Setting & Location

Eatonville & The Everglades

Eatonville and the Everglades are the main locations of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Each one these places was dominated by a main character; Eatonville was the domain of Jody and The Everglades were Tea Cake's. Besides these areas being the occupying main character's place of residence, they also embodied the character that lived there.

Jody was the mayor of Eatonville. When arrived the town was nothing but 50 acres and a few people, but immediately upon arrive Jody purchases 200 additional acres, and announces his plan to build a store, establish a post office, and to bring in more people to the town. Jody turns the stunted little village into a rapidly growing and functioning town. After his initial success, he calls for an election for mayor in which he wins an immediate and undisputed victory. Jody, essentially, becomes the monarch of the town, commanding almost complete authority over the residents living there. He is the ruler of Eatonville, he walked in and paid for it, worked for it and dominated it all within a short period, and built it up as he saw fit.

South of Eatonville, out in the everglades, Tea Cake is in charge. As one of the first people to arrive at the beginning of the rice-picking season, he is one of the few people able to get a hold of a house. Come the beginning of the rice season people begin to flood into the area it is soon a rowdy, ruff-and-tumble playground. In this environment Tea Cake is king. As a career gambler, he rules supreme and there only a handful of people that can win any money off him. Everyone in town knows and loves him, and his house is always the scene of boisterous activity, full of fellow gamblers, friends, observers, and anyone looking for fun. While Jody rules because of money and power, Tea Cake rules because he commands everyone’s love and respect.

Both of these locations were an expression of the main character inhabiting it, Jody's town subdued and structured and Tea Cake's Everglades, boisterous and fun

Return with the Elixir

Zachary Bailey
Post 3
March 21st
The Hero Journey

Return with the Elixir

The Return with the Elixir actually occurs at the beginning and the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, however, chronologically, the whole scene is at the end where it should be (We learn after getting a little ways into the story). This final step of the hero journey is embodied by Janie's return to Eatonville, after being gone for over two years. Having returned, she is back in the "ordinary world" after having been away with Tea Cake in the "Special world". Janie returns because Tea Cake dies during the Resurrection in the story and, ironically, Janie was the one who had to kill him.

Upon her return, we see the "sickness" of the town that the "elixir" will cure. Once noticed by the other towns people "she made them remember the envy they had stored up from other time" (page 2) and we see what bitterness and envy has done to them "so they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tool out of laughs. It was mass cruelty" (page 2).

The "elixir" is simply Janie's story, her doings for the time she was gone. Only this elixir, the truth, can cure the townspeople of the animosity that they have built up over Janie's years in and out of the town. Janie finally locates her old friend Pheoby, and they both sit down, one to speak and one to listen, and Janie begins to tell her story. The book now leave "the return with the elixir" and jumps back in time to the "ordinary world", which takes place at the chronological beginning of the story. After all the other steps of the hero Journey are gone through, and one reaches the end of the book, the story returns to the elixir and the Journey and "cure" are completed.

Characters and characterization- Jody, Janie, and Tea Cake

Zachary Bailey
Post 2
March 19th, 2009
Characters and Characterizations

Jody, Janie and Tea Cake

Their Eyes Where Watching God poses an extremely interesting twist on the normal stereotypes of characters. While Tea Cake is a Nomadic gambler, with not all that much constantly to his name, his is portrayed as the "Good Guy" of this story. Normal when one meets the stereotypical "Gambler" in any other story, they are a degenerate that a character meets and thinks is okay for a while, until it is reveled that that person is a gambler and has lost all the main character's money. This idea is very consistent, that gambler's lose, and we have seen it many time's. Look at Paul in A River Runs Through It, he was a great fun person, who is eventually beaten to death because of his gambling. Tea Cake however, defies this expansive stereotype, and turns out to be an honorable, upstanding fellow. When Janie fears that Tea Cake has taken her money and run off, not only does he return, but he promises to pay her back, and follows through "Look in mah left hand pants pocket and see whut yo' daddy brought yuh. When I tells yuh ah'm gointuh bring it, ah don't lie" (page 127). Far from being a degenerate as a gambler should be, Tea Cake is honorable and lives up to all Janie could have ever hoped of him.

Foiling Tea Cake, is Jody. Jody is the respectable hard working man, who works hard, raises to power and achieves success. Normally this character should be the "good guy" or the story, however when one gets down to it, Jody is actually somewhat of an awful person. While Jody does not commit crimes or cause anyone harm, quite the opposite in fact, that does not stop him from simply being a bad person. Jody expects the world to bend to his will, and while he basically builds Eatonville from the ground up, he appoints himself supreme leader of the town, and lords himself over everyone else. Characters in his position are normal expected to be humble, however Jody is quite the opposite. To top of his nastiness, is also just plan awful to Janie, treating her like a possession instead of a person "You gettin' too moufy Janie, Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers." (page 75). The only good thing that Jody manages to do for Janie is die in time for her to meet Tea Cake.

