Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, tells the story of her ascension to adulthood and several of the lessons she learned along the way. Though married three times, her second marriage to Joe Starks had the most formative impact on her transition to maturity. Given that Joe played such a crucial role in this affair, we can classify him as a type of parent to Janie. Later, after her final marriage, Janie reflects on her life and is at peace. By that point, she came to realize how to be truly happy.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has allowed us to better understand the restraints that women in society had to deal with in a male dominated society. Her marriage with Logan Killicks consisted of dull, daily routines.  Wedding herself to Joe Starks brought her closer to others, than to herself.  In her final marriage to Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake, she finally learned how to live her life on her own.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie suffered through many difficult situations that eventually enabled her to grow into an independent person.

One scene that shows Jody and Janie’s relationship is on page 43. In this scene, one of the townspeople asks Janie to make a speech. Before Janie even has a chance to answer Jody tells them that Janie does not know how to make a speech and is not meant to be doing that. This scene is the first scene that we see Jody fully control Janie and make decisions for her.

But, Jody was an ambitious and power-hungry man. He talks of the future, which was what drew Janie to him, but his dominant and aggressive nature soon came into play. He tries to dominate a small town and shows off to the townsfolk. But, he forbids Janie from making a speech, saying she is his wife and shouldn’t be doing his work. Janie’s new position as the mayor’s wife makes her the envy of the townsfolk. Jody starts showing his true colors when he drove a man named Henry Pitts out of town when he catches Janie’s eye. He also forces Janie to hide her hair in a scarf and forbids her from interacting with those he saw were lower than her in social status. Jody would be considered a narcissist according to an article on Mayo Clinic with his inflated sense of self, need for admiration, and is very vulnerable to criticism. And he begins to emotionally abuse Janie by controlling her. Janie becomes disillusioned and detached from her emotions after a couple of

Joe constantly felt the need to make Janie feel horrible about herself. He would take control of everything she would do and Janie couldn’t do anything but feel sad. Hurston says, “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did she said nothing” Saying nothing showed her husband that she let this mistreatment happen to her without speaking up for her rights. Being gone from her sole shows that Janie didn’t even know who she was anymore because she couldn’t even make simple choices for herself. This becomes a problem because Janie couldn’t even find happiness in her relationship, which is far from self-actualizing. These two quotes both show Janie’s passivity through silence and the feeling of worthlessness. This may be an example from Janie’s life, but this became a problem for many women whose husbands follow gender hierarchies to feel like they have more power over their wife. Society always views men to have more power and to be a more powerful figure than women which causes uncomfort in relationships. This strive of power stops people from reaching self-actualization because they are always looking for others to be better than instead of looking to reach their fullest potential. Reaching self-actualization is a big goal for many people because you

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.

She marries Jody quickly, and Janie is full of excitement as they head off to a new town for blacks in Florida. Just as quickly her joy is diminished as Jody evolves into a domineering, power-hungry male, whose disregard for his wife is reminiscent of Mr. Pontellier's treatment of Edna. When Jody and Janie first arrive in Eatonville, Janie is mistaken as Jody's daughter, and while Jody corrects the locals, his behavior towards Janie does begin to resemble that of an overly-controlling father. The first indicator of Jody's true values comes when he actively silences Janie's voice, her ability to express herself with word. " 'Mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-making'.

