Janie Crawford’s School of Hard Knocks in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Janie Crawford’s School of Hard Knocks in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Janie Crawford evolving selfhood through three marriages. Fair-skinned,

long haired, dreamy as a child, Janie grows up expecting better treatment than

she gets. Living life as one man's mules or another man's adornment. Janie is

one black woman who does not have to live in lost sorrow, bitterness, fear, or

foolish romantic dreams, for Janie has learned "two things everybody's got tuh

do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about

livin' fuh themselves." Janie Crawford is better off at the end of the noval

Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Janie is confused when she was a young woman. The noval explains her life

as a young girl. Her mother left her when she was really young. Janie never

met her. Her grandmother explains that her master raped her, "Den, one night ah

heard de big funs boomin' lak thunder. It kept up all night. And de next

morin' Ah could see uh big ship at a distance and a great stirrin' round. So Ah

wrapped mah way on down to de landin'. The men was all in blue, and Ah heard

people say Sherman was comin' to meet de boats in Savannah, and all of us slaves

was free. So Ah run got mah baby and got in quotation wid people and found a

place Ah could stay." Grandmother was wanting to make a school teacher out of

Janie's mother. Janie found out that a school teacher rapped her mother so she

never met her father either. Janie's mother was seventeen, when she was

pregnant with Janie. After Janie was born, Janie's mother took to drinking a

lot. Janie's grandmother raised Janie since she was born, grandmother says

"Maybe it wasn't much, but Ah done de best Ah kin by you. Ah raked and scraped

and bought dis lil piece uh land so you wouldn't have to stay in de white folk's

yard and tuck yo' head befor' other chillun at school." When Janie turned

sixteen years of age, her childhood had ended with a kiss from a boy named

Johnny Taylor. Grandmother wanted to see her married at once but Janie did not

understand what was going on. Janie did not feel love for this man or any man

at this time but grandmother explains that she is not going to be around forever

and she wants to protect her from harm and danger. Janie's life as a young

person was a hardship she did not understand what purpose in life she has and