Zora Neal Hurston's: Their Eyes Were Watching God (with Essay Prompt)

5 Pages 1156 Words

Essay Prompt:
Their Eyes Were watching God traces the protagonist Janie’s journey through life. In the first 15 chapters Janie experiences several changes, many of the most significant changes, however are in response to the external events in her life. These include but are not limited to: her first marriage, her second marriage, her life as the wife of the mayor, Joe’s death, her relationship with Tea Cake, and her experiences in the Everglades. Using the first 15 chapters as your focus, write an essay in which you discuss how her response to one significant external event illustrates Janie’s self discovery and subsequent internal change.


You’ve all seen mental break down in someone you’re acquainted with, or when a significant other breaks up with you. How you always think back, and every single minute, insignificant action they took, or situation they were in seems to add up quite nicely into one single conspiracy of a climax. You think: “that’s why she pulled her hand away from mine in the theatre” or “The depression must have started because _____.” In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston the main character, Janie goes through many different seemingly insignificant situations, which provoke many different seemingly insignificant reactions taken by her, that in the end all add up to an extremely significant internal change within Janie. In this case: the external event in question being namely the process of Joe/Jody, Janie’s husband getting sick and finally dying, which subsequently illustrates one of Janie’s most significant discoveries about who she really is.
Jody is the first person to notice his body is deteriorating, and in order to prevent anyone from noticing his body he pours more and more ridicule “over her [Janie’s] body to point attention away from his own.” (Pg. 78) This action, however backfires on Jody, and leaves Janie feeling trapped in a prison of ridi...