good essay topics for their eyes were watching god

Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapters 18-20

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Compare Janie’s three marriages. How does each relationship shape her understanding of herself? How does each advance her quest for the love she envisioned beneath the pear tree?

Discuss the different types of discourse in the novel. How do these versions of English add to characterization and play off each other?

Consider the novel’s structure. Why does Hurston relate Janie’s story in an embedded narrative? What does the narrative frame add to the reader’s experience of the novel?

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Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay (Book Review)

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General Analysis

Mule as a main symbol in the story, novel criticism.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston in 1937. It is a story about an African American woman, Janie Crawford, her lifelong search for love and self-assertion.

In 1937, the times of the Great Depression, the novel did not get recognition as it gets today. Black people criticized the ideas presented in the story a lot. They said that Hurston had not underlined the real treatment of whites to South blacks. They argued that demoralization had not been described as it was in real. Only in the 1970s, the book was rediscovered and began studied by students. The essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God shall analyze Hurston’s story about African American women in 1930s.

One of the peculiar features of the work is the form chosen by the author. Hurston begins and ends the story with one and the same setting and people. The main character, Janie, tells the story of her life to one of her friends, Pheoby Watson.

Her story is a kind of trip to Janie’s past life via a huge flashback.

To describe Janie’s story of life, the author uses a high number of metaphors and symbolism. First of all, it is necessary to clear up what a metaphor actually means.

“In cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain of another conceptual domain.” (Kövecses 4)

In the novel, there are three brightest examples of metaphors: a pear tree, the image of the horizon, and mules. Two first examples are about Janie’s dreams and hopes. Janie climbs the pear tree to see the horizon. She wants to know what else is around her. She has a dream to make a trip and discover what is so special beyond the horizon.

The third example of metaphor, a mule, is an image of African American’s status during the Great Depression. Hurston tries to underline the plight of African American workers by comparing them with the mules.

The literary analysis essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God evidences consistent usage of symbolism in the novel.The image of mules represents Janie’s life, her searching, and her social status. Actually, mules represent Janie’s position in several ways.

With each stage of her life, Janie realizes more and more that her life is almost like the life of an ordinary mule. When Janie is a child, her grandmother, Nanny, usually compares black women and mules. She says: “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see” (Hurston 14). Nanny tries to explain to her granddaughter how helpless the status of African American women in society is.

Nanny does not see another way for a good and free life for her Janie but a marriage. It is not that important to marry for love and happiness. Granny tells that love and joy may come with time. A family is the very place where true love will appear. This is why Nanny finds a good option for her daughter.

Inexperienced Janie has nothing to do but obey her granny, and she agrees to get married to Logan Killicks, an old farmer who needs a wife to keep the house and helps on the farm. She truly believes that in this marriage, she will find true love and become happy. Unfortunately, it was only her dreams.

Just like a mule, Janie is forced to work in the field with her husband. Janie continues to believe that, working together, she will be able to become closer to her husband. However, being closer was not the objective of her husband. The primary purpose that Logan wants to achieve is his financial prosperity, nothing more. Janie cannot stand such an attitude anymore. The only way she sees is to leave her husband and start a new life. She desperately thinks that her new lover, Jody Starks, will help her.

They come to a new town, where Jody becomes a major. However, the situation does not change considerably. Now, Janie’s role is to be a trophy wife.

A situation with Matt Bonner’s mule can serve as one more example to find more connection between the life of the mule and Janie’s life.

As is clear from the summary, Jody Starks tempted Janie with his money and burning ambitions. He made her fall in love with him and took away from the husband. The same thing happens with Bonner’s mule. He buys the mule and takes it away from Bonner just to make it his property. This mule becomes one of the major themes for discussions. It is a centerpiece of the town, as well as Janie (because she is a major’s wife).

“The association between the mule’s liberation and its release from the debt of slavery comments in interesting ways on Janie’s own life history.” (Joseph 146).

Janie feels sorry for that poor mule. Maybe, it happens because she compares herself with it. She also suffers from abuse and sneers from other people. She cannot get into a way of being a major’s wife, listening, and obeying each word of her husband. Even though she has a better job (now, she should not work in the field but in the office), she does not feel satisfied. Such a “golden cage” is not for her.

