Zoey Neale Hurston Feminist Analysis

Logan who was Janie's first husband has a lot of land and is wealthy, but Janie just does not feel like her and Logan are a good fit together. Logan has her do work on his land and she does not like to do that. Logan gets mad at Janie because she does not want to chop wood and help Logan out. Logan says to Janie, “Yo’ Grandma and me myself done spoilt yuh now, and Ah reckon Ah have tuh keep on wid it” (Hurstin 26). He calls her spoiled because his last wife would always chop wood for him and now he is married to Janie she does not want to chop wood because she believes that, that is a man’s job.

(beginning 2 ) “Janie if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong. Ah want to make a wife outa you” (Hurston pg 23).Joe Starks tells Janie he will be waiting for her sunup tomorrow if she wanted to come with him. So Janie kinda considers it but first she has to talk to Logan about leaving him and he kept it short and said do what you have to do. He didnt really care so much what she did but he thought she was gone go out there and get her feelings hurt.“Ah guess some lifed nigger is grinnin’ in yo’ face and lying tuh yuh” .(Hurston pg25) Logan said.Janie runs off on Logan to be with Joe and he made her and himself a little town called Eatonville then he also became the mayor of the town and he also owned a store,

Janie's attraction to Joe Starks' charisma quickly diminishes when his overdose of ambition and controlling personality get the best of him. Although he is a big voice in the town, Janie only sees him as a big voice. All his money and power have no effect on her when all he does is ridicule and control her. He makes it clear where Janie belongs: "Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home" (Hurston 43). This is ironic because when she is with Logan, she wants to be in the house doing her own thing, but Joe is making it sound like confinement. It's as if she has no choice in the matter and Joe intends to make his power over her known. People have different desires and sometimes when we get caught up in our success, we can end up hurting others. Joe's reply to Janie is a great example of the insensitivity that can form from the pride we can possibly inherit when we achieve success: "Ah told you in de first beginnin' dat Ah aimed tuh be uh big voice.

In the book, the peach tree can be said to represent Jane’s identity as a woman and her budding sexuality. She compares her change to that of the pear tree blossoming. Like the tree, she could feel that she was now a grown woman and she was of age. The tree growing and blossoming represents how she transforms into a woman who wants to find and experience love as compared to the innocent girl she was earlier on. This can be seen on Page 10 where Hurston says, ‘It had called her to gaze on a mystery… from barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds… to the snowy virginity of bloom’. As the tree blossoms, she becomes more interested in love and romance, and she even forms views towards these two affairs. Janie gets her first kiss under the pear tree, and the reader can now become aware of her maturing, and she is now a woman who is interested in kissing and romance. From the tree, she experiences sexual desires as seen here ‘…then Janie felt a remorseless pain

Most people will spend years in a torturous relationship, but Janie begins to question “[w]hat was she losing so much time for? A feeling of sudden newness and change come over her” (Hurston 32). Before Janie put that feeling to words, she allowed Logan to walk all over her. Logan treated her like a subhuman, until “Janie had put words into his held-in fears…” After that Logan thought “[s]he might run off for sure enough. The thought put a terrible ache in Logan’s body, but he thought it best to put on scorn” (Hurston 30). After this, Janie begins anew, and with “The Persephone-like image of Janie walking to the horizon…as she leaves Logan and joins Starks… is a presentiment of the “death” Persephone must undergo if the maiden is to become her own queen” (Grewal 108). Janie experiences freedom from a relationship for a few glorious moments and she relishes in that fact, mentioning she does not mind if Joe is not waiting for her. She knows in that moment she can do anything and that she is free. This new power helps Janie survive her marriage with Joe, and brings her closer to complete development at the end of the novel. Even though Janie and Logan’s marriage is not long lived, the death of their relationship forces Janie to truly grow from childhood. Before Janie was a spoiled juvenile, however, after she rises from the ashes of her first failed marriage she begins to walk towards her dream again, even if she was immature about her

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed us to better understand the restraints that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Her marriage with Logan Killicks consisted of dull, daily routines.  Wedding herself to Joe Starks brought her closer to others, than to herself.  In her final marriage to Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake, she finally learned how to live her life on her own.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

The short story "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston illustrates the abusive and failing marriage between Delia and Sykes Jones. Within the story, good versus evil plays a huge role in developing the two characters. Delia is presented as a hardworking, independent wife that is devoted to her husband. However, Hurston presents her husband as being the total opposite. He's not a hard worker and he is unfaithful. In addition, he abuses her both physically and emotionally. Throughout the story, readers can also see the relationship between the two individuals take an unexpected turn. This story is read as a work of feminism where the protagonist, Delia, is seen as a strong woman rather than one who