Janie, the central character of the story has the weakest personality. Not to say that her actually personality is weak, but she is constantly allowing it to be covered up by the wishes of others. IN the beginning of the story Janie is a whimsical, romanticizing girl, thinking that perfect guy was going to come only and sweep her off her feet, however, at her grandmothers wishes, she stifles that and always herself to be married off. Eventually Janie lets herself show through again for awhile, when she runs off with Jody, however once she begins to get to know him and after they have been together for long enough she becomes what he wants her to be as well. "SO gradually, she pushed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back to the bedroom again. So she put something there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church." (page 71) It is not until Janie meets Tea Cake that she at last starts to be who she truly is, and lets herself shine through.

Motif-Janie's Bandanna

Zachary Bailey
Post 1
March 19, 2009
Motif

Janie's Bandanna

IN the story, Janie's bandanna is a representation of everything stifling about her relationship with Jody. As she works in the store Jody demands that she keeps her hair tied up in a bandanna so that no one else can see or touch it. Janie however, hates keeping her hair tied up, and everything else about having to wear it the bandanna. "This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store." (page 55)

The bandanna comes to represent everything about the relationship that stifles Janie. Just like Joe won't let her wear her hair down, he won't let her do anything else that makes her happy either that could possiably make her seem in anyway equal to any of the other towns people, be it talking with the people on the porch "Janie Loved the conversation and sometimes she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge" (page 53), not allowing her to go to the mule's funeral "but you ain't goin' off in all dat mess uh commonness. Ah'm surprised at yuh fuh askin'."(page 60), or any other trivial matter.

When Janie is in the store, she daydreams about being able to go sit on the porch and banter with all the other towns people, however Jody demands that she stays inside and works. Every time she does say something Jody immediately reprimands her and sends her back inside. Just as the bandanna keeps Janie's hair hidden, Jody forces Janie to keep her true self hidden, right up until the day that he dies, then, as soon as the funeral is over, "Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her hear rags and went about the house the next morning with her hair in one thick braid swingnig below her waist." (page 89). Her freedom from the head rags, although it occures directly after his death, is synonymous with freedom from his stifling influence.

External and Internal Conflict

I finished this book, and after basking in the afterglow of Hurston's masterpiece, I wondered, "why is it called Their Eyes Were Watching God?"
God was mentioned, certainly, but on pure volume of content alone, religion was not the major theme in this novel. By such a standard, God has no place in the title of this book.
I would argue that the major theme of this novel is a teaching on the importance of being yourself, of individuality. Through this lens, I began to understand why God was such a large part of this novel, whether mentioned often or not.
(warning: I'm not bashing religion. Really. If you are a believer I think that is a wonderful thing; I am NOT passing judgement. These are simply generalizations about history)
Looking at the history of religion (I'm sticking to what I know- Judo-Christian religions), you can see that as we, as a society, progressed towards self-sufficiency, we became less and less religious. In the early days, when there was no such thing as science to explain death, birth, and nature, people created the idea of a God to help them to understand and explain things. Unsure of themselves and where they came from, they relied on God. Even as recent as colonial America, Calvinism and other forms of Christianity that favored an all-powerful and merciless God were popular. This was, again, during a time when people had difficult lives, unaided by modern science. They subscribed wholly to an omni-present God because they could have confidence in such a God, when they could not have confidence in themselves and their ever-changing society.
In Hurston's time there was the advent of modern electricity and other conveniences, that made it possible for people to live without difficulty, and with assurance in how the world works and, to a point, how their day to day life would be. It was this self-assurance that allowed them to be independent individuals. It also made their reliance on God less urgent; they needed God less, and so they questioned him more.
Also, black people in America were going through a dramatic coming of age. When enslaved, black people had no choice but to turn to God for hope and consistency in a life they themselves did not own. Individuality was impossible; Independence unthinkable. Upon emancipation, former slaves were thrust into a state where they could finally rely on themselves rather than God, and so they began to watch him with a careful eye.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, a pivotal internal conflict of every character, and the psyche of black American society as a whole, is that of whether to believe in God, or believe in themselves.
The quest for individuality that is so central in this novel, is irrevocably intertwined with Hurston's constant questioning of God. Therefore, the presence of God in this novel, in the title, and more specifically, the ongoing conflict over faith, serves to further develop and enhance the main theme, which is the importance of individuality.