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Their Eyes Were Watching God Part 2: Narrative Structure 6829 Views


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Description:

Their Eyes Were Watching God is about Janie’s coming of age story towards the path of self-discovery, just like Luke from Star Wars. Seriously, Janie had a lightsaber, Yoda pops up...the parallels are crazy.


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:07

Their Eyes Were Watching God

00:08

Narrative Structure

00:10

a la Shmoop

00:12

Give us a framework for the story itself.

00:14

What happens in the novel?

00:16

It's a serial. It kind of covers a whole litany of

00:20

painful life experiences that

00:22

you don't need to be a young, Black, teenage girl

00:25

to relate to. I can certainly relate to them.

00:27

- Sure. - And walk us through that.

00:29

Yeah, it really is the story of Janie's coming of age.

00:31

This girl starts out the book as a teenager.

00:34

It's a flashback to her as a teenager.

00:36

And we watch her go through

00:38

two really painful marriages and by the end, three.

00:42

And we see her grow up.

00:45

More than kind of...

00:47

becoming mature -- When we normally think of

00:49

a coming of age, we think of someone becoming more and more mature.

00:52

And she does, but it's really all about

00:54

the path to self-discovery.

00:56

And this is a story about how Janie is treated

00:58

by everyone around her -

01:00

White, Black, man, woman, everyone -

01:03

and how she kind of gets past all that

01:05

and is able to find herself among

01:09

a bunch of people telling her that she's not good enough

01:11

and treating her like she's not good enough.

01:13

[ pen writing ]

01:15

What's the narrative structure of the novel?

01:18

How is Their Eyes Were Watching God a story

01:21

about Janie's self-discovery?

01:27

Brought to you by the Discovery Channel.

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