Janie In Their Eyes Were Watching God

The book I read was Their Eyes were Watching God. The genre of this story was a coming-of-age novel,with an American Southern spiritual journey. The general setting of this story is the early twentieth century, presumably the 1920s or 1930s, in the Rural area of Florida. The main character is Janie. She is sixteen years old and is pursuing passion as she goes through three different marriages. She is an independent individual that never gives up on her dreams and is willing to defy social norms. I can relate to the main character, Janie, because just like her I am also independent.

    What basically happens throughout this story, the main character, Janie, gets married to three men. The reason for this is because the first marriage did not

go well because, her grandmother did not want her to live the slave-like lifestyle. Her concern is that she wants to marry Janie as soon as possible to a husband who can provide security and social status for her.

So this first marriage Janie’s grandmother marries her off to an older farmer Logan Killicks. After Janie moves in with Logan he treats her like she’s nothing. So one day Janie finds an ambitious man named Joe Starks. Janie and Joe start to flirt, and soon enough they run off and get married. They travel to Eatonville, but there Janie and Joe start to have issues in their marriage. Joe would never allow Janie to interact with “common people.” After two decades of their marriage Janie defends herself after Joe insults her appearance. They then  get into a huge fight in front of the townspeople and after he severely beats her. Their marriage into shambles and Joe becomes ill. After some months Janie visits Joe at his death bed. She confronts him of they way he treated her and after that he dies. After that Janie meets a man named Tea Cake who is twelve years younger than her. They immediately become attracted to each other and get married, they then move to Jacksonville. After the first week of their marriage Tea Cake steals her money and runs away, after the two encounter some struggles in their marriage. He returns a day later and they discuss their difficulties. Janie and Tea Cake then move to

the Everglades where they work endlessly during the winter and spend time together during the summertime. A hurricane comes there way, but as they try to leave a dog bites Tea Cake. Not realizing how bad the bite was, Tea Cake ignores it. He later becomes ill. During this event of him being ill Tea Cake is convinced that Janie might be cheating on him with someone. So he shoots a pistol at her, but when tries to defend herself she killed Tea Cake. She is later arrested and  goes on trial for this incident and is found not guilty by the jury. Janie then returns back to Eatonville after.
    The main conflict in the story is a Janie is trying to find peace within herself, the values others label on her get in her way.

The impact that the conflict has on the main character is that it interferes with her trying to find peace within herself. For example, her first husband thought that Janie would be great value to him and his appearance. These were one of the conflicts that affected Janie. Another example is how Janie’s first husband did the same. Logan, in the beginning of their marriage took advantage of Janie and treated her like she was

nothing.
    The lesson I think the main character learns that love is not always at first sight, it might take you awhile to figure it out. The author is trying to teach the readers that materialism is nothing compared to actual love. The author might also be trying to inform reader that, as I said before, love is not always at first sight, and independence and a relationship is a whole different thing. The last thing I think the author is trying to inform readers is that spiritual fulfillment is very important. I think this because in the story, all Janie is trying to look for is peace, and because she let things get in the way while she tried to find peace, she had so many conflicts. So the author might be trying to inform readers that it is important to find spiritual fulfillment.
    I think this book was very informative. It made me realize so many things, especially about spiritual fulfillment. What I really liked about this book, was the way the author portrayed each situation with husbands. I liked the way the author portrayed these situations, because each situation was a lesson to the readers. I would recommend this book to any of my female peers. I would recommend this book to any of my female peers, because I think the lessons the author gives in this book is really for females to understand.