Hurston and Hemingway both explore the notions of illusions and dreams vs. reality, which begs the question: what is the pupose of dreaming and imagination in life? Does the word "dreamer" have a negative or positive connotation to you? Can using one's imagination or vision make reality better? What happens when there is a huge disparity between the dream and the reality? Can one dream too much? Not enough? What are the consequences of each?
What are Janie's dreams in the novel? How closely matched to reality are they? Do Janie's dreams help or impede her life progress?
In the novel, Janie's dream was to find a man that would treat her with respect and love her for who she is. She tried many times throughout the book to find love, but each time she found that the men were never right for her. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, was able to support and protect her, although she did not love him. After Janie met Jody and fell in love with him, she realized that he was trying to change who she was. Though out their many years together, Janie learned to keep her emotions hidden as Jody's reign of power grew over the town and herself. Janie's last husband, Tea Cake, showed her what love is meant to be like. He helped love and treat her with respect just like Janie had always dreamed of. Janie's experiences are matched to reality because in real life, you are always continuing to learn new things and when things don't go as planned, you try to fix them. With time, you learn life's lessons and you begin to try to make your dreams turn into a reality. Although Janie's dream's prevented her from many things in her early life, she was soon able to see her dreams come true. In the long run, Janie's high expectations gave her the life she always wished she had.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of dreaming is to give you something to strive for in your life. The word "dreamer" has a positive connotation to me because it means you are trying to reach something you have never achieved. When there is a huge difference between reality and you dreams, it just means it will take a little harder work to reach you dreams. You can't dream too much, but if you dream too little, you will never push yourself towards anything. In the novel, Janie's dream is to be able to be herself around someone she loves. Her dreams help her in her life because without this dream, she would have stayed married to Logan Killicks. Her dream helped her to realize she deserves someone who she has a better connection with and who treats her better than Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. She finally reaches her dreams when she meets Tea Cake and falls in love with him. Her dreams helped her achieve the life she had wanted since she was a little girl.
ReplyDeleteI believe dreaming is a positive connotation, and it is necessary for a person to dream in order to live a wonderful life. Setting short term and long term goals allows people to work hard to make their dreams a reality. Using your imagination is important because every great accomplishment begins with a small wish. When there’s a great diversity between someone’s wishes and real life, they’ll try their best to make their wants a reality. Achieving your goals is great for a person’s self esteem. If you dream too much then you can’t accomplish much since you’ll be too busy dreaming. If you dream too little, then you can’t be motivated enough to complete your goals. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie Crawford dreams of discovering herself through companionship. Janie continues to find love throughout her life, starting with Logan Killicks, who she had to marry at her Nanny’s consent. She didn’t like her life much with her first husband so she believed she would fulfill her dreams of happiness with her next husband Joe Starks. Starks proved to be a jerk just like Killicks. Janie finally found love with the man of her dreams Tea Cake, so her dreams and reality became the same. To conclude, Janie’s dreams inspire her to improve her life.
ReplyDeleteHaving dreams to fulfill is a part of life. If you don't have a dream or a goal you would like to achieve throughout life, you have nothing to strive for. Dreams can become reality if you just have the willpower to turn them into something obtainable to you. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is the main character. Janie has many dreams she would love to achieve. One being the chance to find love and be happy in the relationship. She goes through a few men including Logan Killicks, Joe Starks and ends with a man named Tea Cake. The first two marriages failed due to Janie not being satisfied in the relationship. She wasn't able to be herself until tea Cake came along. Tea Cake made her dreams come true. Janie lived a happy life after Tea Cake showed her that her dreams can become reality.
ReplyDeleteDreaming is something that can make all the difference in a person's life. It can help push them towards to what could be a better life for them. In the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Janie dreams about finding love. Janie wants to find that fairy tale love where she'll be happy forever and have a perfect life (or near perfect life). But before that could happen for Janie, she had to go through a struggle with her first two marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starcks. And when you think that Janie is about to give up on her dreams to find love, Tea Cake came along. Tea Cake made Janie feel alive and made her dreams come alive. Dreams can become a reality, you just need the right person to help you with that.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of dreaming and imagination in life is to come up with a way to accomplish something you never thought was possible. The word 'dreamer' has a positive connotation to me because I it associate with someone who never holds back in fear of failure. Using one's imagination can make reality better because it helps you come up with creative solutions to problems. When there is a huge difference between dream and reality, it will either disappoint a person or motivate them to reach it. People who dream too much are likely in denial of reality, whereas those who dream too little are afraid of not getting what they go after. Janie's dreams are to fall in love and be happy. These dreams are closely matched to reality because she spends her life searching for these ideals. Janie's dreams help her when she gets away from Logan Killicks because she would have been stifled her whole life had she stayed with him. On the flip side, she wants to fall in love so badly that she runs off with Joe Starks after a very short period of time. This leads to many years of wasted marriage for her. In the end though, Janie's dreaming pays off and she finds Tea Cake to be with forever.
