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Their eyes were watching god and feminism
Their eyes were watching god feminist essay
Their eyes were watching god feminist essay
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In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was written by Zora Neale Hurston the story talks about a young woman named Janie find her “true love.” Nanny raised Janie Crawford, and she wanted her to get married to a safe and well of family, thus having her married to a middle-aged man farmer named Logan. After moving in with Logan, Janie seemed miserable because he was sensible, but unromantic, and he treats Janie like garbage. After some time, a smooth man named Joe Starks met Janie secretly, and he and Janie flirt in secret for a couple weeks before she runs off and marries him. “Jody”, as Janie called him, always dreamt of something bigger in life, for example his dream in life was to become a mayor. A few years later Jody becomes the …show more content…
When they both met back at Logan’s farm Jody had a humorous personality, but after he gained the title of “mayor” he has a harsh an ignorant personality towards Janie. In some ways he bullies Janie by telling her not to give long speeches and other times he shows his dominance by commanding Janie to tie her hair up (Hurston, 42.) On page 62, Janie states: “Everybody can’t be lak you, Jody. Somebody is bound tuh want to laugh and play.” In this scene Jody refrains from having fun and from laughing like he used to with Janie, in other words his personality before the marriage was completely different from his personality after marriage. The truth is that, Jody only married Janie because sees her as an opportunity that will function as a useful purpose in his schemes. Janie is young, attractive, dignified, and fits his ideal of what a mayor’s wife should …show more content…
Though Jody noticed this physical transformation he only insulted Janie that she has aged and that she alone looked old and ugly. As Janie was working in the shop, she accidently cut the wrong size of tobacco for a customer, as a result Jody realized this he began to insult Janie saying that she was clumsy, but also that she was ugly and old in front of the customers (Hurston, 78.) When Janie heard this she insulted Jody by saying: “Humph! Talkin’ ‘bought me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life (Hurston, 79.)” As Janie said this, Jody had felt insulted and violently chased Janie out of the
In this quote, Jody stifles Janie’s speech and prevents her from speaking and having a mind of her own. In this quote, we can see Jody’s interruption with the dash Hurston uses to represent him preventing Janie from talking and being an active part of the conversation. To Jody, Janie is his possession and does not need to hear her opinion. Jody also treats Janie like his employee. In this passage the reader can infer from her diction that Janie does not want to work at the store when Jody is not around. As a result, when Jody leaves the store, Janie feels helpless. Janie’s hatred of him stems from this suppression of her individuality. Tea Cake, on the other hand, engages her speech, conversing with her and putting himself on equal terms with her. Janie’s diction changes when she is with Tea Cake, she is no longer interrupted or stutters. This use of diction is intended to show that Janie feels helpless in her current marriage and is
Until one day, towards the end of their long marriage, when Jody made a very mean comment about Janie's body. She came back with, "When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life." After these words came out, Jody hit her. These harsh words could never be forgiven. At the end of their marriage, before Jody died she finally told him her feelings.
Janie’s adolescent reflects the main cause of her unhappiness. When Janie turns sixteen years old, she kisses Johnny Taylor over a gate. Zora Neale Hurston uses a gate to
In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Sweat,” Hurston uses the characters Janie Crawford and Delia Jones to symbolize African-American women as the mules of the world and their only alternative were through their words, in order to illustrate the conditions women suffered and the actions they had to take to maintain or establish their self-esteem.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that presents a happy ending through the moral development of Janie, the protagonist. The novel divulges Janie’s reflection on her life’s adventures, by narrating the novel in flashback form. Her story is disclosed to Janie’s best friend Phoebe who comes to learn the motive for Janie’s return to Eatonville. By writing the novel in this style they witness Janie’s childhood, marriages, and present life, to observe Janie’s growth into a dynamic character and achievement of her quest to discover identity and spirit.
Hurston provides some hints about Joe's true nature through the limiting and subjugating names he calls Janie when they first meet. He calls her "'lil girl-chile'" and "'pretty doll-baby'" (48-49), indications of the role that he will want her to play once he becomes mayor of Eatonville. When Jody names her in the socially prescribed role of "wife," he says, "'Ah wants to make a wife outa you'" (50). He clearly places himself in the position of power by his naming Janie. When Janie tries to name him, substituting the more affectionate "Jody" for "Joe," he is pleased, but still controls the naming. He asks her to "'Call me Jody lak you do sometime,'" and after she starts a sentence with his new name, he cuts her off with "'Leave de s'posin' and everything else to me'" (50). Janie is satisfied to stop "'s'posin'" for the tim...
