Their Eyes Were Watching God

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.

At the beginning of their marriage they have a few ups and downs but they then promise to share everything with each other. In chapter fourteen, because of Tea Cake, Janie decides to start working in the fields on her own free will. This was something neither Logan nor Jody were able to get her to do, but now because of how in love with Tea Cake she is, she works in the fields so she can spend more time with him. She actually enjoys this work and tells him that “Ah laks it. It’s mo’ nicer than settin’ round dese quarters all day” (pg. 133). Her character has changed significantly at this point since the beginning of the novel since, while hanging out with the towns people, she “could tell big stories herself” which she would never have imagined doing while with

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 first marriage is to Logan Killicks. Logan enters the marriage with a large portion of land. However, Janie enters the marriage with practically nothing. This ends up becoming a relationship based on inequality because Logan starts to use

Topic 2: Compare/contrast Janie in Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God & Edna in Chopin 's The Awakening in terms of conformity within a male-dominated society. (four page minimum)

In Catholic doctrine, the seven cardinal sins are the basis from which all the “sins” of humanity stem. In this system, any moral infraction a person may commit would be categorized under one of these seven sins (also known colloquially as the “seven deadly sins”). This system has been widely adapted throughout culture over the centuries, and is a common tool utilized to examine the actions of humans. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, enters into three marriages, two of which fail based on the failings of her husbands, and the third of which succeeds in spite of the failings of her husband. Each of these husbands, in fact, displays traits which fall under the cardinal sins, and the sin of pride in particular; even the third husband, Tea Cake, displays the very same sin, leading to the downfall of their marriage.

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

Her decision to leave Logan for Joe Starks shows her determination to achieve her dream of love; she does not want to give and take this dream for stability. Logan is extremely ignorant of Janie′s feelings. When she tries to talk with him about them he simply replies: "′Ah′m getting′ sleepy Janie. Let′s don′t talk no mo′.′" (Hurston,30) He does not realize that Janie is serious about leaving him and that she wants him to show his feelings for her. Instead, he tries to hurt her like she hurt him, by pretending not to be worried about her leaving him. Janie gets to know Joe during her marriage with Logan. Right from the beginning he treats her like a lady. This is one reason why Janie is so attracted to him.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship.

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.

In both Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the focus is on women who want better lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. The difficulties involving men which Janie and Delia incur result from or are exacerbated by the intersection of their class, race, and gender, which restrict each woman for a large part of her life from gaining her independence.

In Their Eyes were Watching God, the only heritage we learn about is Janie’s mother and grandmother. Nanny came from slavery and tells Janie, “it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do.” Janie’s mother came from the alluded to raping inflicted on Nanny: the slave owner’s wife questions why Leafy has “gray eyes and yaller hair” (Hurston 16-17). Janie herself was the product of a rape as well when Leafy was held “in de woods all night long” by her teacher. (Hurston 19) Both of

In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, author Zora Neale Hurston suggests that mutual respect and equality are necessary components of love.

Janie leaves Logan to be with Joe Starks who was waiting for her. On the train ride to town, the narrator says, “he bought her the best things the butcher had” (Hurston 35). Joe is more concerned about money and power. Janie feels that he’s giving her gifts, but it’s more that he’s showing off his money. Janie is the wife of the mayor and it

During her teenage years, Janie learns that love is not everything that she expected it to be. When she is sixteen, she grows out of her childhood by the act of kissing a boy, Johnny Taylor, underneath a pear tree. After witnessing the loss of Janie’s innocence, her Nanny decides that it is time for this granddaughter of hers to become a woman. Shortly afterwards, Janie is made to wed Logan Killicks. This is also where she meets Joe “Jody” Starks, who is described in Chapter 4 how “he did not represent sun-up and