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The role of woman in literature
Women role in family
The role of woman in literature
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“Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly”. This quoted from Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Are Watching God, explains that women let the non-important things go easily, but if it is important, then women will make sure to obtain it. This can be seen in the novel with Janie. At first, her grandmother pressures her to marry Logan, then she runs from her marriage to marry Jody, but ultimately finds true love with Tea Cake. By the end of the novel Janie forgot what she did not want to remember and remembered everything she didn’t want to forget and with that she built a “rich” life. In the beginning of the novel, Nanny, who is Janie’s grandmother, wants the best for Janie. Nanny is old and is dying and wants to see Janie married and taken care of before she dies. So, she tells Janie to marry Logan, a wealthy farmer that can take care of her. “Dat’s what makes me skeered. You don’t mean no harm. You don’t even know where harm is at. Ah’m ole now. Ah can’t be always guidin’ yo’ feet from harm and danger. Ah wants to see you you married right away” (Hurston 13). With Nanny dying, Janie is compelled into marrying Logan Stalks. From the beginning of their marriage Janie felt miserable. Logan was not romantic, and treated her like a pack mule. However, one day Janie is working out on the farm and spots a well dressed good looking guy walking down the road. They start talking. After a couple of weeks their talks turns into flirting. Fed up with her miserable marriage, Janie decides to go against her grandmother’s wish and runs away with Jody. Jody opens up a new world for Janie, thus th... ... middle of paper ... ...atever she is given, even if she is miserable. But by the end of the novel, it becomes evident that Janie is her own person and actually takes herself and her happiness in to consideration. She achieves this by ending her relationship with Logan, facing off with Jody and finding love and freedom in her relationship with Tea Cake. She gave up Logan who had money, a home, and a stable job; and gave up on Jody who placed her on a pedestal, had money and status in a community. She gave up on all the power and financial stability for a poor man like Tea Cakes simply because he provided her with actual love, respect and freedom. By the end of the book Janie is seen as a confident and independent individual who does not care what anyone thinks about her. She lived her life the way she chose to because as Janie said before she’s already been to the “horizon and back.”
After a year of pampering, Logan becomes demanding and rude, he went as far to try to force Janie to do farm work. It was when this happened that Janie decided to take a stand and run away with Joe. At this time, Janie appears to have found a part of her voice and strong will. In a way, she gains a sense of independence and realizes she has the power to walk away from an unhealthy situation and does not have to be a slave to her own husband. After moving to Eatonville and marrying Joe, Janie discovers that people are not always who they seem to be.
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, everyone has different ideas of what marriage is. In the end Janie learned marriage is what you make of it. Love can only be found when your beliefs match with an others idea. Even today people find out the hard way that they are not compatible and that one’s view of marriage is different. This can be seen every day between couples who separate and among others whose marriages last the rest of their lives. Life is a learning process and we must take the bad with the good. Instead of searching for a nourishing life, Janie searched for someone to rely on. Although they were different types of reliance, she jumped from person to person so that she would not have to face life alone.
Janie’s character undergoes a major change after Joe’s death. She has freedom. While the town goes to watch a ball game Janie meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake teaches Janie how to play checkers, hunt, and fish. That made Janie happy. “Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points” (Hurston 96). Tea Cake gave her the comfort of feeling wanted. Janie realizes Tea Cake’s difference from her prior relationships because he wants her to become happy and cares about what she likes to do. Janie tells Pheoby about moving away with Tea Cake and Pheoby tells her that people disapprove of the way she behaves right after the death of her husband. Janie says she controls her life and it has become time for her to live it her way. “Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 114). Janie becomes stronger as she dates Tea Cake because she no longer does for everyone else. Janie and Tea Cake decided to move to the Everglades, the muck. One afternoon, a hurricane came. The hurricane symbolizes disaster and another change in Janie’s life. “Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature. Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the
The next man that Janie confides in is Joe Starks. Joe in a sense is Janie's savior in her relationship with Logan Killicks. Joe was a well kept man who worked for "white-folks" all his life and had earned enough money to move himself to a town called Eatonville that was run completely by black people. Janie meets Joe while she is still married to Logan and she begins to lean on him ever so slightly. She has wanted to leave Logan, and she wouldn't have if Joe had not come along. Joe convinced Janie that he would be better off for her by telling her, "Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong.
Janie goes from a naïve, vulnerable girl, to a mature adult who finds individuality, spirit, and love. This is the perfect example of a happy ending because one girl is able to find herself and complete her quest after a long and difficult journey.
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
Janie’s first marriage was to Logan Killicks, an accomplished middle aged farmer. Her grandmother wanted Janie to be financially set and be protected, so she pretty much forced Janie into marrying Logan. With her grandmothers rough past of being a slave and all she did not wa...
