The tale of Janie crawford a woman who has growed up looking for love and finding who she is as a person. Janie has spent her life searching for true love, and she has came close a couple of times let’s see how it goes.Sacrifice is an important obstacle everyone goes through. Janie deliberately sacrifices her individuality throughout the story for the well beings of others which establishes the theme of individuality.
Janie has been through a lot in her life as she is retelling her story to Pheoby. Janie was a little girl left to her nanny after her mother had got raped, and she then gave birth to Janie. Soon afterwards she fell into an alcoholic depression which lead her to leaving Janie with her mother. Janie grew up with the her nanny
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trying to get her financial stability and how to be a woman because she didn't want her to grow up being used by men like her and Janie’s mother was. Janie’s Nanny had told her to marry Logan Killicks a well off man who is financially sound and could taker of Janie for the rest of her life.
“The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor.” Janie had told nanny that she didn’t love Logan but nanny just told her love would blossom, so janie married him for the sake of her nanny. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”. Three months later she came back to her nanny telling her that she still didn’t feel love in their marriage. Through this part of the story Janie had to give up what she wanted in love for her nanny vision for her. The Pear tree represents Janie’s love life so imagine now that she has been married to Logan and one of the Branches has rotted away.“Six months back he had told her, "If Ah kin haul de wood heah …show more content…
and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside. Mah fust wife never bothered me ‘bout choppin’ no wood nohow. She’d grab dat ax and sling chips lak uh man. You done been spoilt rotten." Logan had slowly began to destroy Janie’s individuality at this moment in the story by comparing her to his first wife who could chop wood with no problem, But since Janie couldn’t chop wood he called her spoiled rotten. In this marriage Janie gave up who she was as a women to please Logan. This shows how Janie gave a piece of her individuality to Logan so he could feel please the author shows how far someone would go to please another even though it means giving up on who you are. Another event in Janie’s life were she sacrificed a piece of who she was, was when she found out who Joe Starks was truly.
After the marriage with Logan she met Joe a man she ran off with after an argument with Logan. Joe was the charisma type when you over with talk and charm that's how he won Janie, but little did she know Joe wasn’t who she thought he was. Joe was a controlling man who thought Janie place should be by his side when she is needed or working in the store. “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn’t seem sensible at all”. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was.Joe loved Janie’s hair so much that he hated when other men would look at it, Joe was very controlling to the point he made Janie wear rags on her head to cover up her magnificent hair so other men couldn’t enjoy its beauty. Another instances were Joe took Janie individuality was when she had the chance to speak in public because of Joe becoming mayor “Janie had never thought of making a speech, and didn’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things. She had the chance to speak to the people of the town, but Joe didn’t give her the chance to speak because he felt like it wasn’t a woman's place to speak in public. Each of those time Joe took a piece of who Janie was.
First started with the speech, her freedom of speech to the public was taken as a woman she felt at that moment that there relationship was going down hill. When Joe made her wear those rags on her head it took a piece of who Janie was, she was very proud of her hair to the point she fell in love with it. To give up letting her hair flow in the wind for Joe,tells you how much she was willing to give up for Joe. When Janie and Joe was together she started to lose herself as a whole. Joe stripped her of her freedom and appearance ultimately changing her individuality as a whole. Now we're at the point of the story where Janie starts to get her individuality back with the help of Teacake. When she first met Teacake she started to get a piece of her individuality back.“Teacake set it up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. 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 one of his good points”. When Teacake asked her to play checkers she was shocked because she was a woman and to ask her to play a game of checkers let her know that he saw her equal to a man. That brought that little spark back into her life that made her happy.. After meeting Teacake and Joe dying she went off with Teacake and started a life that had some bumps in the road but in the end it works out. Teacake won Janie over because of his carefree attitude and loving personality, she fell in love with that childish behavior or aura he had. "Ah’m older than Tea Cake, yes. But he done showed me where it’s de thought dat makes de difference in ages. If people thinks de same they can make it all right. So in the beginnin’ new thoughts had tuh be thought and new words said. After Ah got used tuh dat, we gits ‘long jus’ fine. He done taught me de maiden language all over." Teacake had thought Janie how to be a woman all over again with his personality it worked in the long run. He had brought back that young innocence back into her life. Instead of taking something from her Teacake gave something back to her that she lost in her other marriages joy and freedom. The freedom to be herself and the joy to do or be whatever she wanted, also helped her reach her horizon. Instead of Janie losing her individuality in this part of the story she gained a little of it back from the help of Teacake. Through this story or essay Janie has been through alot lost some things gained some things but the overall fell is she came out on top she didn’t give up she pushed through it all and found what she was looking for love. “Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.” Ultimately this is a story of a woman who has been put through it all thick and thin sacrificed somethings to gain other things in the end obstacles in life you have to overcome to push forward. Sacrifice is an important obstacle everyone goes through, if it’s a deliberately sacrifice or surrendered to something this helps build the characters values, through this story she has sacrificed who she as a person. Janie deliberately sacrifices her individuality throughout the story for the well beings of others which establishes the theme of individuality.
