In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed the audience to better understand the limitations, and emotional challenges that women had to deal with in a male dominated society. Janie’s relationship with her first husband, Logan Killicks, consisted of tedious, daily routines. Her second husband, Joe Starks, brought her closer to others, than to herself. In her third and final marriage to Tea Cake, she eventually learned how to live her life on her own. Janie suffered through many difficult situations that changed her as a person, and her opinion on love.
As a young girl Janie had some romantic bones in her body. Her introduction to love—watching a bee pollinate a flower while lying underneath a blossoming
…show more content…
She hoped that her obligatory marriage with Logan would make her feel loved. She wished to please her grandmother's wishes in marrying Logan. Janie does not find Logan appealing. In other words, “The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor” (Hurston 13). Janie did not know how to tell Nanny that she did not like Logan nor found him attractive. Logan was a working landowner and expected Janie to help him work on the farm. Janie had a strong backbone and would tell him that she is not helping him. After living with Logan for a short period of time, Janie seeks freedom from him and longs to seek new love. As an example Hurston said, “The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off” (Hurston 32). The author professed to us as readers that Janie is seeking freedom away from Logan because their optimal pictures of love do not …show more content…
Instead, she extends her energy toward keeping his memory alive. Janie doesn't despair; she picks herself up, goes home, and passes on her story. Once she reconnects with her best friend, Phoeby, she explains her new insight on what true love is. In the quote
"Dey gointuh make ‘miration ‘cause mah love didn’t work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore” (Hurston 191).
Janie lectures Pheoby that love is not the same for everyone who experiences it. Changing from the beginning of the novel where she was willing to love the first man she comes in contact with. Instead, it is as fluid and changing as the sea only shaped by the shores, or men it meets. Janie ends up thanking Tea Cake for giving her the opportunity to experience love and for taking her far beyond her
In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship.
In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, tells the story of her ascension to adulthood and several of the lessons she learned along the way. Though married three times, her second marriage to Joe Starks had the most formative impact on her transition to maturity. Given that Joe played such a crucial role in this affair, we can classify him as a type of parent to Janie. Later, after her final marriage, Janie reflects on her life and is at peace. By that point, she came to realize how to be truly happy.
In the novel "Their Eyes were Watching God," the main character, Janie, faces an inner battle in her three marriages, to speak or not to speak, which manifests itself differently with Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie has her idea of what a marriage should look like shattered, as she failed to fall into the romantic idea of love that she held dear (Myth and Violence in Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). In her second marriage, to Joe “Jody” Starks, Janie buried her fight and spirit within herself, as she attempted to fit into the mold of the “perfect wife” Joe imagined (In Search Of Janie). Finally, in her marriage to Tea Cake, she feels the love she has longed for, and is accepted as the strong, independent woman she is (Janie Crawford Character Analysis). In every marriage, Janie feels the various effects of each man, as they either encourage or diminish her voice and inner spark.
As a young woman, Janie wanted love, true love. In the beginning of the novel and Janie 's journey, she is under a blossoming pear tree where she spends most of her days. She is watching the bees fly to the blossoms, when she has an epiphany. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.
Over the course of the novel, Janie is married three times to three drastically different people. First is Logan Killicks, whom she has no choice but to marry; soon Janie discovers that she could never have loved Logan because he treats her as less than him. She leaves Logan for Joe “Jody” Starks because initially, she believes that she loves him. However, after he gains power in their community and his true opinion of Janie as less valuable than any man is revealed, Janie begins to hate him and she isn’t affected much when he eventually dies. After Jody’s death, Janie falls in love with Tea Cake, who treats her better than either of her previous husbands. He makes Janie feel valued and practically equal to him and other men for almost the first time in her life. Each marriage brings Janie closer to realizing her role and identity in society. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston explores each of Janie’s three husbands’ different opinions on gender roles in society and relationships to construct the idea that, in life, it is absolutely necessary to find your role in the world -- especially as a woman.
After seeing Janie kiss Johnny Taylor under a romantic pear tree, Janie’s Nanny insists on her to wed an old man named Logan. This is where the battle begins. Should Janie be submissive to Nanny and marry Logan, or should she let her self-reliance win and stay away from marriage? She definitely shows signs of wanting her self-reliance to win by stating, “Naw, Nanny… Ah ain’t no real ‘oman yet” (Hurston 12). With all her might, Janie is trying to refuse Nanny’s offer by pleading that she is not matured enough yet, displaying how she desires to be self-reliant. However, Nanny counters this by replying, “T’aint Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (Hurston 15). As a child, Nanny instills this idea that Janie, without a doubt, needs a man by her side to give her safety and stability. In other words, Nanny wants Janie to be submissive to men because her time is almost up. Janie ends up following her dear Nanny and marries Logan, even though she was previously reluctant to do so. Submissiveness wins this first round of this battle. With Logan, Janie finds out that marriage does not necessarily equate to love. She tries her hardest bowing down to every command of Logan in hopes that doing so will make them love one another, but it simply is not possible; although it is true that Janie is granted a stable lifestyle with Logan, she is also
“Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just some thing she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of
Janie recollects her image on love when she leaves with Joe which signifies that she values love over the stable life that she had already possessed.
It is almost imaginable that Janie has not changed much in the end of the story and will continue her old ways of depending on a person for support and protection.
Even if Janie went through a lot of changes in her life she still did not change herself in some aspects. It sometimes seems as if she did not really learn from the mistakes she made in
Throughout a fair part of Zora Neal Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s low class create problems when it comes to men. She lives with men she does not love because they give her the financial stability she cannot have yet on her own. Janie marries Logan Killicks at a young age even though she does not want to
Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks was the first stage in her growth as a woman. She hoped that her obligatory marriage with Logan would
Throughout the book Janie struggles to find the true definition of love and how to make herself happy with her relationships. She goes through several different ideas of love before finding that it is mutual compassion, understanding, and respect that makes her the most happy.
Janie's quest is for self-discovery and self-definition, but she encounters many obstacles while trying to win this quest.