ReplyDeleteDreaming is about having something to chase all your life. Everybody needs something to look forward to. Dreams can make those hard times in life a bit easier, but if you don't come back to reality when you need to you might not achieve your goals.If you don't dream enough then you're missing out on a lot and life isn't as exciting.Janie's dreams were to find love and happiness.After years of searching and a couple marriages later she finally found that when she met Tea Cake.
ReplyDeleteJanie's main fantasy throughout the novel was to endure a marriage full of life and love. Once she witnessed the playful encounters between the bee and the pear tree, she wanted a lifelong partner to do the same; she thought that true love would bring everything she ever wanted and more. With her first two marriages, she perceived that they did not give her the things that she wholeheartedly wished for. Towards the end of the book, her dreams become a reality when Tea Cake appears in her life. Janie realized that Tea Cake supplied all the love she strived for. Overall, I think that Janie's dreams helped her life's progress because the destination was worth it all: true love.
ReplyDeleteJanie's dream was to fall in love with a man who would treat her right and not just until something more important came along. Who would love her for her and not want her to change. I feel that the word 'dreamer' has a positive connotation to me because it is setting a goal for something that you wish to achieve. She dreamed that she could have true love which when she married Logan Killicks and Joe Starks it put a halt on her dreams because she thought that they loved her and would treat her like a princess when in reality all they did was hold her back from her dream which was to find true love, which happened with Tea Cake.
ReplyDeleteThe word “dreamer” to me has a negative connotation. I think of a dreamer as someone who has all these great ideas but they just don’t believe in themselves enough to put them into action. If one’s imagination is used in the right way of course it can make reality better, a boring day with nothing to do all of a sudden becomes an adventure through a wardrobe to Narnia. The imagination is something that can be used to spice up any part of reality. One may take it too far; when one begins to lose focus on where reality ends and dreams begin. When the line between reality and imagination begins to blur people lose focus on what needs to be accomplished in life. They could start to lose friends and loved ones without even noticing the pain they are causing.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel, Janie’s dreams are to find true love. Find someone who will care for her not because they can make her into something but because they care for who she is. She tried many times to find true love in the novel but never found it, until Tea Cake. Her first husband, Logan Killicks, loved her but she didn’t love him. He had money and stature so he was able to provide and protect her but it just wasn’t enough. Joe Starks came along and instantly clicked with Janie; they fell in love in the next couple weeks but after a while she noticed he wasn’t what she wanted and when he died she found the person of her dreams. Tea Cake the one who loved her for who she is, he took care of her and they loved each other. Janie was always learning as she tried to find her prince charming. Her dreams kept her focused on what she wanted and that she should never have to settle for second best.
Dreamer has a positive connotation with me. Janie dreams about love. She knew she didn't love Logan Killicks, and she thought she loved Joe Starks, but eventually realized that she didn't. By the time she meets Tea Cake, she is wary. She doesn't want to be fooled and pulled in only to be sad and alone later. After a while she comes around and realizes that she loves him. Her dreams allowed her to keep searching until she found someone that made her happy.
ReplyDeleteDreaming has a positive connotation in my eyes, because without a dream you don’t have any goals in life to look forward to. Using your imagination aids you to vision new ideas to help you reach your goal or your “dream”. For example in the cartoon “Spongebob Squarepants” he uses his imagination with his best friend, Patrick, to find ideas to help him throughout his life, and reach his goals he sets. As well, in the novel “Their Eyes were Watching God,” Janie has a dream about romance. Her dream is that she will be fulfilled with the happiness of a husband who understands her, and treats her like she is useful. Dreaming can also have a negative effect. If you dream too much you may take all your focus and put it towards that dream and push everyone else or everything else aside. Then when you do not reach your dream, you become disappointed or depressed, like Janie. Janie because very disappointed when she never became happy with her several spouses, she might have thought to give up because she will never find “the one”. However, Tea Cake comes along and allows Janie to live her dream and change it to reality. Her dreams pushed her to change her lifestyle and become happy.
