Analysis of Relationships in Their Eyes Were Watching God...

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie’s journey towards spiritual enlightenment and her development of individuality, largely through Janie’s relationships with others. Hurston uses the themes of power, control, abuse, and respect, in Janie’s relationships with Nanny, Killicks, Starks, and Tea Cake, to effectively illustrate how relationships impact identity and self-growth. It is Janie’s relationship with Nanny that first suppresses her self-growth. Janie has an immense level of respect towards Nanny, who has raised Janie since her mother ran off. The respect Janie has for her grandmother is deeper than the respect demanded by tradition, from a child toward his caretaker, probably because†¦show more content†¦It’s wherever Ah need yuh† (31). In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston emphasizes that respect empowers. When Janie’s respect for Killicks dwindles, so does Killicks’ power over Janie. Killicks’ lack of power in his and Janie’s relationship is evident in Janie’s fearless refusal to be Killicks’ workhorse. Killicks’ desperate desire to control Janie’s love for him (or lack of love) manifests into verbal abuse, through which he tries to cut down Janie’s sense of security in herself by telling her that there aren’t â€Å"no mo’ fools† who would be willing to work and feed Janie, especially after her attractive body loses its youthfulness (30). Interestingly, it seems that Janie has more power than Killicks in their relationship, in the sense that her words and actions send Killicks into fits of â€Å"resentful agony† (31) and cause Killicks to react so desperately that he ends up threatening to kill Janie with an ax, and seconds later, to cry in front of his wife (31-32). Janie leaves Killicks not on the premise that she can take care of herself, or even that she is in love with Starks, but that Starks will make her happier than will Killicks. The ending of Janie’s and Stark’s relationship, therefore, marks not Janie’s growing sense of self-sufficiency, but a small increase in self-growth in the sense that she has a clearer idea of what she is looking for in love. Janie beginsShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God 1477 Words   |  6 PagesNot to Speak In the novel Their Eyes were Watching God, the main character, Janie, faces an inner battle in her three marriages, to speak or not to speak, which manifests itself differently with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie has her idea of what a marriage should look like shattered, as she failed to fall into the romantic idea of love that she held dear (Myth and Violence in Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). 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