Compare And Contrast Love And Marriage In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Not One, Three Marriages

Does love, marriage, and happily ever after actually exist? Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God explores the idea of love and marriage. The main character, Janie sees “her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone” (Hurston 8). She is on search of the romantic love that she experiences in nature as a young girl. Each uniquely different, Janie’s three marriages share many of the same qualities.

Janie’s first marriage, to the much older Logan Killicks, is not one that she desires. Nanny, Janie’s grandmother, arranges the marriage so that Janie has protection and financial security. “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it protection”

(Hurston 15). Logan is a successful farmer who owns sixty acres of land and according to Nanny, “a black woman ought to want a man with property and the ability to provide for her” (Lester 4). Janie soon learns that marriage does not compel her childhood idea of love. She “wants to want [Logan] sometimes” but, she finds no physical attraction for him (Hurston 23). “His belly is too big too, now, and his toe-nails look lak mule foots” and the fact that Logan will not bathe before he comes to bed disgusts Janie (Hurston 24). Logan wants Janie to help him more around the farm as his previous wife did, but, knows Janie is a spoiled girl and he has helped make her that way. When Janie does not obey Logan as he sees fit, for the first time, he threatens to “take holt uh dat ax and come in dere and kill [her]!” (Hurston 31). Janie is not angry by what Logan says to her, she simply seems to be numb to it. “She recognizes that their marriage will never fulfill the promise of love she envisioned” (Campbell 67). Soon after this incident Janie decides to run off and leave Logan in search of her ideal love.
Janie quickly meets up with the confident ambitious Joe Starks and they marry before sundown. Jody, as Janie calls Joe, “speaks for change, for movement, and for new horizons” (Campbell 60). The couple head to a newly created all black community, Eatonville, to begin their new life together.

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,

laughing, and making conversation. Janie loves to listen but, Jody forbids her to indulge and does not understand why she would want to talk with such trashy people. “You’se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie. I god, Ah can’t see what uh woman uh yo’ stability would want tuh be treasurin’ all dat gum-grease from folks dat don’t even own de house dey sleep in. They’s jus’ some punny humans playin’ round de toes uh Time” (Hurston 54). Jody soon finds out that with his busy schedule he cannot be at the town store all the time so he forces Janie to take on the role of storekeeper. “The store itself keeps [Janie] with a sick headache” (Hurston 54). She feels it is a “waste of life and time but Jody kept saying that she could do it if she wanted to and he wanted her to use her privileges” (Hurston 54). “Again, Janie finds herself in a marriage that demands she serve her master, that is, her husband” (Campbell 61). Jody is becoming more and more controlling over Janie and soon his jealousy begins to surface. Janie’s long, dark, beautiful hair becomes the source of his jealousy. One evening at the store, Jody catches a man standing very close behind Janie and without her knowing, the man brushes his hand back and forth across her hair drawing pleasure out of it. Jody is so angry at what he sees and “feels like rushing forth with the meat knife and chopping off the offending hand. That night he orders Janie to tie up her hair around the store...because she [is] there for him to look at, not those others” (Hurston 55). Jody has the trophy wife and he doesn’t want to share her with anyone. It is not long before Jody’s verbal abuse turns physical. One evening Janie is cooking Jody’s dinner; “the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains” (Hurston 72). Jody is constantly insulting Janie until one day she fights back “by attacking the core of his existence as a man; his sexual manhood. Humph! Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” (Lester 81). Again Jody results to physical violence and slaps Janie. Soon after this incident, Jody becomes ill and despite what the doctors do, he dies. For the first time Janie has a sense of freedom.
Less than a year after Jody’s death, Janie meets Vergible Woods, better known as Tea Cake. Tea Cake is very charming and playful and despite the fact he is 12 years younger, Janie is very attracted to him. They have an immediate connection and she feels like she has known him her entire life. “Tea Cake leads Janie to discover things about herself she never knew about in her years with Joe, Logan and Nanny (Randall 50). One evening Tea Cake challenges Janie to a game of checkers. When she insists she doesn’t know how to play, he assures her “Dis is the last day for dat excuse” and they spend hours playing together (Hurston 96). Janie, in a childish way, is tickled at the fact that someone wants to play with her. “As Janie and Tea Cake live as partners and soulmates participating in life harmoniously, their relationship is the envy and curiosity of gossipers and onlookers” (Lester 5). Unlike Logan and Jody, Tea Cake is not wealthy but, he does wants Janie to do everything with him. They attend baseball games, picnics, and dances together. For the first time in her life someone “loves her for who she is; he does not try to remake her into a mule driver, as Logan Killicks had, nor a baby-doll, as Joe Starks had” (Campbell 61). It’s not long before Janie decides to leave her life in Eatonville and heads off to Jacksonville to marry Tea Cake. About a week after they marry, Janie awakes to find her husband is gone along with two hundred dollars she had hidden away. Instantly fear sets in and Janie imagines that Tea Cake has seduced her and run off with her money. The next day when Tea Cake returns he assures her he would never leave her because she has “got de keys tuh de kingdom” (Hurston 121). He is so charming and convincing that Janie cannot be upset with him. Eventually Tea Cake takes a job and Janie stays home keeping house. Tea Cake is so obsessed with Janie that he often leaves work in the middle of the day to come see her. Janie is afraid he doesn’t trust her so when she questions him about it he says “Ah’ll have tuh tell yuh de real truth…Janie, Ah gets lonesome out dere all day ‘thout yuh…you better come git uh job…so Ah won’t be losin’ time comin’ home” (Hurston 133). Wanting to do nothing but please her husband, Janie takes a job picking beans with him. “One day, a chucky girl named Nunkie attempts to make a play for Tea Cake, and Janie is instantly jealous” (Randall 36). Janie is so enraged and for the first time, she is the one who becomes violent. The jealously between the two continues to escalate and before long Tea Cake “had whipped Janie…being able to whip her reassure him in possession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (Hurston 147). These incidents do not seem to affect the marriage at all, if anything the two become closer. For the first time, Janie is completely head over heels in love and this love is reciprocated.
Janie has searched for the ideal love from the young age of sixteen. She manages to escape her first marriage in search of something more. Although her second husband paints her the picture of the perfect life, he is unable to deliver the love she so desires. It is said the third time is a charm and Janie case this is true. Janie’s marriage to Tea Cake fulfills her ideal dream of love.