Comparison Between Janie And Eatonville

The marriage is unsatisfying and lonely for Janie. Janie “...knew things that nobody had ever told her...the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, ‘Ah hope you fall on soft ground,’” (25). She spoke and connected with nature because she was still searching for the kind of love she had witnessed when laying under the pear tree when she was younger. After a big fight with Logan, Janie meets a man named Jody Starks who is charming and charismatic. He is extremely intelligent and Janie leaves Logan for him because even though “he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees...he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance." (28). Janie has not been able to find herself in her marriage with Logan because there was no real connection, she hopes to find love resembling the pear tree with Jody. Unfortunately Janie’s dreams of finding love with Jody fall flat. Jody is controlling and restricts Janie from expressing herself and he further isolates her from society.

Janie met Jody Sparks when she was still married to Logan. Janie was immediately intrigued by Jody given his nice clothing and ambitions. shortly after meeting Jody, she left Logan and married Jody. Their marriage started out as very nice. Janie admired Jody’s ambition and strength in building the town of Eatonville and also becoming the town’s mayor. And Jody loved pleasing Janie and making her happy. Janie was happy in her marriage and she thought that she found real love with Jody, making this marriage very different from her marriage with Logan. though the two marriages were different, they were also very similar. For example, both men were controlling and kept trying to change Janie and make her become someone who she is not. For example, Logan tried to make Janie work outside and he also tried to change her by trying to make something out of her. Jody tried to turn Janie into something that she is not by trying to control

Janie's prayer is answered with her next husband, Jody Starks. He is the man who fills the voids of loneliness and love, and continues her development as a woman. When they first met, Janie was convinced that Jody believed she was a very special person because of the compliments he gave her. For two weeks, before they married, they talked and Janie believed that Jody "spoke for change and chance" (28). The problem Janie had with Jody was that he did not treat her as equal. He would not let her speak in front of people, teach her to play checkers, or participate in other events. Janie notices the problem early in the relationship and confronts Jody about it when she says "it jus' looks lak it keeps us in some way we ain't natural wid one 'nother. You'se always off talkin' and fixin' things, and Ah feels lak Ah'm jus' markin time. Hope it soon gits over" (43). Janie realizes that she cannot be open with Jody and that he is not the same man she ran off with to marry. Jody has many of his own interests, and none of them are concerned with Janie. "She found out that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him ... She was saving up feelings for some man that she had never seen" (68). Jody only gave material goods to Janie. She knew she

Therefore, both Joe and Janie are looked up to by the townspeople. To some extent, this could be considered a form of equality. Unfortunately, this is about where the equality stops. While Joe gains prominence through his own actions and words, Janie gains some prominence by doing what she is told to do. She is not permitted to voice her own opinions or join in the lighthearted gossiping which occurs outside of their store. Janie is expected to be the dutiful wife. If she makes a mistake, then she should have known better and therefore should accept her punishment quietly. Joe holds the obvious upper hand in the relationship until his death whereupon Janie inherits a large amount of money and learns to enjoy the freedom of living as her own person.

The final stage in Janie’s development as a woman is her marriage with the twelve years younger Tea Cake. Both are totally in love with each other and Janie lives a live she has never lived before. She experienced a big change when she moves from her formal live as “Mrs. Major” (43) in Eatonville to the Everglades where Tea Cakes teaches her how to farm, fish and hunt and introduces a totally new rural life to her. Janie described her lifestyle in these days with "...we ain't got nothin' tuh do but do our work and come home and love" (127).

First, Janie, the main character, starts off living and being taken care of her grandmother, Nanny. She later grows up to become married, but their relationship is not genuine because her grandmother wanted her to marry the man. Janie meets a man called Joe Starks and they run off to a town called Eatonville where Joe becomes Mayor and blinded by his power. He becomes violent and domestically abuses Janie. Joe would be manipulative and isolate her from the rest of the town because she was "high-class." They live on to become older, and he eventually dies due to a sickness he needed to have checked two years earlier, but it was too late.

As the story proceeds, Joe begins to control the economy of the city, self-proclaimed mayor, purchase more land, and hires neighbors to build a store. These changes that brings to his personality begins to distance Janie from him, feeling that she has become a "trophy". On the other hand, he forces her to wear a kerchief when she is working in the store. Janie’s hair is so attractive to men that Joe makes her hide it, thus limiting her femininity and repressing her identity. As T. Johnson and T. Bankhead stated,

Janie’s outward appearance and her inward thoughts contrast following Joe’s death. She finally frees herself from his control only after he dies as she, “…tore off the kerchief…and let down her plentiful hair” (87). In freeing her hair, Janie begins to free herself from others’ control and social norms. However, she chooses to keep it tied up until after Jody’s funeral in order to keep appearances that she is grieving his passing in front of the townspeople. However, on the inside, Janie doesn’t really feel any sorrow and “sent her face to Joe’s funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world” (88). It is only after Joe’s elaborate funeral that Janie shows her first act of freedom by burning “every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (89). She chose to let her hair be free from his domination, thus freeing herself from him overall and allowing herself to move onto the next journey in her life.