It is also essential to underline one more situation that happens with Bonner’s mule and Janie. When the mule died, Jody does not allow Janie to go to the funeral. What are the reasons for such a decision? It is so evident that the mule symbolizes Janie’s life. In this case, why does Jody allow the mule to die and be eaten by the birds? Does he want the same destiny for his wife? Or, can it be that Jody wants to prove that even after the death, he can control the situation?

However, in any case, the mule’s death is a symbol of Janie’s freeing, at least, her soul. This death changes Janie in some way. Now, she is more or less ready to leave Jody and continue her search for freedom and happiness.

There is one more thing that needs to be considered – the color of Matt Bonner’s mule. It was yellow. Yellow is referred to light-skinned African Americans, just like Janie Crawford is. Is it a coincidence or one more technique used by the author? Maybe, it is one more attempt to underline an unbelievable resemblance to the status of an African American woman and a working mule.

Of course, the way Hurston chooses to describe the status of working black women was a bit offensive. To represent the terrible attitude of whites to black workers, the writer picks out mules. These animals have to obey their masters. They have nothing to do but work all the time.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God resolution,the main character of the novel, Janie Crawford, should follow the same way. She wants to find true love and become free as it is in human nature. Unfortunately, her path is not that easy. Too many obstacles are in her way.

“Hurston’s heroine, Janie, progresses through a series of destructive relationships with men before finally choosing solitude and reflection as the resolution to her quest.” (Nash 74)

At the end of the story, Janie kills her true love. She has to do it to save her own life. Such a decision is the brightest evidence of her strengths and her only desire to survive and be free.

Zora Hurston created the novel during the times of the Great Depression. These were the times when African American female writers were rather rare. Because of serious critiques and discontents of either whites or blacks, lots of her works were overlooked and even not published.

In the 1970s, Alice Walker reintroduced Hurston’s works. She wrote: “Her best novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), is regarded as one of the most poetic works of fiction by a black writer in the first half of the twentieth century, and one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for a satisfying life.” (Walker A. 6)

Zora Hurston described Janie as a strong and courageous woman who never stopped her searching for independence and happiness. It was an unusual theme for those times. The essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God showed that the vast majority of African American women could not demonstrate their characters and represent their own ideas at the time. It was a risky step, and the writer was not afraid to take it. Her attempt may be justified as the book is great, and all the techniques are appropriately used.

Joseph, Philip. American Literary Regionalism in a Global Age. United States: LSU Press, 2007.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. United States: University of Illinois Press, 1991.

Hemenway, Robert. E. and Walker A. Zora Hurston: A Literary Biography. United States: University of Illinois Press, 1980.

Kövecses, Zoltán. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. United States: Oxford University Press US, 2002.

Nash, William R. Charles Johnson’s Fiction. United States: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

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Top 100 List of Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay Topics for Students

Sep 15, 2021 | 0 comments

Sep 15, 2021 | Topics | 0 comments

Zora Neale Hurston’s “ Their Eyes Were Watching God ,” tells the story of Janie Crawford, who rejects bitterness and fear in favor of love. The novel teaches readers lessons like those about marriage and other life experiences. However, some students have difficulty coming up with essay topics for their school assignments because they find it easy to read but difficult to get ideas from reading this book. You are here for one of two reasons. You either want to know what Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay Topics you could write about, or this is your third time reading the novel and now need help organizing ideas in a paper on it. What does Zora Neale Hurston intend by her story? One thing that has been made clear through careful analysis was how much she wanted readers to think critically while also being entertained with their Eyes Watched God theme song (The Ties That Bind). Some interesting Their Eyes Were Watching God essay titles include “Eroticism as Culture,” “Education’s Power Over Women Vs. Men,” or even “Zora’s Contributions To African American Literature.” As you read these various options, make sure to learn from them.

