The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God follows a young woman named Janie living in the 1920’s. Written by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s character is mostly developed through her three marriages, to three very different guys, at three different times in her life. As Janie struggles to find a meaning of true love, as well as true love itself, we see her blossom in many different ways. The three men who are basis of this transformation are Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and TeaCake. Each man has a specific effect on Janie, who is an African American women raised by her old school grandmother. Janie’s first marriage to Logan Killicks begins to shape her as it is a rather complicated time. The marriage to Logan Killicks, who is substantially …show more content…
Janie seemed to appreciate small gestures from Joe and admire his every move, was this because he saved her from Logan or because she really loved him? Maybe the two put together was enough for Janie to at least feel loved, as she knew how terrible it was to be with Logan. She has a hard time excepting Joe’s flamboyant and jealousy. Janie has to wear a head rag to cover her hair for all the town people admired it. Joe was demanding, Janie didn’t have to work any longer but she had to be obedient to Joe. She tried to speak her opinion many times, but was shot down. Joe felt that giving Janie money and status was everything, “I built a whole town for us. But that ain 't good enough for you” Janie knowing not better, just yet, had agreed with him. The transformation of Janie in this relationship comes as Joe strikes her for preparing his dinner incorrectly and as he lays on his death bed she finally voices her thoughts freely “even now, you got to die with me being obedient, instead of just letting me love you”, Janie is finally realizing that loving someone cannot change who they are, she never had to accept that just because he was a provider for them. Joe’s definition of love grew so different from Janie’s , Janie comes to a conclusion that she wants acceptance and love, not money and the title …show more content…
In the process she meets Teacake, a man in his twenties. Teacake seems to bring out the youthfulness in Janie that she was never able to express with Logan Killicks. He shows her respect, something she never received from her last two marriages. Janie and Teacake were equal and even, a team, "Put dat two hundred back wid de rest, Janie. Mah dice. Ah no need no assistance tuh help me feed mah woman. From now on, you gointuh eat whutever mah money can buy uh and wear de same. When Ah ain’t got nothin’ you don’t git nothin’" (77) Janie never had this “luxury” before. Janie had a lot more money than Teacake, but knowing from Joe that love isn’t about money, she learns to live by Joe’s mean and protects his pride. With Teacake being young and Janie older and richer, the townsmen are spectacle the Teacake is around only for the money. Janie ignores the concerns because she knows she has to accept him the way he is in order to love him. No one had accepted Janie for that before. In this relationship Janie is ready to speak up, Teacake goes to a party without inviting her, Janie has no reserves on telling him she wants to be a part of everything he does. Janie is tired of being pushed to the side. Even when Teacakes young mind causes trouble, when he steals $200 from Janie, his honest and love is more important to
Janie then leaves Joe and doesn’t speak to him again until he is on his death bed. After Joe’s passing Janie meets a young man called Tea Cake. The town’s people feared that Tea Cake was only with Janie to attempt to steal her money. Janie ignored these warnings and runs away with Tea Cake anyway; Tea Cake soon gambles all of Janie’s money away. Not wanting Janie to provide for the two of them, Tea Cake moves the two of them to the everglades to harvest crops. Tea Cake allows Janie to be his equal and even lets her work in the fields with him. A hurricane rolls into Florida and instead of leaving with everyone else Tea Cake and Janie stay. During the storm while trying to protect Janie, Joe is bitten by a rabid dog and contracts rabies which eventually leads Janie to shoot him in self-defense. After buying an extravagant funeral for Tea Cake Janie returns to Eatonville to tell her story. Throughout Janie’s life her care takers/husbands have played four very different roles in molding Janie into the strong woman she becomes: Nanny wan an overbearing parental figure, Logan was her first husband that treated Janie like his slave, Joe was her second husband who held Janie as a trophy, and Tea Cake her third and final husband was Janie’s
Ultimately, Tea Cake, Janie’s third husband guides her to the horizon. He does not attempt to buy her love. Instead, he introduces her to world: to love, dancing, music, work, nature, jealousy, gambling, and fishing, among other experiences. Unlike Joe, Tea Cake treats her as an equal, who has an intellectual capacity to learn how to play checkers and to shoot a gun. In Everglades, he does not insist on Janie to work in the field, instead he asks her to work. The genuine mutual love is present in Tea Cake and Janie’s marriage. Unlike with Joe, Janie opens herself to Tea Cake and lets ‘her soul crawl out from its hiding place’ (151). Tea Cake leads Janie to the horizon, despite his death. She cherishes the memories and experiences shared with Tea Cake as ‘she pull[s] in her horizon like a great fish-net’ (227).