ReplyDeleteDreaming and imagination are things that everybody needs in life. They serve the purpose to give hope that there is always something better to strive for in life. The word "dreamer" has a very positive connotation to me. A great quote is from Jon Lennon's song Imagine: "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Everybody at one time in their life has been a dreamer in their life. A person's imagination/vision can most definitely have an effect on reality. If a person has a positive vision in life it will help them to strive for greatness in their life. Also, when a person has a dream, it will more more than likely give them something to help them go through the harsh reality day by day. When there is a disparity between reality and the dream, the dream seems so much better than what someone has in real life. People can definitely over-dream or under-dream. When a person over-dreams they often loose their grip on reality and live in a world of their own, but if a person under-dreams they might not have a goal in life.
ReplyDeleteIn "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie's goals in life are to find someone who will give them self to her and love her as much as she is willing to. Eventually Janie is able to make her dream a reality when she met Tea Cake. Her dreams did help her through life because she was willing to let men in to try and find happiness.
The purpose of imagination and dreaming in life is something better than what’s happening in reality. For example, a young orphan may dream of one day belonging to a family. I believe that being a dreamer is positive. If you don’t have dreams, you have nothing to look forward to in life. Dreams provide you with goals to reach. Using your imagination can make reality better. When you’re a toddler, you need an imagination to play games and such. When there is a huge disparity between a dream and reality, some people might give up their dreams. Others might fight and persevere for what they want. If you dream too much, you may not know what’s reality or fantasy. If you rarely dream at all, you might not have a goal in life.
ReplyDeleteI think that Janies dream in life is to find someone who will treat her equally. In reality at that time, men and women were not treated equally. So for Janie to find something that was frowned upon in society is rare. I think Janie’s dreams impede her life process because if you search for something that might not exist, then you just wasted your whole life.
Dreaming and having an imagination in life give you the drive to become the person you want to be. Dreamer has positive connotation to me because dreamers are the ones who change the world. If people do not have the drive to get up and do something, the world will never change for the better.
ReplyDeleteIn “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Janie’s dream is to find someone who she loves, and who will truly love her. Like many dreams, Janie’s required lots of work to become reality. She married Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. She was not happy with these two and kept looking until she found Tea Cake. When she married Tea Cake her dream became reality. If Janie did not dream she would have lived a bad life with Logan Killicks.
When I think of the words 'dreams' and 'imagination', it has a positive connotation. It makes me think of goals and how to achieve them or an escape from reality. Without dreams, you have little to look forward to. Imagination can take you away from what is really going on and take you to where you want to be. Both of these are very powerful. Janie's one dream was to just find true love. She wanted to be equal with her partner and accepted for who and what she was. This was very difficult because men and women were not equal in society. She did not find this until her third try but no matter what, Janie kept searching for what she wanted. She never gave up on her dreams.
ReplyDeleteThe words dream and imagination have a positive connotation in my opinion. A lot of people are successful because of dreams. Martin Luther King Jr. made a huge difference in the world because of his 'dream'. Dreams give you goals to strive for and try to achieve. Imagination takes you away from reality for a little bit and can help you make your dream a success. Janie wanted to find love, that was a dream of hers. When she found the love and completed her dream, she was very happy and no longer had to use her imagination of finding love. Her imagination became reality by following through and achieving her dream.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has dreams, whether they fulfill them or not, they still have them. A dream for Janie was to claim her independence and find a man who would respect her independence. She wasn’t going to let someone completely control her like an object. An imagination can make someone’s life better if they strive to complete what they think will happen in their imagination. But in the end Janie does live her dream and is content with her life.
