Their eyes were watching god

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, struggles to find herself in a world that tries to break her dreaming spirit by controlling everything she does. As a child, Janie is a dreamer with bright hopes for the future, especially hopes about love. Janie wants to live life and experience everything the world has to offer. Janie’s grandmother, however, stifles those first dreams by forcing her …

…and experience life for herself begins when she is a child, dreaming of love and all that life has to offer. Nanny, Logan Killicks, and Joe Starks mistreat, misunderstand, and control Janie for most of her life, hindering her from the independence she so desperately wants. Although she endures many hardships, it is through her relationship with Tea Cake that Janie is finally made an equal participant in her own life, thus achieving her dreams.