How I Met My Husband - Literary Essay

Similarly, Janie makes another great sacrifice when she decides to leave her life of ease and luxury in Eatonville, so she can start a new life with Tea Cake. In Eatonville, she had authority as the store owner and as the former mayor’s wife, but she decides to follow her heart which ultimately leads to her fulfillment of self-actualization with the help of Tea Cake. Without Tea Cake, Janie could not have found herself, and his impact on her remains even after his death. Janie recounts her life lesson to Phoeby saying, “Love is lak da sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore...Two things everybody’s got tuh do for theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (191-92). Through Janie’s words, the effect of Tea Cake on her is eminent through how Janie learn about life and herself and leads her to becoming independent. Because Janie sacrifices her luxurious life in Eatonville, through Tea Cake, she fulfills her need of self-actualization, a recurring idea in the book. Janie’s values concerning her life and of Tea Cake are also illuminated in her conversation with Phoeby before she leaves Eatonville. She and Tea Cake “‘...[had] done made up [their] minds tuh

After Tea Cake ignores all the preemptive warnings of the approaching Hurricane Okeechobee, Janie gets trapped in a flood in the Everglades with a rabid dog. Witnessing this event, Tea Cake risks his life and jumps into the water to save Janie from this beast. Afterwards, Janie tells Tea Cake, “Once upon uh time, Ah never 'spected nothin', Tea Cake, but bein' dead from standin' still and tryin' tuh laugh. But you come 'long and made somethin' outa me. So Ah'm thankful fuh anything we come through together.” (Hurston 167). Janie’s quote demonstrates her gratitude to Tea Cake, who was the only person to truly treat Janie as an equal. By following Nanny’s ideals, Janie lived most of her life neglected in various ways by both Logan and Joe. However, when she finally abandoned Nanny’s dream and met her own needs by marrying Tea Cake, she experienced happiness for the first time. The life of security with little emotional fulfillment deeply contrasts with Janie’s new life with Tea Cake. Finally, she is able to experience true love instead of living as a mule under Joe and Logan, both of whom tried to shape Janie to fit their own personal needs instead of treating her as an equal . Although Nanny wanted to secure Janie’s life by marrying her off to a respected, landowning man, this resulted in unintended consequences that restricted her freedom and harmed her well being. Unlike

Throughout the book Janie struggles to find the true definition of love and how to make herself happy with her relationships. She goes through several different ideas of love before finding that it is mutual compassion, understanding, and respect that makes her the most happy.

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

This loneliness was supposed to be filled by another man, her second husband Joe Starks. She continued her development as a woman especially in the beginning of the new relationship when Joe “spoke for change and chance” (28). The problems Janie had to face in this marriage were that her husband did not treat her equal but rather treated her as an ornament. She found out that the love he provided to her in the beginning was rather part of the ulterior moves Joe had about becoming an important landlord and major. Joe gave only material goods to Janie who felt again as if something misses in her life.

In each relationship that Janie has become more mature and her identity begins to change. Along her journey, she encounters glimpses of happiness and in the end, she is truly happy. And she finally gains the love like that between the bee and the blossom.

Janie’s discovery of the person she is through each of her separate life experiences, has brought her to the comprehension of the different levels of herself. Although it takes her the complete book to comprehend her sexual awakening from the beginning where the blossoming pear tree starts her on this journey to go through untainted love, she goes through this experience as the sun sets and rises past the many moments in her budding life;

At the same time, however, Janie begins to confuse this desire with romance. Despite the fact that nature’s “love embrace” leaves her feeling “limp and languid,” she pursues the first thing she sees that appears to satisfy her desire: a young man named Johnny Taylor (Hurston 11). Leaning over the gate’s threshold to kiss Johnny, Janie takes the first step toward her newfound horizon. Nanny sees this kiss and declares Janie’s womanhood. She wants Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a financially secure and well-respected farmer who can protect her from corruption. The marriage of convenience that Nanny suggests is “desecrating … [Janie’s] pear tree” because it contradicts her ideal vision of love (Hurston 14). Because she did not have the strength to fight people in her youth, Janie’s grandmother believes that Janie needs to rely on a husband in order to stay safe and reach liberation. Ironically, Janie’s adherence to Nanny’s last request suppresses her even more because it causes her to leave behind her own horizon.

All through the novel Janie travels through valuable life experiences allowing her to grow as a woman. Janie at first has a difficult time understanding her needs rather than wants, but as she continues to experience new situations she realizes she values respect. Janie’s first two marriages turned out to be tragic mistakes, but with each marriage Janie gained something valuable. When Janie is disrespected in her second marriage with Joe Starks, he publicly humiliates her, disrespecting her as a wife and woman. This experience forced Janie to come out of her comfort zone and stand up for herself.

Once Nanny crawford caught janie kissing a boy she decides that she needs a man with financial securities and respect over love. Logan is nice to janie in the beginning but slowly tries to make her help him with the farm work but it leads to janie running away from feeling unloved. In the story she finds another man named jody starks. She travels from georgia to eatonville to satisfy jody'S AMBITIONS. Jody pampers her with different material objects and shows her what's it's like to be the mayor's wife. However jody starts to treat her like an object other than his wife and the marriage deteriorates. tHE FINAL relationship expressed in the story is with aman named Tea Cake. He is janie's true first love and makes janie feel alive even though it contradicting because tea cake is 12 years younger than him. Other than the previous men, tea cake genuinely cares for her and doesn't try to force janie to be anything but herself and treats her with respect. However the couple do have there confrontations, it only proves that he'd not perfect and willing to stand by her. IN the story eoe goes through many trials and tribulations (struggles} including love and ultimately

She [Janie] knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman

Moreover, in both stories, the characters commit some mistakes in their lives. In “How I Met My Husband”, Munro shows that Edie tells the story of her past and present life and how she realizes the mistakes that she had done when she was 15 years old. When Edie works in Peebles family, she seems superiority around Mrs. Peebles who feels tired of being a wife and a mother. Edie believes

Feminist literary criticism is present in Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband.” One characteristic of the feminist criticism is that the text reveals the “oppression of women.” “How I Met My Husband” showed the oppression of women when Chris Waters mistreated Alice and Edie. Waters mistreated Alice when he refused to meet with her even though she’d been his fiance since the war. He also treated Alice poorly when he flew away to avoid seeing her because “a plane can get farther than a car.” Besides refusing to see her, Waters also mistreated Alice when he kissed Edie. Alice was still in love and engaged to Waters; however, Waters kissed Edie without telling Alice that their relationship was officially over. In addition to Alice, Waters also

There is nothing in life that can compare to meeting your other half. Meeting my best friend was definitely a life changing event in the best way. She is the most loyal and absolutely the most trustworthy long-term friendships that I have ever experienced. I have been given the opportunity in life to come face to face with my best friend, she has changed my life in various ways. No one that I have met can compete with how well her and I mix. Like peanut butter and jelly, we are good alone but better together. Through thick and thin my best friend and I have lasted 8 going 9 years, and I know that there will be more to come.

Pride and prejudice is a complex love story that was penned around late eighteenth century England, a time of great upheaval and war for the besieged nation. And whilst this older outdated form of proper British English is at times tough to read, it is none the less understandable, and in the end quite an enjoyable read. This book explores many different relationship dynamics between couples of this era, and the qualitative characteristics that draw them together. None more intricately so then the one we see interwoven between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.