ReplyDeleteWhen i think of the word dream i think positive. I believe dreams ultimately lead up to being ones goals in life. Peoples dreams are what they hope to become or would like to have. Janies dream is just to find the right man for her. She didnt ever dream of marrying Logan Killicks. Janie left him for Joe Starks just because. She didnt dream or imagine herself with Joe. The one man she did dream and imagine being with was Tea Cake although. It did take Janie three men to find the right one but she did end up with the man of her dreams. If you want to make a dream a reality then do it. Anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteThe word "dreamer" has a negative connotation, because a dreamer is someone who only dreams about their goals, they don't pursue them. TO have a dream is completely different, because then a person can strive to achieve. Using the imagination is healthy, so using it to make reality better is definitely a possibility. If there is a large disparity between the dream and reality, then the person must fight through the controversy to achieve what they want. Dreaming too much means that a person probably won't pursue their goals, but dreaming to little probably means that the person is dull, and doesn't have any goals in life. Janie's dream was to receive independence and recognition, even though she was a woman. Her dreams are very close to reality, she just needs to step out of her comfort zone and do what she wants, and not worry about others. Janie's dreams help her life by giving it a purpose to achieve something.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I respect Dominic's answer, I must kindly disagree with his connotation of the word "dreamer." If you are dreaming, then that means you are aspiring for something that is either greater or that you don't have yet. It will fuel your drive to go out and do something. I do agree with the "over dreaming" will lead a person to not pursue their dreams. They will get caught in their fantasy world and not continue with life. He is exactly correct about Janie's dreams. They are down to Earth in possibility in that she could just receive independence and recognition but that means she will have to work very hard. Janie is dreaming the correct amount and it's driving her ambitions instead of leaving her in a fantasy land.
DeleteI agree with Bryce in that if a person is dreaming they are aspiring for something that may be out of reach at the exact moment. From the day Janie sat under the pear tree to the day she met Tea Cake, she dreamed. Her dreaming I believe helped her to get through the time spent with Starks. Her dreams helped her to set a goal of finding true love, which she did in fact find, but it took most of her life to do so.
DeleteDreaming can help you reach a goal,find what you want in life,discover your fears,and help you get through rough times.To me being a dreamer is a good thing, and a bad thing. For example, it is a good thing because I've known how I want my future to be since I was really little. I know what I want to do for college, my job, family, travels,and the type of house and car I want. I'm a dreamer. Being a dreamer has helped me know the classes I need to take, grades I need to have, and schools I want to go to.Nightmares are an example of a bad dream. Also, you could argue that reality can be a bad dream because, sometimes dreams don't come true. Janie's dreams went bad quite a few times while trying to pursue love and happiness in her previous relationships.Janie had a creative mind,and bigger plans than is expected from a woman. Her head was somewhat in the clouds trying to find true love, instead of settling. Dreaming guides Janie to what she wants and needs,she has a rough time finding happiness in things that most people in that time would just deal with. She deals with being hit,yelled at and controlled. Janie knows, from dreaming,that those things don't always have to happen. Seeing how things are supposed to be, helps Janie find a better love.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the words dreaming and imagination they definitely have a positive connotation. People dream because often their imagination is better than reality. When the stresses of real life get to be too much you always have your dreams to fall back on and your imagination to escape to. Without dreams and goals you would have nothing to strive for in life and nothing to achieve. In the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Janie's lifelong dream is to find true love. During her first two marriages, she relied on her imagination greatly to keep her dream of true love alive even though she wasn't experiencing it in real life. That's what got her through and made it possible for her to find true love with Tea Cake.
ReplyDeleteDreams are positive as they are images of what people want out of life. Janie lived most of her life as a dreamer. Unfortunately if one dreams too much they risk not being satisfied with reality. If they don't dream at all they may never aspire to become or indulge themselves in anything more than what they are used to. During Janie's first two marriages she used her dreams to keep herself going. Through the downfalls of both of her husbands she still held the dream that she wanted to fulfill. When she met Tea Cake her dreams came true and she refused to settle for anything less than that. Her dreams were what pulled her out of Eatonville.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of dreaming and imagination is to give life a new perspective and make things creative. With kids you have to make up games and understand their non sense games too, and to do that you need imagination. The word dreamer has a neutral connotation to me; it can be good or bad. Dreamer can be good by making dreams and goals for yourself when you’re older to have something to work towards. Dreamer can also be bad, because some dreams don’t come true like every fairy tale ending. Using ones imagination can make reality better; for instance if some horrible argument is going on you could try to distract that person by trying to be funny or trying to make up a cool game to get their minds off of it. People become stuck in a little kids mind and won’t want to do things if you always have imagination and not enough reality to balance it out. Also, they won’t want to become independent and won’t know how to become something in the real world with too much reality and vision and if the dreams and visions don’t come true, it could hurt a person but they could still try to work harder and harder at achieving that goal once again. But if you don’t dream too much, you won’t have any goals to try to achieve in life. Janie’s dream in the novel is finding true love. Not everyone can find true love right at that second, and that’s what she wanted to do. I think that Janie’s dreams impede her life progress because she’s so obsessed with trying to find love that she doesn’t want to do anything else and not any other goals.
