Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God is in a similar vein with Herman Hess’s stories of an individual going on a spiritual journey to try and understand themselves and their existence. The final line from the prologue of his book Demian states “We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interrupt himself to himself alone” (2). This encapsulates Janie’s path to a better understanding of herself through her relationships with the men in the novel and through an understanding of nature.
In the beginning of the novel, Janie is a young girl who is unsure of herself and how she fits in the world, yet she has an intense desire to gain some kind of understanding of her existence. How to go about this is beyond her and she doesn’t even know what she is exactly looking to find. This desire first manifests itself when she is sitting under a blossoming pear tree where she witnesses the harmony and oneness of nature. Janie speaks of seeing a “bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom….she had been summoned to behold a revelation” (11). She feels like she can attain this similar feeling of oneness but how to go about this she does not know. This idea is expressed as Janie is looking to all the harmonious relationships she sees in nature yet no answer for her self. At this point in the story, she feels both somewhat inside yet outside of this new world brought on by her revelation. Yet she feels the desire to begin searching; it is as if the outside world of nature is giving her clues and urging her to keep looking. Janie expresses this as a feeling that “an answer is seeking her, but where? When? How?”(11).
As the story moves on, Janie begins relationships with men, feeling that these relationships will help her on her quest that she can’t quite define. Although all the men try to control or define her in some way, she continues to develop her sense of identity according to her own ideas, even if the changes occur more frequently in her thoughts than in her actions. The first real decision followed by an action that she makes on her own comes about when she chooses to leave Logan and runaway with Joe. Joe embodies change, new developments and leaving the past behind for a new beginning. At this point in Janie’s character development, Joe represents this desire taking place in her. This idea is expressed with the lines “A feeling of sudden newness and change came over her…the change would do her good.”(32).
Unfortunately, Joe tries to mold her into what he thinks she should be and therefore controls and stifles her. Her independent feelings are suppressed but not entirely gone and they burst through with her final conversation with Joe. She attempts to convey to him “what kinda person [she] is.”(85). She expresses her resentment towards Joe for never really encouraging or being interested in her development as person with the line “mah own mind had to be squeezed and crowded tuh make room for yours in me” (86).
After Joe’s death, there is a sense of rebirth and renewal for Janie. She grows fond of “this freedom feeling” (90) and laughs off all the men telling her she needs assistance. Janie expresses her new feeling by dismissing her many suitors who wish to marry her and take care of her by stating “these men didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about” (90). At this point, Janie feels more assured and confident in her sense of self and she doesn’t feel the need to yield to what is socially expected of her as the Mayor’s widow, hence her relationship with Tea Cake. For the first time, Janie experiences the passion and love she longed for when she was a girl under a pear tree bearing witness to the harmony of nature. She expresses this awakening by stating that Tea Cake had “taught me the maiden language all over” (115) and that he inspired her to “utilize [herself] all over” (112). Although Tea Cake treats her more equally than her first two husbands, he still has a sense of having some kind of authority over her. For example, he states that Janie will eat and live from the money that he makes (128) and that she is “wherever Ah wants tuh be” (148).
In the end, Janie ends up alone, yet she is not unfulfilled or longing for another companion. She is content with her life’s journey and the reader gets the sense that her experiences have helped her to gain a better and more complete understanding of herself and her existence.

Work Cited

Hesse, Herman. Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth. New York, Harper & Row, 1999.

Hutston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York, Harper & Row, 2006.