Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is certainly a bildungsroman. However, the growth of Janie is not as obvious and not in similar ways as characters in the works previously read. While Harry had his moment of accepting his own fate and Huck has his decision to go to Hell rather than allow Jim to return to slavery, Janie’s growth seems to slip in past the reader’s radar. The development of Janie’s character springs from her well of love which she desires to share with a man in a beautiful marriage. However, her first marriages only succeed in tarnishing her vision and forcing Janie to retreat into herself. But Janie’s marriage to Tea Cake allows Janie to open up and to express all the love she had buried for so love. The true growth in the novel is Janie’s understanding of how to love and be love and how that looks. Janie survives countless storms which sweep through her life and by the end of the novel has discovered the power of love.
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bildungsroman? My goodness, that's the word of the day.
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