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

Her decision to leave Logan for Joe Starks shows her determination to achieve her dream of love; she does not want to give and take this dream for stability. Logan is extremely ignorant of Janie′s feelings. When she tries to talk with him about them he simply replies: "′Ah′m getting′ sleepy Janie. Let′s don′t talk no mo′.′" (Hurston,30) He does not realize that Janie is serious about leaving him and that she wants him to show his feelings for her. Instead, he tries to hurt her like she hurt him, by pretending not to be worried about her leaving him. Janie gets to know Joe during her marriage with Logan. Right from the beginning he treats her like a lady. This is one reason why Janie is so attracted to him.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote the “Spunk” and published it in Harlem Renaissance journal in 1925. “Spunk” revolves around two main characters: Spunk Banks and Joe Kanty, who develop hatred between themselves due to a quarrel over a woman named Lena Kanty. Lena Kanty is Joe’s legitimate wife, later to be lured by Spunk Banks to abandon her legitimate husband. Spunk Banks successfully wins the love of Lena Kanty due to his heavy corporeal stature and military training. Spunk owns a .45 military hand gun, therefore, complicating attempts made by Kanty to fight for his wife. Kanty loses his life in the hands of Banks, when fighting for his wife and in the presence of his wife. Banks survives a court trial but a huge, black bob-cat in Joe’s ghost follows him afterwards in quest for vengeance for justice. Bank eventually finds his fate with a sawmill machine and succumbs to wounds sustained in this accident. Notably, both men die in the fight for a wife, where Kanty’s ghost kills Banks who previously takes the former’s life away (Hurston 105-111).

When Joe “Jody” Starks appears out of nowhere, Janie feels like her dreams have finally come true. But after a while, the marriage turns out to be little more than the stint with Killicks. Starks, like Killicks, treats her as property and not as someone he actually loves. One example is how Jody makes Janie put her hair up in a wrap while working in the store, rather than leave it down. Another is when he publicly criticizes her appearance, saying she is starting to show her age, when he is clearly at least ten years older: “’ You ain’t no young courtin’ gal. You’se uh old woman, nearly fourty’” (Hurston 79). Joe feels the need to tear down Janie, in order to make himself feel more important, which was an important part of being a man during this time.

Janie initially sees Joe Starks as an enticing option to better her life; however, his frequent use of the phrase "I god" emphasizes his commitment to living under the white hierarchy (Hurston 34). Joe's dialect reveals that he sees himself as a god-like figure, but never able to fully able to achieve the power of a white man, shown by the lack of capitalization of "god." However, this pursuit leads him to dominate Janie's life, most notably her appearance in public. Contrasting with the relative physical inactivity of Joe Starks, the sight of another man touching Janie's hair spurs him to "[feel] like rushing forth with the meat knife and chopping off the offending hand" (Hurston 55). Hurston's dialect here, not in the typical spoken dialogue, but the biblical allusion of cutting off an offending body part to maintain the safety of the whole suggests that Joe considers Janie's beauty a foil to his greatness. Julie Newman argues, "He clearly represents an aggressive, white-identified capitalism, consuming Janie" (821). In ridding himself of his African American heritage and dialect in favor of white culture, Joe elevates himself above the other citizens of Eatonville, including Janie. After nearly twenty years of oppression, Janie rebukes Joe's control on her life: "When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life" (Hurston 79). Hurston's use of "you" amidst other more familiar dialect suggests Janie noticed Joe's infatuation with white hierarchy, yet still used traditional African American speech to break publicly with Joe's rule. However, Janie already criticized a male representative of the white culture, Logan Killicks. While in bed, representative of the most intimate part of marriage, Janie wonders

Another desire of young Janie is to find true, passionate love in a relationship. Returning to the metaphor of the pear tree, Janie says to her Grandma, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston 24). Janie dreams of a peaceful, pleasant, and comfortable love in her marriage, similar to the quiet bliss of sitting in the shade of a blossoming pear tree. In her article, Kubitschek also points out Darwin Turner’s understanding that “‘All Janie wants is to love, be loved, and to share the life of her man. But . . . she must first find a man wise enough to let her be whatever kind of woman she wants to be’” (qtd. in Kubitschek 109). Unfortunately, this love and freedom was not acquired in Janie’s first marriage. Despite her hope that feelings of true love would develop with her first husband Logan Killicks, “she knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). Discontent with lack of passion in her first marriage, Janie decides to abandon her dream of finding love with Logan and does not hesitate to run away with Jody Starks when the situation presents itself. Deborah Clarke comments on this change in heart, writing, “Janie thus gives up a

Transcendentalists have faith in the benevolence of humanity (“Romantic Period in America 1828-1865” 2004) and Hurston makes it apparent that Janie is the epitome of this benevolence. Her compassion is present when she comments, “[The men] oughta be shamed uh theyselves! Teasin’ dat poor brute [mule] like they is! Done been worked tuh death” (Hurston 56). Unlike the men of Eatonville, Janie doesn’t feel any sense of superiority when she watches the men taunt the mule. Instead, she empathizes with the mule since Janie believes that the mule is symbolic for herself. Just like the mule, Janie is forced to work and she doesn’t have the ability to rebel against the man in her life. Her disgust is proof of Janie’s morals as she chooses not to belittle another living being, even when she is actively being oppressed by her husband. In addition, the goodness within Janie shines through in Janie’s marriage with Joe Stark. With Joe, she faces many hardships for 20 years as “Jody had been hard on her and others, but life had mishandled him too” (Hurston 87). Her forgiveness is seen with her understatement of how Joe treats her. In her twenty years with Joe, he physically and emotionally abuses Janie. Despite Joe’s actions, Janie still is not able to resent Joe for his oppression of her. Instead, she proves to be selfless as she empathizes and pities the misfortunes that Joe suffered from. In

     Janie is oppressed throughout her journey. She is held down by her grandmother, and by her first husband, Logan. But her free-spirit stirs and she breaks free, becoming a pear tree in the wind. The quest for freedom for Janie begins with the arrival of Joe Starks. As Janie says "He spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance" (Hurston p.28).