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Throughout the first eight chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the struggles of the African American community over time is immediately portrayed. Hurston clarifies Janie's family history and how her Black female ancestors have been mistreated over time in the early pages of her novel. On page 16, Janie's grandmother says, "You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways." Evidence of challenges faced by this minority group are evident a few chapters later when Joe Starks works to establish a strong town for African American people. On page 45, he provides his village with light stating, "Dis occasion is something for us all tuh remember tuh our dyin' day. De first street lamp in uh colored town." There are many other references to racial oppression throughout this story. Hurston does an excellent job capturing life during the early 20th century.

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I can apply Jaine to character development and symbolism  to the book up to this point. Along with the "power" Jaine has with speech, she also had discovered that not speaking as well held a certain power that words could not hold. She is able use her silence as a symbol of strength and use silence as a skill with others.

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Reading the first part of this book got me to notice a bit more into decision making and how its affected by past experiences and events. As a basic example, comparing Nanny and Janie's decision making skills against each other on the marriage topic it is obvious Nanny would choose a safer choice rather than a risk to ensure stability. “Heah you is wid de onlisest organ in town, amongst colored folks, in your parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road.”

But Janie on the other hand chooses more of a selfish choice and follows what she wants and not understanding her actually lucky placing in this situation. And although this is understandable there are times where selfish decisions can create unnecessary conflict. Further reading into the book it is already shown that without Nanny Janie's decisions are already weaker and self centered especially when she decides to run off with her "perfect" husband a few days after meeting him which was not a good decision. especially because you cannot really know who someone is in the first few days of meeting them and because of this as time moves on new feelings and traits arise.“That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store.” And this causes conflict and potentially regret.

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I definitely noticed a lot of the feminist ideas in the first couple chapters, those parts were the ones that most stuck out to me and I was able to collect quotes for. Seeing that this book takes place a long time ago and also was made a long time ago it was amazing to see the character in the book Janie stand up for herself against different men with more power than her, even though she knew she was unable to change the power dynamic. Men could still just call her not as “awfully pretty” as she was when they thought she would keep her mouth shut, but she didn’t let that stop her from speaking her mind. However, I also find it impressive that a woman had written this book with themes of standing up to men and I think the act of releasing the book itself took bravery from Hurston.

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One of the theories I notices was definitely about feminism and gener. I noticed here that men "hold power" over woman. This also related to issues nowadays not only back then, and its interesting to see how things change but dont at the same time. The values of women change, but are also abused. chapter 6 for example, " it happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. He slapped Janie untill she had a ringing sound in her ears."

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Janie holds a lot of similarities to the main character, Hester, of "The Scarlet Letter". A prime example is how it is that both of their dreams are practically crushed by their first marriages, only for their second lover to be a "restart" for them. Janie constantly believed after she became married to her first love that she would understand the meaning of love, though this was thrown away when she "became a woman". In correspondence to Hester, Hester throws away her current self when face to face with a newborn baby who is the product of her cheating on her first love with her second. Both of these women throw practically everything away once they wish to try and move on.

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This is the story of more than one woman, the story of how the world views them. I feel that  these three words: "You sho oughta," stick throughout the book, it feels like people are giving standardized advice. The "trashy people" Jody show how brutal the standard of life can be.

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I noticed throughout the novel despite womens dreams at the start being depicted as constant, never changing, and life determining while jamie's dreams are ever changing like those of men. At first she wishes for love, then the prim and proper life of a lady at the time, and then changes to a dream of social acceptence. Her dreams change as soon as she meets them leading to a never achievable goal.

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By building up the pasts and alluding to the pasts of certain characters, Hurston does an excellent job of utilizing psychoanalysis to explain their thought processes and outlooks. After her grandmother's unexpected death, Janie comes to the conclusion that "God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up," in other words, the world is ever-changing, thus explaining her cynical outlook on the world (Chapter 3, 25). She also introduces characters with the opposite outlook—when Janie brought up Joe "gointuh put up uh store and git uh post office from de Goven'ment," the omniscient narrator silently points out how it "irritated Hicks and he didn't know why... [i]t troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different." (Chapter 5, 38-39). Hicks had a past that was relatively stable while Janie did not, which explains their different perspectives on life.

