In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, it is blatantly obvious that women, in this case Janie, led an interesting life both with and without a man. Both before her marriage with Logan and after her marriage with Tea Cake, Janie led a lifestyle that did not produce boredom by thinking for herself and always exploring with her mind. During her marriage with Tea Cake especially, Janie was able to live an interesting and fulfilling lifestyle in both Eatonville and the Everglades while at her husband’s side.
Janie easily proves an ability an ability to enjoy an interesting lifestyle with or without men. When Janie was living with her grandmother she was able to live an interesting lifestyle by playing with the other white children.
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After Janie’s second husband, Jody, passes away, Janie immediately “burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (Hurston 84). Janie displays her ability to make decisions and live freely after Jody dies by continuing to manage the house and the store. However, when presented with challenges, Janie acknowledges that “these men didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about [because] she had already experienced them through Logan and Joe” (Hurston 86). Janie clearly recognizes that she does not need men at all. Furthermore, Janie lives an interesting lifestyle still after the death of her third husband Tea Cake by picking up where she left off after Jody’s death. After being acquitted for the murder of Tea Cake, Janie decides to return to Eatonville where she had lived with her second husband Jody. Janie quickly realized upon arrival there that “ . . . the place tested fresh again [and] [t]he wind through the open windows had broomed out all the fetid feeling of absence and nothingness” (Hurston 183). Such a refreshing feeling conveys a deeper message yet again from Hurston that women can live interesting lives without