From Janie’s first relationship with Logan Killicks, she learns about marriage. Janie is forced to marry Logan by Nanny, Janie’s grandmother. Janie was really young and she did not have any plans on getting married, but Nanny wants Janie to marry someone soon: “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. Ah ain’t gittin’ ole, honey, Ah’m done ole. One mornin’ soon, now, de angel wid de sword is gointuh stop by here. De day and de hour is hid from me, but it won’t be long. Ah as de Lawd when you was uh infant in mah arms to let me stay here till you got grown.
Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her. In summary, she married Logan because of her grandmother, Jody because she wanted to escape from Logan, and Tea Cake because they had true love. The marriages were different in that Logan treated Janie like a Slave, Joe was moulding her into what he wanted her to be, and Tea Cake just wanted to be with her. As a result, Janie learned many things from each marriage Tea Cake taught her to be herself and do what she wanted to, her marriage with Logan taught her to make changes in her life, and her marriage with Joe taught her to stand up for herself. In conclusion, her experiences in her marriages shaped her into the person she became, and were an important part of her life.
The beginning of Janie’s marriage to Joe shows promise and adventure, something that young Janie is quickly attracted to. She longs to get out of her loveless marriage to Logan Killicks and Joe’s big dreams captivate Janie. Once again she hopes to find the true love she’s always dreamed of. Joe and Janie’s life is first blissful. He gives her whatever she wants and after he becomes the mayor of a small African American town called Eatonville, they are the most respected couple in town. Joe uses his newfound power to control Janie. When she is asked to make a speech at a town event, she can’t even get out a word before Joe denies her the privilege. He starts making her work in the store he opens and punishes her for any mistakes she makes. He enjoys the power and respect her gets when o...
As the novel opens Janie creates a visual demonstration which lets us know that there is a large difference between her and the other women in the novel (n.p.). She becomes one with her sexuality after lying under a pear tree. Hurston stated, "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (pg.8).This leads to her eventually kissing a young man by the name of Johnny Taylor. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. (pg. 12) She wants her to marry now and suggests that Janie marry Logan Killicks because he has shown an interest in Janie by always coming around their house. (pg. 13) Janie does not want to marry Logan because she feels he's unattractive and he does not resemble her image of a blooming pear tree. With this being said, Nanny leads Janie to believe no matter who she marrys, she will eventually learn to love them (Kubitschek 23). Janie hated Nanny because of the choices she made for her (pg.85). Thereafter, Nanny arranged for Janie to marry Logan Killicks. She felt that getting married to him will protect Janie from the burdens of being a black woman. Janie did nothing but obey.
One of the underlying themes Zora Neale Hurston put in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God was feminism. Hurston used each of Janie’s three marriages to represent Janie moving closer to her liberation and freedom from male dominance. She finally found her liberation and became truly independent after graduating from her final relationship with Tea Cake by killing him.
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God describes the life of Janie, a black woman at the turn of the century. Janie is raised by her Grandmother and spends her life traveling with different men until she finally returnes home. Robert E. Hemenway has said about the book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God is ... one of the most revealing treatments in modern literature of a woman’s quest for a satisfying life” I partially disagree with Hemenway because, although Janie is on a quest, it is not for a satisfying life. I believe that she is on a quest for someone on whom to lean. Although she achieves a somewhat satisfying life, Janie’s quest is for dependence rather than satisfaction.
Unlike Logan, Jody not only wants to spoil Janie, he does. Jody buys Janie the best money can buy such as new clothes of silk and wool. Then he builds the finest house in town with two stories, porches, and big white columns out front. Materialistically, Janie has everything she could desire. “[Jody] Starks solidifies his status as a big man when he becomes Eatonville’s mayor” (Campbell 66). Jody’s role as the mayor is an important one as he is always off talking to the townsfolks and fixing things. It is not long before Janie begins to feel the strain on her marriage and confronts Jody about it: “It jus’ looks lak it keeps us in some way we ain’t natural wid one ‘nother… and Ah feels lak Ah’m jus markin’ time” (Hurston 46). Janie hopes Jody’s role as mayor will soon be over but, he assures her “[he] ain’t even started good” (Hurston 46). Jody has big plans and ideas for the community with no intention of stepping down as mayor. This upsets Janie and “instead of sharing her husband’s glory and success, … she feels cold and lonely” (Randall 24). Jody keeps Janie on a high pedestal as if she is too good to associate with the common townsfolk. The towns people often sit around the store telling stories,
Janie’s first attempt at love does not turn out quite like she hopes. Her grandmother forces her into marrying Logan Killicks. As the year passes, Janie grows unhappy and miserable. By pure fate, Janie meets Joe Starks and immediately lusts after him. With the knowledge of being wrong and expecting to be ridiculed, she leaves Logan and runs off with Joe to start a new marriage. This is the first time that Janie does what she wants in her search of happiness: “Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie’s new outlook on life, although somewhat shadowed by blind love, will keep her satisfied momentarily, but soon she will return to the loneliness she is running from.