Joe Starks is an admirable person. He promises Janie beautiful material things and happiness unlike Logan who only tried to control her and offered her no love. Janie is overwhelmed by this proposal and believes that Joe may be the bee that has come to fertilize her and make her happy, but she is proven wrong. After she runs away from Logan, Joe and Janie travel to a new town that is only occupied by African Americans. There, Joe becomes mayor and is well respected by all. He gains wealth and gives Janie the material things that he promised her, but forces her to work in his local store all day long. He does not allow her to attend parties or have any fun and makes negative comments about her constantly. He says,

Jody had to ask the towns people what the name of the town was. After discovering the lack of amenities offered in the town, Jody took it upon himself to turn this all black ghost town into a thriving town. He did this by boasting his masculinity, and using his self-determined power he built up the town and became mayor. This began after he discovered that Eatonville had no town. He immediately went to Captain Eaton to buy more land. “‘He sho did. Come off wid de papers in his pocket. He done called a meetin’ on his porch tomorrow’” (45). Immediately Jody takes a position of authority in the town. Not only does he buy land, build a store and promotes the town, he eventually is named the mayor of the town. One day after being named mayor he takes it upon himself to buy street lamps for the town. Dissatisfied that he cannot control when it will be light and when it will be dark. “Us poor weak humans can’t do nothin’ tuh hurry it up nor to slow it down. All we can do, if we want any light after de settin’ or befo’ de risin’, is tuh make some light ourselves” (53). Jody’s inability to let fate occur was one of his most attractive qualities, consequently it was also one of his most unappealing

She felt far away from things and lonely. Janie soon began to feel the impact of awe and envy against her sensibilities. The wife ofthe mayor was not just another woman as she supposed. She slept with authority and so she was part of it in the town mind." A skillfull change in narration which combines the black dialect and the conventional narration occurs in the following quotation as the narrator shows how the towns people feel about a spittoon which Joe Starks bought for his wife:

Joe was sweet at first, then his true feelings about women come out and Janie looses her love she thought she had for him. He soon dies after their separation. Janie then falls in love with a man named Tea Cake. He is the man with whom she has a wonderful, loving, happy marriage.

Joe Starks is a “quick-thinking, fast-talking, ambitious man, headed for a newly founded all black community, where he plans to make a fortune” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody offers up a new start to Janie and she leaps at the opportunity of marrying him, “committing bigamy” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody becomes the mayor of Eatonville and provides Janie with a middle-class furnished house that does not provide her “with the felicity and self-fulfillment that she needs” (Ha 33). Janie is treated no more or less than that of the mayor’s wife.

She departs in secret from Logan and marries a newfound companion named Jody Starks, who she initially believes is a companion better suited to help her celebrate her individual identity. Yet, as their marriage progresses, and Jody becomes mayor in the town they relocate to, Jody begins to exercise his newly acquired power on her and against her wishes, and she becomes a mere fixture to Jody and his aspirations of power and influence. Again, this commanding influence from outside culture hampers her attempts at finding her identity, and again she becomes unhappy, and after finally voicing her displeasure at Jody, he even exerts physical force on her and assaults her. After their marriage ends, and Jody perishes shortly thereafter, she begins to date a young man whom she meets named Tea Cake, and finds a strong attraction for him, and marries him. Here is the ultimate culmination of her search for her own identity – not only does she go against common cultural precedent by marrying a man twelve years younger than her, but by doing so, she finds a companion not strong enough to exert overbearing power on her, and Tea Cake allows her to celebrate her independence with him. Though their marriage does end, it comes about by Tea Cake tragically perishing, not by a decision by Janie to leave her mate as in the previous cases. Yet, even though Tea Cake is gone, she still feels free, and is able to celebrate her

The novel starts with Janie's return to Eatonville after Tea Cake's death. Eatonville is significant because it is an all-black town that Janie's second husband Joe Starks was the mayor of before his death. In flash back, the novel tells about Janie's childhood in West Florida, where she grew up with white children on the Washburn's plantation. Then Janie and her grandma moved to their own house. After Janie's first marriage to Logan Killicks, she moved to his sixty-acre farm. Janie wasn't happy despite her security, so she left Logan for Joe Starks, her second husband. Janie and Joe traveled from West Florida to Eatonville, an all-black town where Joe was elected mayor, and Janie had to work in the general store that Joe owned. After