In the early months of their marriage, Jody is able to transform Janie into a wife representative of his newly acquired wealth and rank as he instructs her to wear her finest dress for the opening of the store (Hurston, p. 41). Her submission to this request allows Jody to believe that Janie can be made in to an obedient wife who will bolster his reputation and connections within their community. Therefore, as their marriage progresses Jody’s attempts at dominance increase. For example, when Jody is elected mayor of Eatonville Janie is asked to give a speech in celebration of his accomplishment and Jody answers for her saying she will not speak because “She’s uh woman” (Hurston, p. 43). Here, in particular, control is intertwined with language and speech because allowing Janie to speak would be allowing her to assert her identity in her own words. Janie is taken aback by her husband’s decision but does not speak against him instead she “made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy” (Hurston, p. 43). Her reluctance to speak against him and her forced laugh are significant because they indicate once again that Janie is willing to submit to her husband in order to share in his
When Janie became the mayor’s wife things have change for her. In the beginning of chapter 7 Hurston describes Janie as being a ‘rut in the road’ ever since she has gotten that title of being the mayor’s wife. “ For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Somethings she stuck out into the future, imaging her life different from what is was, But mostly she lives between her hat and her heels , with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods-come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn’t value” (pg 76). This metaphor shows how the relationship between
Jody requires that Janie hold her hair in a head rag because it didn’t make sense for her to have it down. In reality, Jody was jealous about how the other men looked at Janie when she had her hair down. In fact, “one night he had caught Walter standing behind and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing” (Hurston 55). This infuriated Jody and he ordered Janie to always have her hair tied up when she was in the store because, “she was there in the store for him to look at, not those others” (Hurston 55). Janie’s hair can be seen as a symbol of her independence, but with Jody’s demands, her independence is lost. This inequality only exists for Janie, because she is a woman. She could not make similar demands from Jody, or else she would be punished. However, in her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie is allowed to be somewhat free of gender bias. Tea Cake was the only person that treated her as an equal. It begins with the game of checkers, which Tea Cake sets up himself, a sign that he wanted to play with her and saw her as an
In such cases, when he would usher her off the front porch of the store, when the men sat around talking and laughing, or when Matt Boner’s mule had died and he told her she could not attend its dragging-out, and when he demanded that she tie up her hair in head rags while working in the store, “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT shown in the store” (55). He had cast Janie off from the rest of the community and put her on a pedestal, which made Janie feel as though she was trapped in an emotional prison. Over the course of their marriage, he had silenced her so much that she found it better to not talk back when they got this way.
Though Janie had three marriages in total, each one drew her in for a different reason. She was married off to Logan Killicks by her Grandmother who wanted her to have protection and security. “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have baby, its protection.” (Hurston 15) says Janie’s grandmother when Janie said she did not want to marry Logan. Though Janie did not agree with her grandmother, she knew that she just wanted what’s best for her. Next, she married Joe Starks, Janie was unsatisfied with her marriage to Logan so Joe came in and swept her off her feet. Janie did not like the fact that Logan was trying to make her work, so Joe’s proposition, “You ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated like a lady and ah want to be de one tuh show yuh.” (Hurston 29) was too good to pass up, so she left Logan and married Joe. Janie’s last marriage was to Tea Cake. Fed up after having been treated poorly by Joe, Janie finally found someone who liked her for who she was. “Naw, ...
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
From Killicks, Janie walked off with Jody: Joe Starks. Where Killicks promised hard work, Jody promised the easy life of importance and attention. He says that “a pretty doll baby lak you is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan yo’self and eat ptaters dat other folks plant special just for you.” The truth was somewhat afield from these courting words. Instead of sitting on the porch, Janie had to work again, this time inside Joe’s store. Like Janie, Jody needed an audience and he got one on his porch.
Jody believes that Janie has poisoned him, illustrating the magnitude of both of their unhappiness. Almost immediately after Jody dies, Janie “starches” and “irons” her face, which could also imply how the headrags represent a facade that she unwillingly dons in public. Janie goes to the funeral inundated in loneliness and grief. However, after she emerges from the funeral Janie burns all of her head rags. Hurston states: “Before she slept that night she burnt up everyone of her head rags and went about the house the next morning..her hair in one thick braid”(pg 89). Fire represents the destruction of something; by burning the very tool that was facilitating the suppression of her identity, Janie is making a vow to never sacrifice herself to others. The long, nimble braid the reader is introduced to in the first chapter reemerges. It is important to note that as she lets her hair down, her circumstances change for the better. Janie meets Tea Cake, her playful new husband. Hurston describes Janie as the curious, vibrant child she was under the pear tree similar to how she is presently with Tea Cake. Therefore, Hurston reveals the overarching theme that when one unwillingly enshrouds their identity, their circumstances become unpalatable. This theme is conveyed through JAnie: As she sacrifices herself to tie her hair up, her happiness devolved into loneliness. However, once she crosses the threshold to her true self, she fully exuded the vivacious Janie that she truly is. All of this is manifested through her
Janie still manages unhappiness when marrying Jody. At first, “Jody told her to dress up and stand in the store all evening. Everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her. She must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang. So she put on one of her bought dresses and went up the new cut road all dressed in wine-colored red. Her silken ruffles rustled and muttered about her. The other