Many women in the 1930s were striving to to make a name for themselves and find their place in this ever changing world. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford is a middle-aged black woman who is searching to find her place. Janie was raised by her grandmother, a very stern woman who felt strongly about her ideals of a proper life for Janie. Janie has three husbands throughout the book, Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake, two of whom die. Like most people, Janie goes through many ups and downs in her life, but she uses every experience to grow. Throughout the whole book Janie is searching for her own identity, Joe, Tea Cake, and Nanny all have an effect on Janie and her quest. Nanny was the first one …show more content…
to influence Janie and her quest for personal identity. Nanny is Janie’s grandmother, and she raised Janie as if she were her own daughter. Unlike Janie, Nanny was born into slavery, she lived through many traumatic experiences, and because of this, wants to give Janie the opportunities and the life that she never had. “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin’ fuh it tuh be different wid you” (14). All Nanny wants is for Janie to be able to be a high class Black woman, with no obligation to work. She wants people to respect Janie, and she believes this can only be done by having a proper marriage and financial stability. Unfortunately for Janie, it means living a dull, boring life, with no freedom. Throughout the book Janie refers to what she is looking for with the analogy of the horizon. Janie realizes that you can never reach the horizon, but you can reach where the horizon once was, and still look onto another. Janie uses the metaphor to describe how Nanny is crushing her dreams and goals. “Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it into such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (107). While Nanny really does love Janie and want the best for, she is trying to live her own life through Janie, and not giving Janie the chanced to live her own. Nanny shrunk down Janie’s horizon and Janie felt as though she were suffocating because of it. When Nanny died, Janie did mourn, but it also freed her up to pursue her own life goals, and discover what she really wanted in life. Though it seems that Nanny only prevented Janie’s goals, in the end she really just pushed Janie to fight for what she wanted. Janie’s marriage to Joe also has a big influence in her finding her own identity.
In the beginning, Joe seems like the perfect man for Janie, he is ambitious and talks as though he can help her find what she is looking for in life. It is not until later in the marriage that Janie realizes that he will only trample out her ability to search for her dreams. The few things that Joe values are power and control, he only married Janie because she was pretty, and completed his image of importance. Being insecure and jealous, Joe wants Janie to just sit in the store and not talk or flirt to anyone. “‘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. ‘Tain’t no earthly use. They’s jus’ some puny humans playin’ round de toes uh Time’” (54). Much like Nanny, Joe wants Janie to see herself as better than others. From the outside, it would see that Janie has the “perfect” life with Joe, financial stability, the mayor’s wife, good home, but it does not satisfy her. This only proves further to Janie that wealth and status is not what she is looking for. Joe also helps Janie to find her voice. As Joe gets older he begins to verbally abuse Janie in order to take the attention off of his aging body. “‘Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. …show more content…
Dat’s uh whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but t’ain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talk about me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life’” (79). At first Janie takes it, Janie has no self-confidence in the beginning of the book and she is afraid to speak her mind, but by the end of her marriage with Joe, Janie has found her voice. She is no longer afraid to stand up for herself, and this is due to the fact that she is closer to finding her identity. Lastly, Tea Cake accelerates Janie’s self-confidence that has already been started by other people in her life.
From the moment Janie and Tea Cake met, shortly after Joe’s death, they had an undeniable connection. Janie’s other husbands, Logan and Joe, tried to suppress Janie’s creative and spirited personality, but Tea Cake encourages it. To his credit, Tea Cake shows Janie what it is like to live life to the fullest, they have jobs and make money, but are always up for adventure and a good time. Joe treats Janie with more respect, and does not hold her down and hide her like Joe. When Janie and Tea Cake move to the Everglades they spend a lot of time with their neighbors having fun. “The men held big 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. She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest” (134). With Tea Cake, Janie could be her own person, and join in on the fun. Without Janie being squashed down all the time, her personality flourished and with that came her identity. It is important to point out that Janie’s identity was not dependent on Tea Cake. The very beginning of the book starts with Janie returning to the town that she and Tea Cake left, and Janie is full of confidence that she never had before. “The women took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance. It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of
no significance, still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day” (2). Janie is wearing dirty clothes and is walking back into a town in which they have been judging her ever since she ran off with a younger man, yet she shows no lack in self-confidence. Tea Cake was essential in Janie’s growth, but while she did mourn Tea Cake, she has enough confidence in herself to be able to carry on. Tea Cake taught her to find happiness within herself, and not depend on others to find her identity. Janie spends most of he adult life searching for her own identity, and with the help of both positive and negative influences, she is able to achieve this. Nanny, Joe, and Tea Cake all played a role in Janie’s development as a person, and it is undeniable that Janie’s character would not be what it is without the influence of these people. By the end of the book Janie is able to find stability and joy within herself instead of being reliant on others. The story of Their Eyes Were Watching God, despite being written 80 years ago, has many lessons that are applicable today. Nanny teaches the difference between helping the ones you love, and taking away their choices. Tea Cake teaches how important it is to build other people up and help them to embrace their own personalities. Joe teaches that there is a fine line between ambition and thirst for power. And lastly, Janie teaches how important it is to be able to find happiness within one’s self. All these lessons are important to take into account to be the best person possible, and find your own identity in within these morals.
Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells about the life of Janie Crawford. Janie’s mother, who suffers a tragic moment in her life, resulting in a mental breakdown, is left for her grandmother to take care of her. Throughout Janie’s life, she comes across several different men, all of which end in a horrible way. All the men that Janie married had a different perception of marriage. After the third husband, Janie finally returns to her home. It is at a belief that Janie is seeking someone who she can truly love, and not someone her grandmother chooses for her. Although Janie eventually lives a humble life, Janie’s quest is questionable.
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
Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her. In summary, she married Logan because of her grandmother, Jody because she wanted to escape from Logan, and Tea Cake because they had true love. The marriages were different in that Logan treated Janie like a Slave, Joe was moulding her into what he wanted her to be, and Tea Cake just wanted to be with her. As a result, Janie learned many things from each marriage Tea Cake taught her to be herself and do what she wanted to, her marriage with Logan taught her to make changes in her life, and her marriage with Joe taught her to stand up for herself. In conclusion, her experiences in her marriages shaped her into the person she became, and were an important part of her life.
In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author takes you on the journey of a woman, Janie, and her search for love, independence, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit seems to constantly be disregarded, yet Janie continues to hold on to the potential of grasping all that she desires. In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Hurston illustrates the ambiguity of Janie’s voice; the submissiveness of her silence and the independence she reclaims when regaining her voice. The reclaiming of Janie's independence, in the novel, correlates with the development and maturation Janie undergoes during her self discovery.
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.
Janie’s character undergoes a major change after Joe’s death. She has freedom. While the town goes to watch a ball game Janie meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake teaches Janie how to play checkers, hunt, and fish. That made Janie happy. “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 every one of his good points” (Hurston 96). Tea Cake gave her the comfort of feeling wanted. Janie realizes Tea Cake’s difference from her prior relationships because he wants her to become happy and cares about what she likes to do. Janie tells Pheoby about moving away with Tea Cake and Pheoby tells her that people disapprove of the way she behaves right after the death of her husband. Janie says she controls her life and it has become time for her to live it her way. “Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 114). Janie becomes stronger as she dates Tea Cake because she no longer does for everyone else. Janie and Tea Cake decided to move to the Everglades, the muck. One afternoon, a hurricane came. The hurricane symbolizes disaster and another change in Janie’s life. “Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature. Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the
The first time Janie had noticed this was when he was appointed mayor by the town’s people and she was asked to give a few words on his behalf, but she did not answer, because before she could even accept or decline he had promptly cut her off, “ ‘Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’/Janie made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy/…the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything on way or another that took the bloom off things” (43). This would happen many times during the course of their marriage. He told her that a woman of her class and caliber was not to hang around the low class citizens of Eatonville. In such cases when he would usher her off the front porch of the store when the men sat around talking and laughing, or when Matt Boner’s mule had died and he told her she could not attend its dragging-out, and when he demanded that she tie up her hair in head rags while working in the store, “This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT to show in the store” (55). He had cast Janie off from the rest of the community and put her on a pedestal, which made Janie feel as though she was trapped in an emotional prison. Over course of their marriage, he had silenced her so much that she found it better to not talk back when got this way. His voice continuously oppresses Janie and her voice. She retreats within herself, where still dreams of her bloom time, which had ended with Joe, “This moment lead Janie to ‘grows out of her identity, but out of her division into inside and outside. Knowing not mix them is knowing that articulate language requires the co-presence of two distinct poles, not their collapse into oneness’ ” (Clarke 608). The marriage carries on like this until; Joe lies sick and dying in his death bed.
I believe Janie depended on her past husbands for financial security, and protection from the outside world that she could not make a mends with. Janie's dependence on Tea Cake was a dependence on love, Tea Cake treats her the way she has always wanted to be treated, like the blossom to the bee. When Joe died, he left Janie with money and the store, but she had no one to love nor anyone to keep her company. She needed Tea Cake to fill this void in her life, I believe Janie realizes this when she says, "Tea Cake ain't no Jody Starks...but de minute Ah marries `im gointuh be makin' comparison. Dis ain't no business proposition...
When Tea Cake enters Janie's life, Janie really starts to come out of her shell. She lets down her hair that was kept up the entire time with Starks. This symbolizes Janie letting all her inhibitions out. In finding Tea Cake, Janie has "completed her voyage" of self-discovery. Tea Cake allows her to feel exhilarated and young again. She makes more friends and becomes more social. During this time in her life Janie is an excellent role model for other black women. She does not give a second look at what other people think about her, which is very admirable. This is shown when Hezekiah Potts tells Janie that Tea Cake is too low of a man for Janie yet, she stills persists on seeing him. Many people also think that Tea Cake is courting Janie for her money only. Janie pays no regard to these onlookers though.