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Throughout the first eight chapters, I notice that the relationship between Jamie and Jody starts out as pure love, but is degrading over time. I interpret this to mean that although she didn't feel it at first, she should have given her first husband a chance, as Jamie knew him better than she knew Jody when they ran off. I take this entire arc to symbolize the idea of a second chance—that is, a second chance with the first husband—as Jody turned out thus far to be exactly what Jamie's grandmother warned about.

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There is a big difference between how the characters talk and how the narrator talks. The characters talk with a Southern accent that is misspelled when written "Where is de Mayor? Starks persisted, Ah wants tuh talk wid him" (Chap 5, p 35). The narrator speaks in a grave and descriptive manner, occasionally letting his incomprehension or disdain of humans show. "For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men." (Chap 1 p 1) The great difference between the narrator and the actual characters makes me wonder why Zora Neale Hurston chose this narrator, and if this narrator is the best one to give a truthful account of the events in the book.

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A reoccurring theory that I see already is about gender. It gives off the impression that men are more powerful than women. Since the focus is on Janie and her life, you begin to see her struggles. The gender roles that this story shows are common and it's unfortunate that it still seems to be a problem today, when this book was set back in the 1930's.

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While reading chapter 1-8, I found myself mainly considering the feminism theory. Especially when Hurston wrote "So Janie had told him, “Ah’m just as stiff as you is stout. If you can stand not to chop and tote wood Ah reckon you can stand not to git no dinner"(4). Although Janie lives in this town filled with traditional judgey people, she's still able to break out of the pattern and stand up for herself. Then, when reading chapter 5, I couldn't help but think about the way Jody is portrayed. Hurston writes, ”They stared at Joe’s face, his clothes, and his wife".the way she adresses Jody's wife as something that falls in the same category as the clothes he's wearing illustrates her as an item, or a piece of his story.

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Something that I thought was very impactful was when she runs off with Jody. Technically, her previous husband is treating her with more respect by asking her to help on the farm and treating her as more of an equal. However, because of her aversion to manual labor she is more accepting of traditional values of where a woman is "meant" to be, and runs off to marry Jody.

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In chapter 7, as Janie gets older, Jody begins to belittle her for her age. This can be looked at through not just psychoanalysis (the shifting power dynamic of the relationship) but also  Through cultural studies as historically, only young women are perceived to be beautiful.

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From when Janie and Jody first meet, we know they are in love. As time goes on we can see and feel that love start to diminish on both ends of the relationship. The first line of the book reads "ships at a distance have every man's wish on board” (1). This quote means that everyone should dream as long as you are realistic. In this case Janie is dreaming about love. Then later in the book this is said "the years took all the fight out of Janie's face" (7). This quote shows how after all the years of dealing with Jody and fighting with him has led her to lose the "fight in her face".

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Jody believes that as his wife, Janie's role should be to look pretty and follow what he asks her to do without question. He sees Janie's submission as vital to maintaining his own strength and appearance of power; despite this, he believes that she should be happy with her position, as in the barest sense he is caring for her. When he sees she is unhappy, he bitterly thinks to himself that she is ungrateful, as he is "just pouring honor all over her; building a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the world and she her pouting over it" (chapter 6). What Jody fails to accept is that Janie desires a husband who will care for her, but also allow her to be as independent as she likes. When Janie finally stands up against him, she asserts that "[her] mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for [his] in [her]" (chapter 8).

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Janie's ability to think and feel for herself is stunted the moment "Nanny's words made Janie's kiss across the gatepost seem like a manure pile after a rain" (Chap 2). In this moment, we are watching Janie become conscious of her need to repress what brings her joy. Janie continues to lock her truest, freest thoughts away as she silences herself around Joe, so much so that "a feeling of coldness and fear took hold of her" (Chap 5).