Ileana M.

Pena
February 12, 2016
12th Grade English
The Endless Road to Finding Happiness in this Earthly Life
Growing up with two older brothers made me want to do things a little better then them. I
did things I found hard, so that I could keep up and not feel left out. Diving, for example, was
one of the things I cannot conquer to this day. I saw them, and remember trying and trying, but
never getting it. My constant need for finding happiness by doing what they could do as a child
while I was growing up made me realize I was trying to be fulfilled by not falling behind. Then I
could be happy. Like Janie, the main character of the book, I tried to be complete by being happy
with what I could do myself. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie's self-fulfilling view of the
world, contrary to a Christian one, is seen through her perception of prime reality, ethics, and the
world around her.
Janies prime reality is centered around herself and therefore she struggles to find
happiness in her marriages. Prime reality is the really real, and it sets the boundaries for every
aspect of a worldview (Sire 22). This means that ones prime reality drastically affects
everyones view of the world. One day as Janie worked she realized how old her husband, Jody,
had become. She insulted him because the handsome man she married was vanishing and
physical aspects started to bug her like the stillness at the back of his neck and his prosperouslooking belly that now sagged like a load suspended from his loins (Hurston 77). Beauty
fades and everybody should know that, but Janies mentality was fogged because of her prime
reality. Janie needed to see the man she physically wanted and therefore she was not happy. In
her last marriage, she experienced jealousy for the first time. The book says she learned what it

felt like to be jealous and a little seed of fear was growing into a tree (136). Hurston shows
how Janie became bitter and swallowed this anger instead of confronting it with Tea Cake, her
husband. She had been too happy and full of herself with her new husband that she could not
handle this and felt a piece torn from her soul. When one is too concentrated with oneself,
problems caused by others that hurt are hard to deal with because the person has not learned how
to manage these types of situations. In her second marriage, Janie had an indescribable moment
of realization when she had it all and finally felt liberated and beautiful. This was when Jody,
another of her husbands, passed away. She had gotten tired of him, the routine and occasional
arguments about appearance. It did not matter if someone had to die to make her feel fulfilled
and that was all that mattered. As clearly seen, this insatiable fulfillment gets out of control and
she barely can do anything about. Janie just struggles more and more to find peace and happiness
within her because their is no such thing like a perfect man. Therefore her marriages can never
be successful unless her prime reality changes.
Janies worldview shapes her approach to ethics in all areas of her life. Ethics is
knowing what is right and wrong and every person acts accordingly to it because of their prime
reality (Sire 22). In her favorite marriage her husband, Tea Cake, hits her. He felt that being able
to whip her reassured him in possession not to mention in front of half the town (Hurston
147). Janie, on the other hand, does not react to this scene at all since her morality tells her that
people were seeing her as a woman that respected her husband with all her heart. This clearly is
not an act of love, but a worldview where others opinions are so valuable to be fulfilled causes
to block the true ethics of one. Another time, she ran away from her first husband, Logan, to
marry Joe Starks. Janie did not view this as a sin, but as a feeling of sudden newness and
change (32). She left him as if the past and himself could be erased whenever she felt like it and

whenever she was ready to move on and live life how she believed was right: happily. Here the
famous question of if the ends justifies the means demonstrates that Janie does agree with it
because abandoning her husband will eventually be the result of her happiness. In Janies
morality killing was also a difference between both the Christian and the Self-fulfilling
worldview. She killed Tea Cake. Even though he was acting abnormally because of his disease,
she did not have the right to take a rifle and defend herself by killing him. Janie could run away
and look for help because either way his days were shortening and the only thing he needed was
tolerance and patience. Thus Janies ethics are shaped by her consciousness of acting selfish
instead of thinking of what is actually right or wrong.
The Self-fulfilling worldview makes Janie perceive the world around her differently.
Here Sire also refers to it as external reality and it points to whether [the individual] sees the
world as chaotic or orderly (Sire 22). She starts to develop this mindset the instant she loses
her innocence (Hurston 25). It happened when her grandmother dies and she has a moment of
reflection where she realizes that if she had never loved Jody before she will not love him now.
This loss of innocence completely revolutionizes the view of the world around her. She, for
example, finds an inexplicable freedom when Jody dies. She looked at herself in the mirror and
felt a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let
down her plentiful hair as a symbol of total liberty. Hurston describes this as the world finally
opening to Janie and offering her a total new life. She felt the weight, the length, the glory was
there (87). In chapter 17, Hurston demonstrates how Janie considers the Everglades as the most
perfect place in the entire world because it had what conformed her. The Everglades had it all:
good food, happy people that partied and danced every night, and her new husband. This was her

perception of the ideal world and it surely fulfilled her. Therefore, for Janies external reality to
be complete it had to first please her and make her feel contended.
The Christian Worldview is a very different way of seeing the world from the Selffulfilling one. In Christianity prime reality is the infinite, personal God revealed in the Holy
Scriptures. This God is triune, transcendent, omniscient, sovereign, and good (Sire 28).
Meaning this that life is not around a person trying to become happy, it is about Gods perfect
qualities and characteristics. Ethics and morality is also a very different concept. In a Christian
Worldview, ethics is transcendent and is based on the character of God as good (holy and
loving) (42). This makes people have free will and therefore choose to do right or wrong, but
selfishness can drive this to constantly making choices without thinking of what is actually right.
Janie is an example of this because her life reflects how her decisions are not based whether they
are right or wrong, but if they make her happy. Lastly, the universe is perceived differently in
Christianity than in Janies worldview. It is orderly, and God does not present with confusion
but with clarity (32). With Janie the world around her was, in most cases, not considered orderly
since what fulfilled her caused chaos to her life. Without a doubt, Theism and the Self-fulfilling
worldview are two completely different ways of going about life and the mindset it produces to
individuals changes everything.
Opposite to a Christian Worldview, the Self-fulfilling worldview changes Janies
interpretation of prime reality, ethics, and the world around her. Hurston shows how Janies life
revolves around herself and as a result she fails with relationships. The author demonstrates
Janies thinking when it comes to choosing between right and wrong, but since her prime reality
is already distorted it is impossible for her to always, or at least most of the time, choose what is
correct. Once the readers understand the main characters mindset, it is quite obvious to know

how she views the world around her: it must be a place that pleases her. On the other hand, the
Christian worldview teaches the complete opposite. Both prime reality and ethics are based on
Gods character: good, infinite, personal, triune, transcendent, omniscient, and sovereign. The
world was created as orderly and therefore humans should follow this principle instead of not
thinking of their actions. Although these two worldviews have dissimilarities between them, the
major difference is that one is easier and natural in the moment while the other one is hard and
intentional. The outcome, however, makes one reconsider. While one leads to a miserable and
unhappy future, the other ensures a satisfaction of knowing that what one did was right and
nothing can replace this pleasurable feeling of real fulfillment. It is a daily choice no one can
make for you, and some how it goes so far as to determine your future and beyond, eternity.

Work Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel. New York: Perennial
Library, 1990. Print.
Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door. Print.