While many problems that Janie doesn’t deserve manage to find their way to her anyway, the outcomes are partially her fault since she never attempts to resolve them, instead opting to place the blame on someone else. "Naw, Jody, it wasn't because Ah didn't have no sympathy. Ah had uh lavish uh dat. Ah just didn't never git no chance tuh use none of it. You wouldn't let me." (85) Jody may not be the type of man who deserves any sympathy, but the last sentence of this quote from Janie goes to show where she believes the root of the problem lies. Instead of confronting her husband about the issues in their marriage to foster more understanding and therefore bring sympathy into the

My reaction to Jody’s comment is that the comment is offensive. Women should have their own mind. I can infer based on the reaction that jody has no respect for women.Janie hates working in the store and post office. Jody makes Janie keep her hair tied up because he is jealous of the men who stare at it. It is there for him to stare at, not others. They make fun of Matt Bonner's mule more and decide to play a joke on Matt. Some of the town members stand around the mule and tease it. "Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman

Janie) in a sexual manner. It also shows how jealous Joe was of Janie and her youthfulness, as Jody was 10 years her senior. The head rag “irked her endlessly” (55), however she submits to Jody’s control. With Joe Janie must hide her real self, being what her husband wishes her to be, presenting a façade to the outside world of whom they think she should be, not who she really wants to be.

Instead of treating Janie like the beautiful woman that she is, he uses her as an object. Joe was a man who “treasured [Janie] as a posession” (Berridge). Joe’s demanding nature suppresses Janie’s urge to grow and develop, thus causing her journey to self-realization to take steps backward rather than forward. In Janie’s opinion, “he needs to “have [his] way all [his] life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let [him]self heah 'bout it” (Hurston 122). It is almost as if Janie loses sense of her own self-consciousness due to the fact that she becomes like a puppy being told what to do by her master. The death of Jody is actually a positive thing. Joe’s controlling nature stifles Janie’s inner voice. While married to Jody, Janie became closer to others, however, she did not become closer to herself. Being on her own again gave her another chance to embark on her journey and realize who Janie Crawford really is.

Love and Marriage      Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a novel about a Southern black woman and her experiences through life. Janie, the main character, is forced at a young age by her grandmother, into an arranged marriage with a man named Logan. Janie is told to learn to love Logan, but the love never comes for Logan in Janie's heart so she leaves him. She meets a man named Joe. Soon after they are married.

When Janie was told to cut the “seed taters” while Logan went to talk to a man about a mule, Janie ran into Joe. Or Jody as he is known through the remainder of the book. "You behind a plow! You ain’t got no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday! You ain’t got no business cuttin’ up no seed p’taters neither” (36) Jody gave Janie a lasting impression that he would treat her the way she wanted to be treated. Without hesitation, Janie left Logan and his farm without even looking back all while holding Jody’s hand. So then on the next day, Jody began buying her stuff and started to win her off. The two were off to Green Cove Springs. When they arrived, they were introduced to a couple of porch sitters named Lee Coker and Hicks. “I god, where’s de Mayor?” (34) Jody insisted that he speak to the mayor about his disappointment with the town until he was told that there isn't one. So, Jody took the initiative and became the Mayor of

The community that Jody was surrounded in during chapters 5-7 is a pretty big motif because after settling in the town Jodie was technically stuck with a community. From those three chapters mentioned in this paragraph, Janie appreciated the community. All the people would talk and laugh, living their life to the fullest. On the other hand, Janie envy on how they spread hate and rumors around. She long didn't understand or even like the gossip that comes about, Janie had dislikes because of how brave shes become. For an example of the community disliking her for her ways is chapter 6, towards the ending of it a mother is begging Jody for extra meat for their family. While this was occurring, the men of the town said that this embarrassed that ladies husband and that woman shouldn't do that. After hearing much more gossip and down talk, Janie decided to step up and defend the mother. The guys didn't approve what she said and didn't seem to care about it. How is this evidence conductive? Well, Janie was showing her strong side and defended herself against men inside the community, because she did the men don't like that side of her/ disapproves of

Joe believes that Janie is useless without a man telling her what to do. He believes that she is incapable of doing any work without him bossing her around, since he believes he controls her. Joe is putting Janie down by telling her that she doesn’t think at all herself. Joe is trying to brainwash Janie into thinking that she’s worthless without his orders when he says that women need someone to think for them. Janie won’t ever be able to tell Joe what to do because he believes he’s superior and doesn’t need someone to tell him