The "deaths" of Janie’s dreams In the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie experiences a journey of self-discovery and the loss and regaining of her dreams. Her three marriages represent different aspects of her dreams and expectations for her future. In this essay, I will explore how Janie's perception of men and her future expectations change throughout the novel, as she navigates through different relationships. Through her experience with Logan, Janie feels bewildered, as she realizes that he does not fulfill her emotional needs and desires. Janie learns that love and marriage should not be based solely on financial security and stability. Logan Killicks represents her loss of dreams in regard to love and marriage. …show more content…
Janie's second husband, Joe Starks, represents her loss of dreams in regard to personal freedom and individuality. Joe is ambitious and determined to achieve success and power, but he does not value Janie as an individual. He sees her as a trophy wife and expects her to conform to his expectations and ideals. Joe restricts Janie's personal freedom and does not allow her to express herself or pursue her own dreams. Janie's experience with Joe is transient, as she realizes that his idea of success and power does not align with her own desires and beliefs."He was a glance from God. But he didn’t seem to know it. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. But he didn’t know it. As he boarded the train, he didn’t even glance at her, didn’t seem to know that she was there. She could see his big back and shoulders glittering with sweat. He didn’t even stop to tell her goodbye. She wondered if he ever thought of her when he got back to the turpentine camp. Probably not. He was too busy feeling the power of his maleness among men. Women were there to do for him, not to think about him. (Hurston
On the first page of chapter one, the quote sets the tone for the entire book. Janie Crawford, the protagonist, experiences three different marriages with three men of different personalities. The quote represents some aspect of each of her marriage. It also represented Janie in some way as being a beauty for many men.
In Janie’s growth, her thoughts and fantasies were shaped to only focus on simple matters. Nancy would pressure Janie to settle down, get married to a rich man, and live a certain lifestyle. The pressure Nanny applied succeeded as Janie married again and again to certain men. That man, being wealthy [Joe] which did lead her to wealth and prestige, yet did not grant what she deeply desired: freedom and happiness.
“Love is lak de 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,” says Janie in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (Hurston 191). This novel is about a woman who refuses to live in worry, bitterness, doubt, or preposterous romantic dreams. It is a story of a passionately independent Janie Crawford, and her maturing selfhood through her three marriages. Each husband was compared by the people and each were different in their own ways.
Janie was attracted to Joe due to his high charisma and his fashion sense, just to realize with those two things came a conceited, high self-esteemed man who believed strongly in misogyny. At the beginning of their marriage, Janie didn’t realize that Joe only wanted her as an object, but as the marriage progressed, she began to be emotionally distant towards him.
In their eyes were watching god just before marrying Logan Janie claims that “husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. ”(21) however Janie never fell in love with Logan and her false reality of what these titles meant fell apart. This theme stays consistent throughout Both Novels Sing Unburied Sing and Their Eyes Were Watching God which both display that titles such as parent and spouse don’t always determine who is right for the role. Janie's relationships with her first two husbands respectively show that love does not come out of marriage. Before Janie's first marriage, she was naive to what marriage was and how it would work.
In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston traces Janie’s quest for independence and the search of her self-confidence through events that happened before and after her epiphany immediately following Joe’s death. Throughout the novel Janie’s view of life, her independence, and her view of love changed exceedingly depending on who she was married to. This story centers around an important epiphany that Janie has when Joe dies; that personal discoveries and life experiences help people find themselves. Before her revelation, when Janie is 16 years old, she experiences a moment of realization in she discovers new-found feelings about love, marriage, . Under the pear-tree, she has a perfect moment in nature, full of passion
She does not really know what love is or where it comes from. So, she takes a very innocent view on it. Janie believes, “She would love Logan after they were married” (21). After marrying Logan, Janie does
You wake up beside your significant other as if it were any other day; then look them in the eyes and utter the words “Good morning!”. You are overwhelmed with joy by the mere company of your spouse for it is the morning after your wedding night and the dream of obtaining the level of companionship in which you yearned becomes a reality. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie pursues the quest of finding companionship in means of a husband. Zora Neale Hurston’s work includes many salient themes. The overlying theme of Their Eyes Were Watching God does not become evident until the last chapter of the novel.
Janie realizes what she deserves in a marriage and runs off with Starks to live a happy life with him. Things do not go as planned for Janie as she starts to realize how manipulative Joe Starks is of her. Starks has full control over Janie with his tyrannical behavior and takes things even further when he establishes complete dominance over Janie. Janie soon realizes that Starks has taken advantage of her “It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams.
Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” This realization made by Janie supports one of the biggest themes in this novel, which is that the concept of innocence and womanhood can’t exist at the same time. Because Janie finally lets go of her “childish fantasy”, her innocence is lost and she is now a woman. The theme of lost innocence in exchange for womanhood is also prevalent in Hurston’s story Sweat. This idea is one of the reasons that Sykes and Delia’s relationship begins to fall apart when we meet them.
Though the novel represents many feministic ideas in relation to marriage, it should not be read and discussed solely from this perspective. This statement is commented by Ramsey who claims that the story is “both a precursor to the modern feminist agenda yet also a reactionary tale embalming Hurston’s tender passions for a very traditional male” (1994: 38). In spite of the fact that the scholar agrees that Janie gains some self-belief and self-realization in the course of time, he still perceives her as a woman who cannot survive without a man by her side who would support her. It seems that she has a strong need to have someone by her side to support her when something goes wrong. This argument is confirmed by another researcher, Jennifer Jordan, who states that the protagonist “never perceives herself as an independent woman” (1988: 115).
However, many times in the book, many of the characters have told Joe that Janie is too good for him. That she should leave him and get another man. Which would anger an insecure man, who feels that he needs to have all material things to have a good life. In this quote, “He didn’t really hate Janie, but he wanted her to think so” (81). It shows that he thinks that guilting people into thinking that he’s the victim, that people will start respecting him again.
In each of her relationships, Janie was being controlled or had power and control in some way. In her three relationships, there was some sort of power and contol theme that showed up at various times. In the beginning of her very first relationship with Logan Killicks, Janie did not love Logan, but she thought once they were married she would learn to love him. Janie mostly stayed inside their home while Logan did most of the chores and outside work.
Hurston describes Janie’s quest to finding love and to recovering herself, though
Janie threatens Joe because of her free will Joe Starks feels threatened by Janie because of her independence. When Janie is asked to give a speech, Joe cuts in and says, “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s a woman and her place is in de home” (43). Joe Starks wants Janie to be an object that is to be admired and to help her husband when needed.