Through her use of southern black language Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how to live and learn from life’s experiences. Janie, the main character in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a woman who defies what people expect of her and lives her life searching to become a better person. Not easily satisfied with material gain, Janie quickly jumps into a search to find true happiness and love in life. She finally achieves what she has searched for with her third marriage.
Truly life was hard for many people in the early 20th century but the amount of tragedies that happened to Janie and some of her decisions were a bit outlandish. Janie is depicted as an extreme free spirit in a time where women empowerment was not on the rise, Janie made many independent choices without any repercussions like leaving her first husband. Janie left her first husband for Joe Starks abruptly and almost without any warning or punishment, her husband seemed to be okay with her decision and the grandmother that forced Janie into the marriage in the first place is nowhere to be seen. Another aspect of the story that was slightly unbelievable was Tea Cakes death. Tea Cake dies after getting bit by a rabid dog in the middle of a raging hurricane just seconds after the house that he and Janie share is overcome by waves. It seems as if too many things of epic proportions happened at nearly the same time. The question here is how was the dog even able to survive when Tea Cake and Janie were almost drowned by the storm? This question is never answered.
In the end, Janie found herself being defined by other people, so to say Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. During her marriage to Logan, Janie is viewed as a spoiled and non-hard working girl that needs to learn what it means to make a living. In her marriage to Joe, Janie is only needed for her outward appearance for him to define as his possession; never did he consult her about what she wanted. In both of these relationships she was forced to be something that she was not. Once Tea Cake came along everything had changed; going from following another man’s orders to being able to live a fun-loving life. Throughout the time she spends with him, finally free from being defined by someone else, Janie Crawford discovers who she is and what love is.
Janie puts up with this treatment for quite a while before she ends up standing up for herself and speaking out against Joe and his flaws. This ends unfavorably for Janie and she even says to herself, “Why must Joe be so mad with her for making him look small when he did it to her all the time? Had been doing it for years. . . . Jody might get over his mad spell any time at all and begin to act like somebody towards her” (Hurston 81). She recognizes the double standard between her and Joe, yet she still has to try to ignore his reaction because he might treat her like his wife again and she can’t treat him that way again. It is entirely crazy to think he is allowed to make her feel inferior all the time and she cannot even do it once without major backlash. This is the important turning point in their marriage where Janie realizes how truly unhappy and restricted she is. When Joe gets sick he blames it on Janie and won’t be associated with her in anyway, this is a major jab at Janie that makes her solidify her hatred for Joe. After his death Janie feels a great relief and freedom in life and realizes that Joe was nowhere near her pear tree love ideal. At this point Janie seems to be free, but that quickly changes when Tea Cake comes into
This begins the novel by creating the illusion that women are not as strong as men- both mentally and physically. During the novel, when Janie was with her second husband, “...Joe [Starks] slaps her because his supper has been poorly cooked” (“Their,” Novels). It is this point that Janie 's image of Joe is destroyed, and begins separating her inner and outer self from him (“Their,” Novels). When the couple had first arrived to Eatonville, she realized “she is going to be nothing but an ornament of his power and success” (“Their,” Novels). Janie begins her “new life” knowing that it is going to cause pain and distraught. In one event, Joe gets jealous that other men and captivated by his wife’s appearance and long hair. When he notices that, “he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store...she was there in the store for him to look at, not those others” (Hurston 65). He wanted to have complete control over her; so much to the point that “...Joe forbids her to participate in their jokes or storytelling” (Domina). After several events that Joe hurts Janie, “She insults his masculinity, shaming him before the other men. After this, although Janie and Joe continue to live together, they live emotionally separate lives until Joe dies” (Domina). After Starks dies and Janie moves away with Tea Cakes, he eventually, “becomes jealous and beats Janie
Janie starts to talk with someone she meets at the general store in Eatonville…” Vergible Woods. Dey calls me Tea Cake for short.”(Hurston 97). Tea Cake and janie his and decides to marry. Both janie and Tea cake go to Jacksonville to get married. Tea Cake proceeded to move from jacksonville after getting assaulted for winning lots of money gambling. Janie and Tea Cake traveled to the Everglades to work on the farm, and earn some good money for their new life. Janie crafted her identity in the everglades, her true self begins to emerge the minute she marry’s Tea Cake. Janie Does many activities with Tea Cake Such as working in the fields along with her Husband “The very next morning Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake” (Hurston 133). Janie’s previous husband … Joe starks wanted janie to stay at home and be nothing more than a housewife rather than working alongside him… But Tea Cake didn't mind Janie working with him in the