Janie does so by choosing her new found love with Joe of the security that Logan provides. Hurston demonstrates Janie's new found ‘independence’ by the immediate marriage of Joe and Janie. Janie mistakenly chooses the pursuit of love over her pursuit of happiness and by doing so gave her independence to Joe, a man who believes a woman is a mere object; a doll. By choosing love over her own happiness Janie silences her voice. The realization of Janie's new reality is first realized when Joe states, “...nah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home()" Joe is undermining Janie, cutting short any chance for Janie to make herself heard. Joe continues to hide Janie away from society keeping her dependent and voiceless. As Janie matures, she continues to be submissive to her husband, “He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush (71).” Though Janie ‘learned to hush’, and suppress herself, Janie still urges for her voice. When the opportunity came for Janie to reclaim her voice, "But Ah ain’t goin’ outa here and Ah ain’t gointuh hush. Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo’ you die. Have yo’ way all yo’ life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo’self heah ‘bout
In conclusion, Janie is an outgoing and caring person who wants to meet and have fun with other people. Most of the people in her life made her avoid being able to fit in with the crowd. Janie could not overcome the control others had over her. People always continued the gossip throughout the community because she was different. After Janie met Tea Cake, she was determined to do as she wanted without anyone’s say so. Janie will always be known as the
Janie Crawford was forced into a relationship with Logan Killicks unwillingly by her Grandmother, Nanny. When marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for who he was and what he did. She never had the chance to know him before marriage. In the text, she says, "Ah'll cut de p'taters fuh yuh. When you comin' back?". (Hurston, 26) This was something that she did not enjoy doing. She had to follow his directions and do as she was told. Janie was trapped in this marriage with no self-esteem. She was dependent on Logan when it came to doing things such as chores around the house. As time passed, Logan had told her, "If Ah kin haul de wood heah and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside.... You done been spoilt rotten." (Hurston, 25). Day after day, she would follow his directions, being so dependent on his orders; until one day, Joe Starks came into her life.
He stood out to Janie so much because of his way of making her feel like she was important. When she was with Joe Starks he never really allowed her to speak because she was a woman. For this unfamiliar trait in Tea Cake, Janie leaves Eatonville with him to get married in Jacksonville. The newly married couple eventually moved to the Everglades. Janie loved this place because it was the opposite of Eatonville. “The men held arguments here like they used to do on the store porch.Only, here she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to”(Hurston 134). She felt apart of the conversation and noticed. Even though Tea Cake made Janie happy, she started to grow jealous of a little chunky girl who would always flirt with Tea Cake. This made her realize that true love means feeling jealous. One day the flirting became too much and “She just acted on feelings. She rushed into the cane and about the fifth row down she found Tea Cake and Nunkie struggling. She was on them before either knew”(Hurston 137). Her jealousy made their relationship stronger and made Tea Cake announce his love for her. Over time they grow through many trials and tribulations which causes Janie to find out the true meaning of love. By the end of their relationship, when Tea Cake dies, Janie has grown into a full woman who is satisfied with
As a result of Nanny’s desire to see Janie married to wealth, she forces Janie to marry Logan Killocks, an older black farmer who owns 60 acres and a mule. Janie does not love Logan but because Nanny pushes her into the marriage she believes love will follow marriage, but Nanny quickly says “You come head wid yo’ mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day. Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo’ bawn days, and big protection, and everybody got tuh tip dey hat tuh you and call you Mis’ Killicks, and you come worryin’ me ‘bout love." (3.17-20). Nanny believes a woman should be satisfied with her amount of property and Janie has trouble agreeing. Janie feels she has done something wrong by not being in love with L...
She realized that she married him only because of Nanny’s wishes, and she did not - and was never going to - love him. It was with this realization that her “first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (25) And although the “memory of Nanny was still powerful and strong”, (29) Janie left with Joe Starks. However her marriage to Jody was no better than her marriage to Logan. Jody was powerful and demanding, and although at first he seemed amazing, Jody forced Janie into a domestic lifestyle that was worse than the one that she escaped. Jody abused Janie both emotionally and physically, and belittled her to nothing more than a trophy wife. But Janie never left him. This time Janie stayed in the abusive marriage until he died, because Janie did not then know how to the tools capable of making her a sovereign person. She once again chose caution over nature, because caution was the safest option. And overtime she became less and less Janie, and less and less of her sovereign self, and eventually, “the years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul...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” (76). During her marriage to Jody, Janie never got it right. She was trapped under Jodi’s command and because of this she never
Zora Neale Hurston was a very prestigious and effective writer who wrote a controversial novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie whom is the dynamic character, faces many hardships throughout her life. Janie’s Nanny always told Janie who she should be with. Janie was never truly contented because she felt she was being constricted from her wants and dreams. Janie’s first two marriages were a failure. Throughout the novel, Janie mentions that her dreams have been killed. Janie is saying that men that have been involved and a part of her life have mistreated and underappreciated her doings. The death of her dreams factor Janie’s perception on men and her feelings of the future. Logan and Jody were the men who gave her such a negative attitude towards marriage. Once Tea Cake came along, Janie realized that there are men out there that will appreciate her for who she is. Janie throughout the novel, comes into contact with many obstacles that alter her perspective on men and life overall.
