Their Eyes Were Watching God Feminist Analysis

The mule metaphorically showed oppression and cruelty towards Janie for both situations. For example, when she was with Logan, he was going to buy her a mule so Janie could forcefully work with him on the farm. When Janie was married to Joe, the entire community bonded over mocking a mule someone owned. Joe then bought the mule himself and instead of relieving of its pain, he further ridiculed it just as he had his wife. Ironically, Joe’s egotism and aspirations subjugated Janie to his will leaving her with no escape except of Joe’s passing.

The scene of page 58 showed us a very good side of Janie and Jody’s marriage. Janie was upset to see men making fun of an old work mule, to make Janie feel better and to also please her, Jody then buys the mule so that it can rest for once in it’s life. This scene showed us that Jody does deeply care about Janie and he wants to make her happy, even though he does not show it alot.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, attempts to bring into light problems caused by prejudice. However, as she tries to show examples of inequality through various character relationships, examples of equality are revealed through other relationships. Janie, the novel's main character, encounters both inequality and equality through the treatment she receives during her three marriages.

Janie was being compared to a mule who was overworked and treated as an object. Jody bought that mule. “ By the time Matt was wringing and twisting like a hen on a hot brick. But as soon as his hand closed on the money his face broke into a gin.” (pg.58).The mule is referring to Janie. It symbolizes the abuse that Janie encounters while being married to Joe. By selling the mule, it is symbolizing setting a tortured soul free, in this case, Janie’s soul. Janie, being the one in pain, was the one who was set free in the end.

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

In Zora Neale Hurston’s romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the heroine Janie, a beautiful mixed white and black woman, is on a journey to find someone who will make her feel love to find her own identity and freedom, away from her spouses. Janie’s marriages and quest for love impede her individual search for freedom, but in doing this she has discovered what exactly she wants for herself. Janie’s search for her identity and freedom is very much evident. Being abused and controlled during her marriages has made it clear how she wants to be treated and how she wants to live her life; as an individual who does not have to listen to anyone. The story opens with Janie’s return to town. Janie tells Phoebe Watson the story of her

For example, in Janie’s first marriage, she is hardly treated as a wife. After a brief phase of “foot-kissing”, or, being lenient and doing Janie’s chores for her, her husband, Logan Killicks, eventually begins to “treat her as just another person who works on his farm” (Cardona). When Logan tells Janie he plans to run two plows and is going to buy a mule that a woman can handle, she intentionally ignores his hint of putting her to work.

The suppression of Janie, both as a woman and a human, is Jody's most interesting facet. He sets a limit on her self- fulfillment, treating her more like an object than a woman. Of course, he lumps women in with mere things--"Somebody got to think for women and chilun and chickens and cows (67)." He's good to Janie, but he's good to his animals also. In fact, Joe's attitude towards Janie is echoed in his behavior towards the overworked mule he buys and sets free: he lets the mule loose to wander around town as evidence of his generosity and wealth.

Janie wanted fulfilling love out of marriage, and in the case of both Joe and Logan, this is not what she got. In many cases, she was treated as property before she was treated as a person. Janie ran away from Logan because of this-- a powerful move considering that leaving your husband, regardless of how he

Throughout Wu’s article, Wu address Janie’s marriages and the representation with the imagery regarding the mule. One of Wu’s stronger arguments is the first marriage Janie has with Logan Killicks. Wu argues that the marriage between Logan and Janie is an “obvious surrender to Nanny’s concept of black women, which defines them as the mule of the world” (Wu 1054). In the beginning of their marriage, Logan treated

Joe and Janie meet everyday for about two weeks. One day Janie and Logan get into an argument about who was going to move the mule’s manure, when Janie refuses, Logan threatens to kill her with an axe . At that moment, Janie decides to run off with Joe who reminds her that she is young and beautiful and appeals to her need to have someone in her age group.

Janie in her first marriage is her far from mesmerized with her husband's 60 acre land. The incompatibility between her and Logan ultimately cause the marriage to fail. Logan

So one day she meets Joe Starks and after spending some time together, Janie asks Logan what he would do if she ran away. Logan, rather than responding honestly, lies and hides his true feelings through insults. Janie learns that a marriage does not always withhold love. Love is something that must come naturally without force or thought and Janie sees that she has no such feeling towards Logan. Hence Janie runs off with Joe Starks and Logan is never heard of again.

When I read the notes, I got an idea of comparison of Janie and the mule. Like the mule, Janie is doing whatever her husband like without questioning. She first married without her choice reveals that the mule didn’t choose her owner. Even she became the wife of the mayor in her second marriage, she treated as mule. I definitely agree with that Janie feels sympathy for the mule because she treated like the mule by her husband. Even though she didn’t want to go to the store, she would go because she didn’t have any power to object him. Like Matt Bonner’s mule, she always obeyed Jody. She restricted by her husband what to do and do not. He didn’t allowed her to speak in public and to left her hair open. Janie didn’t oppose him rather she accepted

Brutal beatings that resulted in bruises, broken bones, and even death. Rape that haunted women until their last breath. Being caged and unable to go “tuh de horizon and back”. These are all things that Zora Neale Hurston tried to combat when composing Their Eyes Were Watching God. Through her novel, she tries to show the American people that women can choose the roles that they long for. In all, women have the right to pursue their desires.