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Playlist Their Eyes Were Watching God: Shmoopversations 10 videos
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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.
Full Transcript
- 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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