Happiness is Finding Identity in Oneself (Their Eyes Were Watching God Book Analysis)

 Brenda Shoshanna once said, “Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness.” This idea is brought up in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She writes about a woman named Janie, who spends her life trying to find love and figure out who she is along the way. Janie’s life shows how circumstances shape identity and that it can take a lifetime to find individuality. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author uses character development and comparison to convey that identity is based on one’s independence to find fulfillment. 

Janie’s first marriage is the first step in her life to developing her character and her longings for life. Janie was put into a marriage with Logan Killicks, a wealthy farmer who can give Janie everything that Nanny wants for Janie. Logan and Janie’s relationship was forced by Nanny, her grandmama, to give Janie security and safety after Nanny died. Their relationship becomes more strained as Logan stops pampering Janie and starts telling her that she needs to work with him. Hurston writes, “What was she losing so much time for? A feeling of sudden newness and change came over her. Janie hurried out the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good”(Hurston 32). Once Janie realizes that Logan isn’t what she wants, she runs away with another man; Jody offers her a new life full of excitement and passion, which Janie feels is missing from her current marriage and her life. This is stating that as she is walking out the door to a new life, she feels like everything is going to change and even if she doesn’t end up with Jody, her leaving the life Nanny planned for her will be good for Janie. This is the start of Janie discovering what she wants from her life. This shows the beginning of who she will become and how her need for independence will lead to personal satisfaction, new experiences and figuring out who she really is when she is chasing her wildest dreams. The decision to listen to her own instinct shows how independence leads to satisfaction in life and how one grows as a person when one has the room to grow. Janie knew that once she accepted the changes, she would be content with the way her life was going. Change is meant to help humanity adapt to what life could bring and humans constantly fear what could come, rather than embrace all the new ways to become something new. Janie encountered this and she showed the audience that change is nothing to fear and everything to embrace. Janie shows how deciding what is best for oneself is the first step to becoming the best version of oneself.

Throughout the second part of the book, the author uses figurative language to express what Janie feels and thinks during her second marriage. As Jody and Janie become more popular throughout Eatonville and they become more wealthy, Janie soon realizes that Jody may not be what he seems. He becomes harsh and starts to control everything she does. Hurston shows Janie’s true feelings about Jody when she writes, 

“Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a wall of stone and steel…All things concerning death and burial were said and done. Finish. End. Nevermore. Darkness…Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expensive black folds were resurrection and life.” Throughout her second marriage, Janie loses her identity as Jody begins to assert his control over her. She eventually stops fighting him and begins to retreat into herself until she finally has enough. This is the decline of their relationship but the rise of her gaining freedom back. Once Jody dies, Janie begins to gain her identity back and she feels a new sense of self-assurance rush through her. This quote is a simile showing that to the outside world, she is a mourning widow, but her black veil is a wall separating all the death from the life Janie feels. The veil is acting as a chapter of Janie’s life closing, where her marriage with Jody is done and now she can begin a new stage of life. Here is where she continues her journey of finding her identity and figuring out who she is through her own means. It is shown through Janie’s actions and trials that one must be given the ability to grow in order to be at peace with life itself. Janie losing herself is what many people face through life and she showed that finding unity with oneself is the only way to truly be pleased with one’s existence. Even though Janie is alone at the end of the book, she is happy because she knows who she is and she has no regrets. The theme is shown through Janie’s trials, where she begins to seek her own happiness based on her own plans.

The author indicates Janie’s happiness and self-confidence in her marriage with Tea Cake through the use of metaphors. About nine months after Jody passes, Janie meets Tea Cake, a young man who takes a liking to Janie. He treats her with respect and pursues her for a while before Janie finally gives into her own feelings for him and they begin a new relationship. Janie says to Phoeby when talking about her relationship with Tea Cake, “‘Cause Tea Cake ain’t no Jody Starks... But de minute Ah marries ‘im everybody is going tuh be makin’ comparisons. So us is goin’ off somewhere and start all over in Tea Cake’s way…Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine’” (Hurston 114). Through her third marriage, Janie begins to experience what real love is with Tea Cake. He lets her be herself and she doesn’t have to be something she isn’t. With Tea Cake, she doesn’t care what anybody thinks of their relationship and she thrives in the relationship as an individual. Janie says in this quote that people will try to compare Tea Cake to Jody and they will have their opinions of Janie’s relationship, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because she is tired of living her life the way other people want and she is going to start living her own life, which is a great example of what life should be. Hurston uses a metaphor to compare Janie and Tea Cake to a love game, where the only way for Janie to win is to follow her own thoughts and ways of living, rather than someone else’s. This shows that rather than follow someone else’s way of thinking and their ideas, one should make decisions that benefit them. At this part of the story, Janie finds herself and also finds the love she has been searching for since she was a little girl. Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake shows how with the right person, one can thrive as an individual and become the very best version of them-self. The reader can infer that people need room to be themselves and confining them to a specific box with a specific label doesn’t allow their identity to be shown. 

In “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” a novel by Zora Neale Hurston, the author shows how identity is based on the independence one uses to find self-assurance and happiness by using character development and comparison. The uses of character development and figurative language show how Janie finds her identity through her marriages. In each marriage, the author portrays how Janie finds pieces of herself and figures out what she wants from life. This is significant because it is important to understand that in order to find identity, one must have the confidence to go out and search for the fulfillment everyone searches for. Janie didn’t find happiness until someone let her have the ability to want things and to speak her own thoughts. Finding identity is based on finding happiness in oneself and asking if we are content with the path we are going down. Identity can only be found if one goes out to pursue it.