ReplyDeleteI believe dreaming is a positive connotation. Dreaming can allow one to find a solution to a problem or strive for something desired. Although dreaming is a necessity in life, there is a fine line between dreaming and reality. A dream can be anything one could ever imagine but if no effort is put forth to allow that dream to come true, reality is dull. Janie’s marriage with Logan Killicks leaves her wanting love and she dreams of finding love and happiness. Janie’s dreams help her to realize she deserves better and she leaves Logan to strive for what she wants until her third marriage with Tea Cake. Tea Cake shows her happiness and love and Janie’s dreams become reality.
ReplyDeleteI believe the word "dreamer" has a negative connotation. Dreamers don't pursue their goals. Do you think Kobe Bryant got to the NBA by dreaming it? No, he worked hard and pursued his goal, that is why he is in the NBA. Dreaming is merely a fantasy in your mind. It does nothing for people except sit in their imagination. People need to chase their goals not just dream about them. During the novel, Janie dreams about love at the pear tree. She doesn't do anything to accomplish her goal. As the book progresses Janie still dreams about love. Her ambition leads her away with Joe Starks. If she would not have followed her dream she would still have been stuck with Killicks and never had known what it is like to love. After Starks dies, her dream continues and she follows Tea Cake and finally finds what she was day-dreaming about in the beginning of the novel. Her dream becomes reality.
ReplyDeletePersonally, the word "dreamer" is a positive connotation. Dreaming can help someone create ideas that can be fulfilled. I believe that without dreaming and imagination a lot of important events wouldn't have happened.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel, Janie dreamed to find a guy who would love and respect her for who she was, and she wouldn't have to hide part of herself from him. She wished for a man who couldn't survive without her (and her without him). Compared to reality, her dreams would be challenging to get, and they were. She went through two marriages to figure out that she didn't need material things to be happy. Even though it was difficult, I believe that her dreams help her life progress because you have to work hard for what you want, and that's what Janie did to find Tea Cake.
Janies dreams in the novel were quite simplistic in our eyes nowadays, only wanting to live a fulfilling life of independance and love. For her, dreaming is a great thing for her to do. It helped her realize many things in journey though life and shaped her to be a complete person of her own. Though, on the other side, dreaming too much could be the downfall to a person. If one believes that they could have the best of the best and not try, they're taking too much for granted while, most likely, having an unfulfilling life ahead of them. So, all in all, being a dreamer has a connotation all to the eye of the beholder. That one person can take it to be whatever they wish it to be, possibly helping them or hurting them in the end depending on how much they twist it from realities limitations.
ReplyDeleteTo me, dreams definitely have a positive connotation. Dreams give you something to shoot for in life and make you want to work to achieve it. People dream because often, they give you something to look forward to if life isn't going the way you planned. Janie's dream throughout the book is to find true love and although it took her a while she finally achieved it. Without her imagination and her goals, she never would have been able to make it through her first 2 marriages and got to fall in love with Tea Cake.
ReplyDeleteDreams, to me, are both a positive and a negative connotation. In one way, dreams are fantasies. They help us escape from everyday life and allow us to imagine more, sometimes things we really truly want. Dreams are our deepest desires. And yes, visions of what could be make our lives worth living. On the other hand, we can get swept up in our dreams and be blinded from reality. It isn't wrong to have high hopes and aim for them, but it is wrong to get carried away and lose sight of what is real. I think having goals are a fantastic thing and I know how easy/fun it can be, but in my opinion, I just think that they need to be plausible.
ReplyDeleteDreaming is a way to escape from everyday life to see how the world could be if you did an action, and these dreams can lead to a person setting goals for their lives. Personally, the word "dreamer" makes me think that the person only thinks and doesn't take action to achieve what they want in life. To Janie her dreams are of finding true love, but for a little while she is my definition of a dreamer. Yet, when she gets married a second time she tries to achieve that goal to find true love, and succeeds when she meets her third husband,Tea Cake. I believe, Janie's dreams did make her move forward with her life towards her goal, but fate seemed to not be on her side.