When Janie first met her second husband, Joe, he was very caring and reassuring - an ideal husband. Joe was an ambitious young man with many goals set out for him. And like Janie, he was raised around a white background. Joe strived to be and have the best at everything. However, once Joe got Janie as his wife, he became a jealous and demanding man, just as Logan had been. Joe saw himself as a god, his sentences began with " I god..." ...
Their opinion didn’t matter and some men couldn’t care less about their feelings. Janie like any other woman had to experience this inequality. Some of the women knew it was wrong other women chose to ignore it, but not Janie. Janie knew it was wrong and anytime Jody stopped her from talking or sent her in to do work she knew why. He never intended to treat her as an equal partner. In a way he even told her that from the beginning of her relationship. Jody wanted her to sit on a porch like a trophy wife. Even though that wasn't what happened, Jody still wanted to keep her locked away and kept alone to himself. Even though Janie tried to tell him that wasn’t what she wanted he did not care. Janie knew this idea of man and women was wrong, that's why when Jody was on his deathbed she let all of her feelings out. Before Jody died Janie stated, “You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don’t know half of me atall”(86). She got everything off her chest to free herself of everything that he had done. She wanted him to know that it was unfair and not right the way he treated her. Janie expresses her feelings to Jody only brought her one step closer to almost finding her horizon. Just as Jody diminished her critics who have read the novel may not believe that all Janie’s journey made her who she is. Some critics do not give Jane the credit she is due,”Very few critics, however, recognize in Janie the
Critically acclaimed African American author, Zora Neale Hurston, discusses the life of a young woman, Janie Crawford, as she searches for love in multiples marriages and eventually finds herself in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Taking place in the early 1900s, the story contains many scenes of racial tension and gender inequality. As the main character ventures through different abusive relationships and overcomes gender boundaries, the theme of feminism becomes evident. Within Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the theme of feminism is revealed through her commentary on gender inequality, the psychological change experienced by Janie, and the author’s decision to give Janie the power of storytelling.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a Zora Neale Hurston's’ most famous literary work, and was published in 1937. The novel is narrated by Janie Crawford, who is the main character and is telling her life story to her best friend, Pheoby. Janie Crawford relates her life story entirely from memory. Through Janie’s retelling of her life’s story, we are able to see how she, her dreams, her life, and those around her changed as time goes on. Janie’s entire life seemed to be focused on thing, finding true love and freedom, so that she could be happy. Her dream is never really achieved, because of the people in her life she seems doomed to have to go without her original dream and find happiness within herself. Janie's entire life could be reduced
She is able to wear her hair as she pleases, a true sign of her new-found freedom, and feels liberated as a single, wealthy woman. She knows that she does not need a man to support her. However, she does still desire the company of an adventurous man that truly loves her. Soon enough, a man comes along that does just that. Vergible Woods, or Tea Cake as he is affectionately known, enters the town store in Eatonville and invites Janie to join him in a game of checkers. What may seem like a meaningless game actually carries great significance for Janie. She is enthralled to know that a man respects her enough to ask her to play a game that requires thinking and strategy. She finds herself, “glowing inside” because, “somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play” (96). Never before has Janie been treated with such respect or been treated as an equal in a relationship. The checkers game and its meaning is a microcosm for Janie and Tea Cake’s entire relationship. As they move around Florida and eventually wed, he continues to treat her with the respect and love that has been left to be desired in each of her previous marriages. It seems that Janie has finally found happiness in a relationship that is very different than what her Grandmother wants for her. Even when Tea
In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Lora Neale Hurston, the main character engages in three marriages that lead her towards a development of self. Through each endeavor, Janie learns the truths of life, love, and the path to finding her identity. Though suppressed because of her race and gender, Janie has a strong will to live her life the way she wills. But throughout her life, she encounters many people who attempt to change the way that she is and her beliefs. Each marriage that she undertakes, she finds a new realization and is on a never-ending quest to find her identity and true love. Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake each help Janie progress to womanhood and find her identity.