As I continued to read Their Eyes Were Watching God, I paid particular attention to a few of the themes that we discussed last class. I feel like Janie didn’t have a sense of identity when she was married to Logan or Joe (Jody). It seems like she was confined to the roles that women should play, especially while in Eatonville. Joe had such high expectations for Janie and she had to fulfill those shoes of the mayor’s wife for his sake. Janie must have felt inferior to her husband on a daily basis due to his strong influence and power he possessed as the mayor of Eatonville. One thing that stuck out to me was the continuous reference to Joe being a king figure. “You have tuh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king uh something” (58). Mrs. Tony also stated “Thank you, Mist’ Starks. You’re noble! You’se du most gentlemanfied man Ah ever did see. You’se uh king!” (73). I think that the town’s people admiration and need for Joe’s guidance, got to his head. He wanted everyone in town to look up to him and his wife so badly that he molded and controlled Janie to make her into his trophy wife. Everything had to be done his way, her hair had to be pulled back, she had to run the store, and she couldn’t think or speak for herself or women in general. At the end of their marriage Janie couldn’t contain herself anymore. On page seventy-five she spoke up for women and in return was told she was “too mouthy.” Janie’s emotions showed on page seventy-six. “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. She was in a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels.” Clearly the wheels represented Joe and no matter how many times she tried, Janie couldn’t escape being held down by them. I don’t think she felt like she had won an argument until Joe’s final moments before he passed because at that point he was too weak to control Janie. She finally stood up for herself without being hushed by Joe and it seemed like she was celebrating his death and her freedom by taking her hair down and burning her ‘head rags’ after the funeral.
I feel like gradually Janie gathered the strength to speak up, take charge of her life, and find herself after Joe died. I think that one of the main themes of Their Eyes Were Watching God is about self identity and individuality, which can be linked to most of the other authors we have studied this far.
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3 comments:
I agree it took awhile for Janie to find her identity-- she was so young when she was married off that she skipped the stage in her life where she would have found her identity. After Joe died she was able to retort back to that identity stage and claim herself. She found a strong and confident women--but she still had a weakness and as predicted by others of eatonville was quickly picked up by teacake. It worked out though as teacake watered and fertilized her-- he still allowed her identity to flower
I'm really happy you talked about Janie's struggle for self-identity as a theme in this novel. I think that Janie represents a lot of black women during this time period in that she has no real development of a sense of self. Obviously, Janie is not like any of the other women we've read about so far in this class because she just seems strong willed and confident. However, even with those characteristics, she isn't sure of who she truly is and Hurston is doing an interesting job of showing Janie's self discovery.
I agree. It did take a while for her to find her identity. SHe was so worried about fitting into the stereotypical "wife" role that she kind of lost herself in the process. She did eventually find the courage to stand up for herself though - and I think that Zora Neale Hurston was trying to get the character of a strong black woman out in her writing about Janie.
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