ReplyDeleteI think the purpose for imagination and dreaming in life is to make us creative people. No one one dreams about the same things. It gives us a unique quality, and inspires us to make certain choices. If no one dreamt or imagined anything, the world would be such a boring thing. The word dreamer has a positive connotation to me because I have some big dreams of my own. I think you can use your imagination to make your reality better. If you're stuck in a bad situation, you can imagine what you're going to do when you get out of it, and it can give you some hope. However, I do believe it can be bad when there is a huge disparity between dreams and imagination. Let's say you come from a very poor family but you want to go to a really expensive college. Your dreams most likely will not come true, and I think once the reality hits you, it can make you want to give up on everything else. Janie's dream is to find her voice, and someone who can lift her up. She wants true love, and that can be hard to find.
ReplyDeleteDreamer is a word with positive connotation, in my eyes. A dreamer is one who innovates, the one who sees through the bad to push on to the good. A dreamer will be the one who lights up the way for others to follow into happiness. Imagination can definitely improve one’s outlook on life, because instead of seeing the perhaps bland or boring world you see what you strive for, adding purpose and meaning to your life. When there is too much of a difference between dreams and reality, depression occurs because people realize they may never reach their goal. A person can dream too much, or not enough, because in the case of both the person sees a world that they are unhappy with, and becomes sad. Janie dreams of finding true love throughout the book. Someone she can trust and loves her unconditionally. Janie fluctuates between how close and far she is from her dream throughout the novel. When she marries both Logan and Joe, she is happy, but later becomes sad with her choice because she sees her dream slip away. The disparity becomes too great for her to handle. However, when she meets Tea Cake, she finally reaches her goal. Her dreams help her along in life, by reaching newer and better ways of living.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the word “dreamer” has a positive connotation, as when I think of someone who is a dreamer, it makes me think of a person who is determined to achieve a goal(s) they have set for themselves to reach. I believe that dreaming and imagining adds purpose to life, as it gives a person something to work for or to look forward to. Using one’s imagination has the possibility to make reality better but simply changing the perspective of things (ex. a glass that is half-empty versus a glass that is half full). When there is a large margin between dreams and reality, it gives people who are dreamers a reason to work even harder to make their dream(s) a reality, while others may simply just give up. However, I do believe that if a person dreams too much, and fails to recognize the existence of reality, they can thus become too preoccupied by their dream(s) and never move on with their lives. By the same token, not dreaming enough can lead to an unfulfilled life. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s dream is to be loved, and love in return. Her dream helps her progress in life as if she had given up, she would still have been in a loveless marriage with Logan Killicks and not run off with Joe Starks to Eatonville, where she eventually met Tea Cake, who she loved dearly.
ReplyDelete"Dreaming" is a very positive thing. This is when someone has an idea or a goal that they wish to achieve. Being a "dreamer" on the other hand comes off negatively to me. People who are "dreamers" are those who may have an entire realm of genius floating in their heads, but are never the ones confident/ambitious/determined enough to actually pursue it or make it a reality. Imagination and free thinking allows dreams, reforms, and pioneering to manifest... but sometimes people can be bound by surroundings, people around them, and beliefs. In regards to the novel, Janie's dreams of love and blithe are constantly imprisoned within the confines of her misery. Her avidity to love seeped through these cages when it saw the opportunity. She took the risk to follow her dreams, but was unfortunate more than once. Janie's dreams ultimately guided her on the pursuit of love, even though she had a rough time testing the "trial and error" method.
ReplyDeleteI think dreaming has a positive influence on people. It allows us to be optimistic and strive to reach our goals/ dreams. One of Janie's obvious dreams is to be in a loving relationship with a man she loves. She achieves this dream by marrying Tea Cake and living his way of life before his death. Another dream that Janie wanted to achieve is mentioned in chapter twelve. Janie says, "Ah done lived Grandma's way, now Ah means tuh live mine." (Hurston 114)This quote is stating that Janie is done trying to live the fancy and successful way of life that her grandma wanted her to live. She wants to live wherever life takes her. Janie accomplishes this dream when she and Tea Cake get married and move to the Everglades. Even after Tea Cake's death Janie continues to keep this dream by taking life a day at a time.
