Meet Joe Black

Financially Joe is better, Joe is a politician, businessman, mayor, and landlord in Eatonville, Florida. But that’s not enough, she want to be treated right and showed off in public, but Joe doesn’t treat Janie like a human being. Joe treats Janie like an object rather than a person, he try to control her as much as he can. After 20 years of marriage, Joe is getting older and older, Janie had enough of it. She made her appearance known when she broke out of silence and told the townspeople how Joe treats him. After months later Joe become more ill and in the verge of dying. Janie watched Joe died in his

To begin, Joe becomes self sufficient and begins to have trust issues after his family leaves him for the second time. Harry and Thula, his dad and stepmom, influence Joe’s emotions to the reasons why they abandoned

At the beginning of Joe and Janie’s relationship, she was very much in love with him. When they started their endeavor to the new town, she was very proud of the man she was looking at. He moved to a new town to start his own business and buy his own land. However, as time progressed, the town began to feel lonely to Janie. She never saw Joe anymore, and when she did, he was trying to control her every move. He became very possessive and mean to her. He wanted her to submit to him, and he wouldn’t stop until he had it. The once loving relationship they had, has now become detached.

Instead of treating Janie like the beautiful woman that she is, he uses her as an object. Joe was a man who “treasured [Janie] as a posession” (Berridge). Joe’s demanding nature suppresses Janie’s urge to grow and develop, thus causing her journey to self-realization to take steps backward rather than forward. In Janie’s opinion, “he needs to “have [his] way all [his] life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let [him]self heah 'bout it” (Hurston 122). It is almost as if Janie loses sense of her own self-consciousness due to the fact that she becomes like a puppy being told what to do by her master. The death of Jody is actually a positive thing. Joe’s controlling nature stifles Janie’s inner voice. While married to Jody, Janie became closer to others, however, she did not become closer to herself. Being on her own again gave her another chance to embark on her journey and realize who Janie Crawford really is.

The death of Joe Starks characterizes Janie’s freedom and growth into self-love. Joe Starks’ cruelty and high expectations of Janie kill their marriage before love has anytime to be born, forcing Janie to gain a sense of self-preservation. Before the couple are married for a month, Joe publically degrades Janie at his mayoral commensuration. Joe tells the public Janie is too simple to give a speech, and “[i]t must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things” (Hurston 43). Janie realizes Joe Starks is not the man who will lead her to her horizon. She laments after years of marriage, “[s]he got nothing from Jody except what money could buy…” (Hurston 76). Those years of constant battering “…took all the fight out of Janie’s face… Plenty of fight beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels” (Hurston 76). As quickly as Janie wants to reach her horizon, early into her second marriage she realizes the excitement she had for Joe’s “love” was all for naught. Gurleen Grewal goes so far to state, “…the ‘high ruling chair’ Joe Starks sat on is incompatible with flower dust… No less than Killicks, Starks stifled Eros” (Grewal 107-8). Janie’s marriage with Joe taught her to not fight a losing battle. Janie learned there is no point to fighting what you cannot change. Consequently, Janie maintained silence for most of her marriage with Joe, just like he wanted. He had married Janie for a

When Joe has to use his independence, he resorts to illegal streetwork that he does everyday and every night. Joe depends on these odd jobs to receive income for his survival. Even when he is tired, he still has to work through it. When Joe had come back from a difficult hard workout in the rain, he had noticed his brother Fred standing outside near the dock in the rain. Fred met up with Joe and said, “Thula [is] dead.

Joe was on his way to Eatonville to make a better life for himself, he asked Janie where her parents were and Janie explained that she is married and her husband was out getting a mule for her to plow. Joe expresses that that is not a way for her to be treated and asks her to leave Logan and marry him.

Joe comes to realize his loss and overcomes it by “starting a new life”. The Andersons cannot “start a new life” or live their life with Martha's existence being utterly

Joe paints this “perfect” image of Janie and ensures that all of Janie’s actions are in line with his values, this once again deprives Janie of her autonomy as she is not allowed to express herself or do anything without the approval of her husband, and she is also simply a trophy to him and the rest of her community. Janie grows resentment and bitterness toward her abusive husband, but never stands up for herself until the very end of Joe’s life. Janie’s retaliation after twenty years of marriage implies that she has taken control of her life once again, she grew tired of Joe’s ridicule and abuse, and wanted

Joe marries her so he can have a pretty wife by his side who he can demonstrate his superiority over. As the single most powerful man in Eatonville, the town that he took initiative of, he expects his wife to present herself as above everyone else. This means she can’t participate in regular talk with the people of the town, and she has to obey Joe’s commands because she is his property. However, towards the end of Joe’s life, Janie publicly rants her true feelings to Joe. This decision shows her growth towards self realization. She defends herself against Joe’s insults of her being old. Janie finally acts out, expressing her feelings towards Joe’s unfair treatment to her. Her strength in acting for herself begins to emerge once she forces Joe to listen to her feelings of their marriage. This is evident when she tears off her handkerchief and lets down her hair. This is symbolic of her freedom. Joe forced her to tie up her hair for his sake, but now releasing it, Janie shows that she will no longer let other people control

Janie’s inner self is entirely composed of her desires, needs, and true feelings. When Joe dies, Janie is internally genuinely happy; However, she can only express this inwardly because she can’t portray her husbands death as a happy aspect to society. On the outside, Janie participates in the funeral and the requisite mourning period; while inwardly, rejoicing.

He wants to run a town and the only way he feels he can look good is to have a pretty woman by his side. In the beginning of their marriage Joe treats he like a queen. He tells her that his woman needs to relax in the shade sipping on molasses water and fanning herself from the hot sun. Janie fell in love with the idea.

The chaplain comes to see Meursault against Meursault’s own wishes and the chaplain tells him that he should turn to God for comfort in his final days. Meursault does not believe in God and he tells this to the chaplain. The chaplain seems so sure about everything in life and about everything that will happen but to Meursault, the only certainty is that everybody dies. If it does not happen today, it will happen tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after. Life is indifferent to everybody and nothing in it is important unless the person makes it important. There are no pre-set values that everyone must believe in when they are born. The choices a person makes are what define him because existence precedes essence. If someone chooses to value love, then it is important to him or her and he or she should care about it. If someone chooses to believe in God, then He is only important to him or her and only he or she should care about Him. The reason that he did not cry at his mother’s funeral is because he does not believe that this is the appropriate reaction since everybody dies at one point or another. The reason that he said that he probably does not love Marie and that it is not important, is because he does not have love as one of his values; therefore, he should not care about that emotion. Finally, the reason he did not show remorse for killing the Arab is because he did not feel that emotion. What Meursault does value is the truth. He

When one door closes, another one opens. This is a philosophy that is believed by many people, and it is a way that some view life in order to stay optimistic. Not always is the opening of another door obvious or immediate, but it will come. This idea directly relates to the circle of life, and how when a life is ended, a new one will be created. The movie Meet Joe Black portrays the theme of the circle of life with Bill Parish dying, and the man from the coffee shop living.

Meursault deals with others people as if they are only there to please him or they are just taking up his time. As evidenced with his relationship with Marie, Meursault was merely using her for sex because that is what he wanted from her and at that time in his life. He lives from pleasure to pleasure with Marie; he only looks forward to seeing her when he knows he can have sex with her. When visiting day rolls around at the jail he is not as enthusiastic about seeing Marie as you would think he would be after not seeing her for several months. Because he knows he can't have sex with her, it totally cheapens the moment while she talks to him. Meursault drifts off into space basically ignoring her. For Meursault there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for him if he talks to her, the thrill is gone and thus the pleasure has dried up for him.