“Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore” (Hurston 191). Love is unpredictable. Every time a person falls in love, he or she is molded in some way. The person may veer toward a difficult path that leads to personal wounds, however as a result of these wounds they may learn from the relationship.
Hurston was born in the first self-governed all black city, Eatonville, Florida(American Decades pg 1). Hurston reflects this in her novel by having Janie, a strong and determined black woman, and move to the town, Eatonville, similar the one she lived in during her lifetime. Another instance is that the town Hurston moved to was self-governed just like the one from the novel. The author grew up having an estranged relationship with her father, who remarried two weeks after her mother’s death(American Decades pg 1). Hurston reflects this in the novel by having Janie find an interest in the man, Tea-cake barely two weeks after her second husband, Joe Starks, passes away. After graduating early from Morgan State University and working for her tuition to pay for the prestigious Howard University(American Decades pg 2). Her hard work and dedication is reflected in Janie’s hard work ethic working in the convenience store owned by her second husband. The divorce between Hurston and the love of her life is shown in the ending of many failed relationships between Janie and her three husbands(American Decades pg 2). Janie believes Joe Starks, Janie’s controlling overpowering husband, is the love of her life until the unfortunate events leading to his death and the ending of their relationship.
The setting of the novel mostly takes place in Eatonville, Florida. Former slaves in the South, after the Civil War, formed all-black town as a way to avoid segregation and discrimination they were facing. Almost thirty towns existed by 1914. Eatonville was the first...