ReplyDeleteI believe the purpose of dreaming in life is to give people something to strive for. Imagination allows you to think of things that you never thought were possible. It gives you a chance to step out of reality, which I believe is necessary throughout life. The word "dreamer" has a positive connotation to me. Using your imagination definitely makes reality better, however I believe too much imagination is not always good. If you have too much disparity between dreaming and reality, no one will take you seriously or realistically. It is always good to dream though. Without dreaming, you have nothing to strive for in life. You need to set goals and motivations in order to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI believe Janie's dreams in the novel are to fall in love and live life the way she wants to. Janie just wants to be happy. Her dreams are very close to reality. She find love and a man that treats her as a equal. She explores life and does things she never thought she could do. Her dreams help her live life to the fullest.
Personally I think dreamer has a positive connotation. To dream is to have the desire to keep working towards something you want, which I think is healthy for a person. For some people dreaming helps them escape their own reality to stop them from doing something dangerous. Of course there is a rather large consiquence to dreaming too much, the person would not get anything done because they would rather dream. On the other hand though if you do not dream enough you would not have any goals to work towards which leads to a very dull life.
ReplyDeleteJanie's dreams in this novel weas to find her true love and live her life happily. I think Janie's dreams are very closely matched to reality, almost everyone searches for their true love throughout their life. Janie finally makes her dream a reality when she meets Tea cake and instantly falls in love. Janie's dreams I feel help drive her to find her true love to live her life with and finally get the happiness she deserves.
Although many people use the term "dreamer" in a negative sense, I feel that dreaming is a wonderful and necessary part of life. Dreams give a person something to journey on for in life, and a hope that the journey will ultimately be worth the effort. If a person does not dream at all, then that person will not likely have anything to strive for in life; on the other hand, a person who dreams too much may have trouble making his or her dreams a reality.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel, Jamie dreams that she will experience true love; she wants to someday enter a beautiful marriage with a man who will treat her with dignity and care. Her first two marriages cause her to doubt that her dream will ever become reality, but her marriage to Tea Cake reassures her fantasies. Ultimately, Janie's dreams entered into real life with Tea Cake. Wihtout her dreams, Janie may have stayed with Mr. Killicks for her entire life; instead, Janie's dreams allowed her to find happiness with Tea Cake.
Dreamers are often give a negative connotation but in my opinion, dreaming is an essential part of life. Dreams give us something to aspire and work towards. Dreams can also give us refuge when we are facing unpleasant times.
ReplyDeleteJanie seeks to find a man who loves her for who she is and not what she looks nor what he can mould her into. For the first 90 pages or so, Janies dreams are far from reality but as Tea Cake becomes part of her life, those dreams become her reality.
I think Janies dreams helped her get through her tough marriages; without them, she would have been utterly hopeless.
Imagination and dreams are the very foundation upon which societies have built for generations! Without them, life would be a place of hardship and weakness. Picture a world where you were given your job, told what to write, provided what to wear, ultimately placed inside a mold that everyone else, save for you, can control. Our country was founded by “Dreamers” and everything we have today was invented by “Dreamers”. So if a “Dreamer” is someone who can shape the future to make our life a reality, then yes a “Dreamer” has a positive connotation to me. Using one’s imagination is simply turning your thoughts and ideas into an existent form, no matter how impossible or fruitless they may be; that is a dream. Janie’s dream is to find a man that will respect her as well as her free frame of mind, to me, that is a realistic goal. The special thing about dreams and your imagination is that they are as real as you want them to be, it depends how hard you work for them to come true.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of dreaming and imagination in life is to keep people motivated. It gives them something to strive for. The word "dreamer" has a positive connotation to me because everything great starts with an idea. Using one's imagination or vision can make reality better by pushing you to get somewhere. When there is a huge disparity between the dream and the reality you can be too into dreaming and not accomplish anything. If you have no dreams you might not be able to go far in life. Janie's dreams in the novel are to fall in love and find herself, as a person. Her dream helped her find the one she loved instead of staying with Logan Killicks. She realized that she does have to be with someone that doesn't deserve her. Her dreams got her to a place she wanted to be since
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The purpose of dreaming and imagination is to make reality better. The word dreamer has a positive connotation for me. Inventors and innovators probably all had dreams about how to make the world a better place at some point. When there is a large difference between reality and dreams it just means that reaching dreams may take longer or may require more work. You can dream too much, but it is more common to dream too little.
