¶ … Eyes Were Watching God." It discusses the ending of the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" first published in 1937. In this book Hurston uses vision along Janies way to finding a vision of her. The ending of this book was quite unusual from other books it wasn't exactly a happy ending but it appropriately concluded the work of Neale Hurston. In the ending chapter of this book Janie's vision of Black and white had been distorted. Starting from when she was a child, she had not even known that she was African-American. When she first met Joe, she likes him because he was "kind of portly, like rich white folks." Her marriage to him also gave her the image of being white and sitting in a "high chair." It is not until her third marriage, to Tea Cake, that she can finally fulfill her vision of self. After going through all the hardships of life Janie has made sense of her marriages and struggles. She has seen the horizon and taken control of it no longer is the horizon some strange far away source of aspiration. Janie owns the horizon; she can wrap it around herself and rejoice in the memories that have been trapped in it like fish in a net. The theme of the novel is summarized by Janie in three sentences: "you got tuh go there tuh know there...Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." (Hurston 1937) These sentences are calls to empowerment for all people, women and men alike. Janie has found that she must live for herself in order to be self-fulfilled. Since the entire novel has focused on Janie's progressive journey to finding herself. Even though life wasn't easy as she thought it will be and towards the end the experiences that she went through helped her found her true self.
References
Hurston, Zora Neale: "Their Eyes Were Watching God" 1937.