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.
..., she found her identity. It did not come easy for Janie. It took her years to find out who she really was.
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
The first two people Janie depended on were her Grandmother, whom she called Nanny, and Logan Killicks. Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks was partially arranged by Nanny. Nanny had felt the need to find someone for Janie to depend on before she died and Janie could no longer depend on her. At first, Janie was very opposed to the marriage. Nanny responded with, “’Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. ...He (God) done spared me...a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life.”(p.14) Nanny instilled the sense of needing a man for safety on Janie that Janie keeps with her throughout her life. After Nanny’s death, Janie continued to stay with Logan despite her dislike for him. She would have left immediately, however, if she did not need to depend on him.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, constantly faces the inner conflicts she has against herself. Throughout a lot of her life, Janie is controlled, whether it be by her Nanny or by her husbands, Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. Her outspoken attitude is quickly silenced and soon she becomes nothing more than a trophy, only meant to help her second husband, Joe Starks, achieve power. With time, she no longer attempts to stand up to Joe and make her own decisions. Janie changes a lot from the young girl laying underneath a cotton tree at the beginning of her story. Not only is she not herself, she finds herself aging and unhappy with her life. Joe’s death become the turning point it takes to lead to the resolution of her story which illustrates that others cannot determine who you are, it takes finding your own voice and gaining independence to become yourself and find those who accept you.
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
Under a pear tree in Nanny's backyard, however, Janie, as a nave sixteen-year-old, finds the possibilities of love, sexuality, and identity that are available to her. This image, forever reverberating in her mind through two unsuccessful marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, is what keeps Janie's spirit alive and encourages her quest for love and life. " It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep" (10). Under the pear tree on that spring afternoon, Janie sees sensuality wherever she looks. The first tiny bloom had opened.
In the beginning of the story, Janie is stifled and does not truly reveal her identity. When caught kissing Johnny Taylor, a local boy, her nanny marries her off to Logan Killicks. While with Killicks, the reader never learns who the real Janie is. Janie does not make any decisions for herself and displays no personality. Janie takes a brave leap by leaving Killicks for Jody Starks. Starks is a smooth talking power hungry man who never allows Janie express her real self. The Eatonville community views Janie as the typical woman who tends to her husband and their house. Janie does not want to be accepted into the society as the average wife. Before Jody dies, Janie is able to let her suppressed anger out.
Through her three marriages, the death of her one true love, and proving her innocence in Tea Cake’s death, Janie learns to look within herself to find her hidden voice. Growing as a person from the many obstacles she has overcome during her forty years of life, Janie finally speaks her thoughts, feelings and opinions. From this, she finds what she has been searching for her whole life, happiness.
Janie's Grandmother is the first bud on her tree. She raised Janie since she was a little girl. Her grandmother is in some respects a gardener pruning and shaping the future for her granddaughter. She tries to instill a strong belief in marriage. To her marriage is the only way that Janie will survive in life. What Nanny does not realize is that Janie has the potential to make her own path in the walk of life. This blinds nanny, because she is a victim of the horrible effects of slavery. She really tries to convey to Janie that she has her own voice but she forces her into a position where that voice is silenced and there for condemning all hopes of her Granddaughter become the woman that she is capable of being.
While Janie’s Nanny forces her into marrying Logan Killicks for security; Logan also lacks love and compassion for Janie and silences her. Janie cannot use her voice when she marries Logan Killicks because of her Nanny. Although Janie knows “exactly whut” she wants to say; expressing her voice is “hard to do” (Hurston 8). From the beginning, Logan does not resemble her perfect pear tree love, which to Janie means a man who instills confidence into his wife and listens to her voice. Logan falls short of fulfilling that dream as he isolates her from the community, leaving her with no voice whatsoever. Realizing her marriage lacks love and compassion which she longs for, Janie comes to understand that her relationship with Logan will not last long .Not only does Janie’s marriage to Logan stifle any hopes of exp...
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
The late first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it." Mrs. Roosevelt means that although one person may feel alone through the hardships one faces, one has millions beside oneself who can relate to and understand what one may feel. Zora Neale Hurston shows that even though Janie's family and spouses continue to be abusive and harsh toward Janie, their hate and control left her stronger than before, preparing her for the next challenges thrown at her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the deaths' of close relatives and family positively affect Janie because she tends to become more educated and wiser with each death she overcomes in the obstacles she calls her life.
From the beginning of society, men and women have always been looked at as having different positions in life. Even in the modern advanced world we live in today, there are still many people who believe men and women should be looked at differently. In the work field, on average women are paid amounts lower than men who may be doing the exact same thing. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston brings about controversy on a mans roles. Janie Crawford relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake each bring out the mens feelings on masculine roles in marital life.
Gender inequality has been a major issue for many centuries now. Societies insist in assigning males and females to different roles in life. The traditional stereotypes and norms for how a male and female should present themselves to the world have not changed much over time. But individuals are more than just their gender and should have the right to act and be treated the way they want. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston