Character Analysis Of Janie In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale

The main character Janie of the book Their eyes were watching God, is facing the conflict of a loveless and abusive marriage. Through the chapters, five and the first part of chapter seven Janie is submissive to her husband’s words and does what he says. However, at the end of chapter seven Janie talks back to Joe while working in the store and humiliates him in front of the townspeople. In result of Janie’s actions Joe makes it clear to Janie and the customers in the store Joe is still the dominant figure in the relationship, to show his dominance Joe smacked Janie in the face. Although Joe hit Janie it was not the first time, and Janie knew the first time Joe had hit her that the love she has longed for is not in this marriage.

Even when Joe’s jealously forces her to wear a head rag, Janie refuses to rebel against his rule. Her conformity is representative of her distaste for dissension, which seems to outweigh her unhappiness with their relationship. Even after Joe’s death, she conforms to the townspeople’s ideas of wearing mourning black, despite the lack of love and desire she had for

She never expressed her feelings, instead she hid them pretending nothing was wrong. She didn’t admit that she wanted a change, and she refused to talk about the issues in her relationships, as she stayed silent. Throughout Micheal G. Cooke's article, he uncovers multiple aspects of Janie reaching the fulfillment of self actualization. Furthermore, the more that Janie had been deprived by others, the more self-sufficient she became.

The men who were trying to court her were only trying to do so for status. Janie had high status by this point, being the beautiful wife of the former mayor. In both of her former marriages, Janie was used. Jody desired Janie purely for her looks so that she could be his trophy wife, nothing more than an asset to show off. Logan viewed her as a spoiled girl whom he would make his farm wife, or just as a replacement for his first wife.

Throughout the marriage Janie 's quest to find love was dismissed. Logan was just an obstacle to Janie 's long quest for true love. Hurston writes, “The morning air was like a new dress... that made her feel the apron tied around her waist” meaning that Hurston uses a metaphor of a dress to describe

In The Eyes are Watching God, the author Zora Neale Hurston expresses the struggles of women and black societies of the time period. When Hurston published the book, communities were segregated and black communities were full of stereotypes from the outside world. Janie, who represents the main protagonist and hero, explores these communities on her journey in the novel. Janie shows the ideals of feminism, love, and heroism in her rough life in The Eyes. Janie, as the hero of the novel, shows the heroic qualities of determination, empathy, and bravery.

more’n you kin say… When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” (Hurston 79). Janie stands up for herself and verbally attacks her husband, which was unusual for the time

When tea cake shows up janie 's feels something she has never felt before, she is set free but the townspeople don 't think so. “‘Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money him bein’ younger than you?’” (Hurston pg.133)Janie is in love with Tea Cake because he loves her for her youthful young side that was forced into hiding for so long because of her previous husbands. However the rest of the community is discouraging her and trying to keep her in the image as a mayor 's wife. They told Janie that Tea Cake was after her money

For example, just like Jody, Tea Cake also physically abuses Janie to display his authority over her. What makes Janie 's relationship with Tea Cake different from her other relationships is that it is based on a love that runs much deeper than her motivation in staying in her other relationships. Janie married Logan in search of love. She married Jody in search of wealth and his ambition. When both of these relationships failed, she entered into her relationship with Tea Cake with low expectations.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s flaws about love continuously brought her to the same ending with all of her husbands, no matter how long the marriage lasted. In The Odyssey, Calypso was trapped on an island to fall in love with men who washed ashore. The fatality of her faults was her over affection and her need for love while being so alone on her island, Ogygia. Their weaknesses are exact opposites, specifically in their relationships with men. The flaws are role in relationship, attachment to men, and lastly, their submissiveness to men.

Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see” (265). Hurston beautifully depicts this image of Janie’s soul emerging as a statement of her love for Tea Cake and of her vulnerability when she is with him. Likewise, at the end of the story, Janie calls on her soul to come out yet again at the moment in which she reflects upon her life with Tea Cake and in a way thanks him for allowing her to be free.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie, is influenced by others to change her ideals. Hurston vividly portrays Janie’s outward struggle while emphasising her inward struggle by expressing Janie’s thoughts and emotions. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the protagonist is concisely characterized as having “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” as Janie does. Janie conforms outwardly to her life but questions inwardly to her marriages with Logan Killicks, her first husband, and Joe Starks, her second husband; Janie also questions her grandmother's influence on what love and marriage is.

The voiceless, beautiful, store keeper pales in comparison to the smart, talented identity Janie’s thoughts demonstrate her to be. After twenty years of a growing tension, Janie’s thick rope snaps and she tells Jody how she feels Which ultimately kills him. Once again, Janie conforms to the mold of a mourning widow, dressed in black. Contrary to most people 's knowledge, she is overjoyed in the new found freedom she now possesses, but still cannot express. The idea of having to conform outwardly hurt Janie.

Janie Crawford Killiks Starks Woods is the main character in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, where she learns what's it's like to go from marriage to marriage looking for love. In the novel, Hurston utilizes the pivotal moment when Janie realizes that marriage doesn’t always mean love to show Janie's coming of age and psychological development which is used to show that love doesn't always come first. Logan Killicks was Janie's first marriage, which was brought about after Nanny (her grandmother) decided that she need to be married after she caught Janie and a young boy kissing when she was 16. After that Janie finds herself being thrown into some random marriage with some man she barely knew, and for a reason

Her inner thoughts are, “Janie learned what it feels like to be jealous (...) Janie knows what [Nunkie] was up to-luring him away from the crowd. (...) A little seed of fear was growing into a tree. Maybe some day Tea Cake would weaken” (136).