Реферат: Critical Essay Their Eyes Were Watching God

Critical Essay: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay, Research Paper

CRITICAL ESSAY: THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

It all begins with parents. However, although genetics play a key role in what kind

of person one becomes, environment is the other major factor that influences a person?s

development. The people a person meets and the experiences one has are very important

elements affecting development. With the three marriages Janie has, she develops as a

woman. In each marriage she learns valuable lessons, leading to progressively better

relationships, realizing how a person is to live his/her life. In Their Eyes Were Watching

God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie?s three marriages lead her to self-knowledge and thus

to fulfillment.

Janie?s marriage to Login Killicks provides her with the realization that marriages

do not necessarily guarantee mutual love. Her pre-marital concept of love and marriage is

symbolized in the natural union of bee and flower:

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the

visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible

voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom;

the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the

tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So

this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. (p.11)

In this dream, Janie conveys her idea of marriage being the culmination of love, of two

separate entities becoming one and growing together. To the rest of society, as

represented by Login Killicks and her grandmother, marriage is not about love, but is

rather a business deal that only includes protection and procreation. Her grandmother

says, ??Tain?t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it?s protection.?(p.15) These

beliefs run contrary to everything that Janie has wished and hoped a marriage to be: ?Ah

wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.?(p.24),

a marriage that is filled with an equal and physical love. When she questions her

grandmother, Nanny continually indoctrinates her with views of marriage she does not

accept. She finally relents and marries Login Killicks. As her marriage unfolds, Janie

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