Janie 's Journey From City

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.

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

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

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.

Another desire of young Janie is to find true, passionate love in a relationship. Returning to the metaphor of the pear tree, Janie says to her Grandma, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston 24). Janie dreams of a peaceful, pleasant, and comfortable love in her marriage, similar to the quiet bliss of sitting in the shade of a blossoming pear tree. In her article, Kubitschek also points out Darwin Turner’s understanding that “‘All Janie wants is to love, be loved, and to share the life of her man. But . . . she must first find a man wise enough to let her be whatever kind of woman she wants to be’” (qtd. in Kubitschek 109). Unfortunately, this love and freedom was not acquired in Janie’s first marriage. Despite her hope that feelings of true love would develop with her first husband Logan Killicks, “she knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). Discontent with lack of passion in her first marriage, Janie decides to abandon her dream of finding love with Logan and does not hesitate to run away with Jody Starks when the situation presents itself. Deborah Clarke comments on this change in heart, writing, “Janie thus gives up a

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).

Janie is married to two men, before she finds Tea Cake, that both suppress her individuality in their own ways. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, suppresses her by keeping her in a marriage that she can't fully, or at all, love the man she's married to. "Cause you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it." Janie says she needs to be told how to feel about Logan in order for her to be able to love feel anything towards him at all. Janie is a mixture of the people around her because they're telling her to live and how to think. Janie can't bring herself to figure out how to do these things on her own so she ends up looking for the answers in the man she married, her grandmother, and her society. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, keeps her from showing who she really wants to be by

He wins her heart with his energy, and willingness to make Janie his equal. Tea Cake is the only husband that actually takes a genuine interest in Janie. He takes her hunting, fishing, and plays checkers with her. She especially enjoys playing chess, the fact that he considers her intelligent enough to learn such a game shows that he thinks more of Janie than Logan or Joe ever did. The town disapproves of Janie and Tea Cake because he is poor and younger than her. They have the impression that he is just after her money. Janie and Tea Cake leave the town of Eatonville and travel to a town called Jacksonville where Tea Cake has work. The sense of gender equality is very important to Janie in a relationship. Tea Cake asks Janie to work alongside him in the Everglades fields. Logan and Joe both wanted her to work, but she resented it. The difference is that Logan wanted Janie to do hard labor because he thought of her as an object like a workhorse. Joe wanted Janie to work in the store, which she also disliked because Joe just wanted to publicly display her as his trophy wife. Tea Cake’s attitude about Janie working is completely different. He gives her the choice of working and doesn’t command her. Janie goes to work the next day, “So the very next morning Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake. There was a suppressed murmur when she picked up a basket and went to work. She was already getting to be a special case on the muck. It was generally assumed that she thought herself too good to work like the rest of the women and that Tea Cake "pomped her up tuh dat." But all day long the romping and playing they carried on behind the boss’s back made her popular right away.”(133) This is the first relationship that Janie doesn’t care to work. She actually likes working alongside Tea Cake. As time passes the town gets word of a hurricane coming. All the people start fleeing to different places, but the boss

As a young woman, Janie wanted love, true love. In the beginning of the novel and Janie 's journey, she is under a blossoming pear tree where she spends most of her days. She is watching the bees fly to the blossoms, when she has an epiphany. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then

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.

Janie’s journey with Logan taught Janie about love and making her own choices. Joe’s marriage with Janie enlightened Janie on the matter that in the setting of the book, gender barriers did exist and that people change. Finally, Tea Cake’s relationship with Janie reinforced in her the idea of being her own person and how if you love someone you have to think of what is best for them. All of Janie’s marriages would come to an end, but one thing that lasted from each one was what Janie learned from each relationship and if Janie did not experience all of her three marriages, she may not have evolved into the wise woman she ended up being in the end of the

In essence, Janie had a hard time finding her identity but she never gave up, she was willing to go on and find out who she is. Throughout Janie’s childhood, her marriage to Logan, Joe, and then finally Tea Cake she struggled with finding her true self. Janie has always hoped to have an identity independent of anyone else but never really knew how to achieve this goal until she finally left Tea Cake. Janie to me is a model for women who wish to behold their own freedom, identity, and a sense of self. Overall Janie's true identity is one that many women like myself wish to maintain because of her strong willpower and self confidence that no one in her time period would usually have.

Janie's quest is for self-discovery and self-definition, but she encounters many obstacles while trying to win this quest.