Their Eyes Were Watching God

            In the story "Their Eyes Were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston the protagonist, or main character of the story, Janie Crawford, is alienated by her society and by her culture since as long as she can remember. From the day Janie was born people looked and thought that she was going to be different. They were absolutely right, Janie was one of those rare people that come along in life and are born into unfortunate circumstances but by God's will were given the character to overcome those circumstances and find their own true identity.
             The separation and distancing of Janie from her culture was present from the very beginning. It began when Janie's grandmother was a slave on a plantation in Georgia and was forced to become one of the many mistresses of her master's. The conflict culminated when Nanny gave birth to a mulatto child. One evening after the baby was first born the "missus" of the plantation got wind of the child's color and came to investigate and found the child to be that of her husband's. The woman was infuriated and told Nanny the next morning she was going to be whipped to death. Nanny was terrified for herself and for her child and so that evening she ran away and camped out in the woods.
             Nanny was able to get away and fond a good white family to take care of her and her baby in West Florida. Nanny was able to send her child to school and thing were looking good when one night after school Janie's mother didn't come home. She came crawling in the next morning; she had been beaten and raped. Nine months later she gave birth to the most beautiful baby anyone had ever seen with light brown skin and smooth silky hair and her name was Janie Crawford.
             So Janie was even born different from everybody else, different color, different race, different childhood, and different circumstances. Janie would take almost forty years of her life finding out who she really was and finding her own true individuality.