ReplyDeleteJanie’s dream in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is to find true love. Janie first believes when she marries Logan Killicks that although she is not in love then she will be in love because they are married. This dream is shattered. When she leaves Logan for Joe, Janie believes that no she will experience love. This dream is also crushed. Only when Janie is with Tea Cake does she find her dream. Janie’s dream of finding love and her refusal to give up lead her to Tea Cake.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston demonstrates that dreams rooted in reality often come true. That is indeed the case for the main character, Janie, who dreams of finding true love. Because Janie’s dream is closely matched to reality, it serves as her compass to help her life progress. When her life wandered off course with her first two marriages, she followed her compass and eventually found true love in the end.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Being called a dreamer is a positive thing because it means you can dream bigger. Dreams can reinforce goals somebody has and make them happier. I think Janie's goal was to find happiness and love, Which she did with Tea Cake. She tries for love in every marriage but fails twice. Many people try to find love and happiness, so many people can relate to her. I do not think that these dreams interfered with her life goal because it sounds like finding love was her life goal.
ReplyDeleteDreams are a quite complex object that still, even by today’s technology and advancements, are practically impossible to explain. The purpose of dreaming and imagination in life is to clue in an individual to their subconscious thoughts. By keying into the subconscious through the use of dreams or imagination one is able to gain a better understanding of who they are as a person. In my opinion, the word “dreamer” has a positive connotation. I associate the word with ambition, goals, and achievement because dreaming often leads to such things. Likewise, using one’s imagination or vision can make reality better. If one is able to dream big and put the right amount of effort in, such dreams can become reality. Thus, dreams, imagination, and the like can have a positive effect on reality. Even if there is a huge disparity between the dream and reality, the dream still acts a positive source of motivation to improve such reality. However, once one loses sight of reality they have out stepped the boundaries between dreaming and hallucinating insanity. So yes, there is such thing as dreaming too much. On the other hand, there is also such thing as not dreaming enough. If one never dares to imagine or dream, what is their motivation? Nothing. This is why people who lack qualities like imagination and vision do not go far in life. In this particular novel, Janie (the protagonist) dreams of what most females dream of: that bittersweet fairytale true-love, a” happily ever after”- type marriage. This dream is not as far-fetched from reality as it may seem. Through such inventive dreaming, Janie learns that she deserves the best. In other words, she deserves a man that will treat her right. This mindset leads Janie to find her true love, Tea Cake. This book proves, without a doubt, that dreaming facilitates progress in life as it acts as a source of motivation.
ReplyDeleteThe work of dreams in everyday life affects who we are. Without dreams their is no hop or goals to be set. The use of dreams can be positive and negative as dreams can teach ud to inspire, teach us to fear, teach us to laugh, and teach us to anger. Dreams shape who we are including our friends, our personality, and our look on life. Janies's dreams inspire her to move on from her previous two husbands and motivate her to find her "true-love". Without dreams motivation and goals would be a lost cause.
ReplyDeleteIf life was without dreamers, there would be no life. There would be no creativity. Life is created upon the dreams of others. There is absolutely no such thing as being too much of a dreamer. The more you believe in something, the easier it will be to make it happen. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is a strong dreamer. She dreams of being perfectly in love. Being a strong dreamer professes that she does not give up. Towards the beginning of the novel she dreamed of a better life and love. Even though her life seemed like it was not changing the way it wanted to, she kept those dreams and ambitions. It proved to be successful in the end. Dreaming helped her succeed.
ReplyDeleteThe role of dreaming in life is to help shape an individual's goals; an individual's dreams serve as a far end goal, that can almost always be accomplishable (within reason), but can be nearly impossible to fulfill. But in the case of the word "dreamer", it usually is associated with a person that has lofty, almost quixotic (yet possible) dreams, but that does nothing to accomplish them- such as someone that may want to cure cancer, yet only sits in his mother's basement playing "World of Warcraft" 24/7. Janie's dream in life is to find a perfect man that will love and cherish her; however, Janie's "dream" always results in disappointment - as every man she meets ends up being an unscrupulous low-life. Janie's dream is, with all due respect, pathetic; any person that rests their happiness, hopes, and desires on "finding love" will find themselves hopelessly disappointed. One can only find love if they discover that they themselves are more important than finding love- that pursing one's own goals and values is the way to true happiness and fulfillment. Only then can someone find true love. Ayn Rand was a perfect example; she understood that her own fulfillment was primary, while romantic love was something that required patience and less concern. And she found true love, staying married to her husband, Frank O'Conner, for 50 years until his death- happily in love with him the entire time.
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