Table of Contents

Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay Topics

• An intriguing Search in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Contrasting setting in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Puzzling Symbols in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Janie’s journey in Finding Her Voice and using it in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Essay on personification in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Their Eyes Were Watching God: is silence a thing to Be Valued or questioned?
• Their Eyes Were Watching God: The tenacious Power of Will
• Universal Themes of Manhood in Nora Zeale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
• Voice and Language style in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Partiality in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Freedom Through the Pursuit of longings in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Essay on Gender Inequality in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The jurisdiction of Possibility in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston
• Finding Hope to cope in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Janie and the Pear Tree’s significance in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Themes in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Analysis Of The characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The significance of clothing in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Janie’s Self worth in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Searching for one’s true Self in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
• Dynamism in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• The use of personification in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee.
• Janie’s Search for Identity and self-acceptance in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
• Essay on subtle racism in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Independency in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Unveiling identity in Hurston’s Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Janie’s Courageous stance in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• The Different settings in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The imagery of the tree in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwannee
• Use of Litotes in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston
• The painful Growth of Janie in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• The obstacles in Self-Realization in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Love and its consequences in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: Whose eyes were Watching God according to the novel?
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, and its comparison to Oliver Goldsmith’s she stop to conquer
• Janie’s Epic Journey Of Love in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Fulfilling responsibilities in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Slavery and Marriage similarity in Their Eyes were Watching God
• Awakening And Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Janie’s terrible life Experiences in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
• Language and style in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The reality in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Consequences of Betrayal in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Janie’s imperfect Marriage in Their Eyes Was Watching God
• Ships at a Distance: Dreams and longings in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The analysis of Janie’s Life in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Perceptions of Relationships in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Deadly risks in Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

By zora neale hurston, their eyes were watching god study guide.

Hurston wrote Their Eyes in 1937 in only seven weeks while doing anthropological research in Haiti. When Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God was first published in 1937, it did not receive the accolades and recognition that it receives today. White readers were much less critical of the novel than black readers, who felt that Hurston had not been harsh enough in her critique of the white treatment of blacks in the South. They felt that she painted too rosy a picture of black life in the South, betraying blacks by not portraying the ill-treatment and demoralization that they had suffered. In fact, one of the most prominent black writers and intellectuals of the late thirties, Richard Wright, said that Their Eyes was themeless and meaningless; he thought that by portraying her people as quaint, Hurston had exploited them.

In the early 1970s, professors of African-American and women's literature rediscovered Hurston's novel and began teaching it to students. The book had been out of print for many years, but newfound zeal for Hurston's work caused the book to be brought back into print first in 1971 and then permanently in 1975. Alice Walker (the author of The Color Purple ) was instrumental in bringing Their Eyes Were Watching God into the modern literary canon. She became Hurston's champion, searching the South for Hurston's unmarked grave, and inscribing on it: "Zora Neale Hurston, A Genius of the South."

Walker's characterization of Hurston as a southern writer was well-founded. Although she was born in Alabama, Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was the first all-black city in America. The town was founded by a man named Joe Clarke (which has a similar ring to her novel's Joe Starks ), who was eventually elected mayor. Just as the townsfolk sit on Joe Starks's store porch in Their Eyes were Watching God, people would sit outside of Joe Clarke's store porch and tell stories about their lives and jokes about their neighbors.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Their Eyes Were Watching God is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Nature, in the form of buzzards, is able to articulate Janie's rage, and speak for the mule. The chief buzzard is seems like a religious figure; Hurston refers to him as the Parson. When the Parson asks what killed the mule, the other buzzard's...

What is the difference between men and women, according to the text,

I would say the closest is:

• Men are often secretly scared and self-doubting, whereas women are bold and brave

What kind of death has Janie witnessed?

Janie sees Joe's death. He died from kidney failure.

Study Guide for Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God study guide contains a biography of Zora Neale Hurston, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary
• Character List

Essays for Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

• The Importance of Dreams
• Getting in Touch with the Feminine Side
• Living for Yourself in Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Their Eyes Were Watching God: Double Consciousness as an Indicator of Growth
• A Voice of Abandonment

Lesson Plan for Their Eyes Were Watching God

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Their Eyes Were Watching God Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Their Eyes Were Watching God

• Introduction

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Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston and published in 1937. Set in the early 20th century, the novel tells the story of Janie Crawford, an African American woman on a quest for self-discovery and [...]

When first published in 1937, Hurston’s novel about a black woman’s journey for self-independence was denounced by male critics. However, the triumphant return of Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1978 enlightened the minds of [...]

From the very beginning of literature, dreams have been a recurring theme, symbolizing hope, desires, and aspirations. Zora Neale Hurston, in her renowned novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God," masterfully juxtaposes different [...]

In 1937, upon the first publication of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most influential black writer of his time, Richard Wright, stated that the novel ìcarries no theme, no message, no thought.î Wrightís powerful critique [...]

When Nanny tells her young, naïve granddaughter Janie Crawford, “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see,” (14) she is merely setting the stage for a number of connections between humans and animals that [...]

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