Janie Crawford's Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Sit Still, Look Pretty Sitting on the front porch of a house isn’t exactly how women should spend every day of their lives. The modern woman has a busy life, working every day, as well as participating in outside activities such as clubs, sports, or meetings. Women in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, play a very different role by doing almost nothing except providing at the service of their loved ones. The main character, Janie Crawford does this everyday of her life for twenty years while she is married. Janie is a young, beautiful women that every man dreams of having. Her husband, Joe Starks, uses her as a trophy wife while he becomes mayor. Janie is stripped of all her freedoms while being forced to do nothing but look pretty.

The novel is a flashback, beginning when she is a 16 year old girl experiencing sexual contact for the first time. As soon as this happens, Nanny, her guardian, gets very upset with her and immediately insists that Janie get married. Nanny suggests this because she feels as if she can no longer take care of Janie. This is a prime example of how women in this time were not viewed as independent or free in any conditions. There is no gap between when Nanny’s potential death would be and Janie finding a husband. The way the author is perceiving women throughout this novel is as if they have no ability to take care of themselves whatsoever. Hurston portrays Janie in two different ways during the novel. At the beginning she is helpless, restricted, and unwillingly forced to do things. This all happens during the time when she is married to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks. As soon as Joe, her last husband dies, a different side of Janie is shown by the author. She is not mourning his death, she is exploring her new found freedom and enjoying every minute of it, she is explained as, “The young girl was gone, but a handsome women had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length and the glory was there” (87). This quote shows the freedom Janie is feeling after Joe passes away. Although her role of finding love in the novel

She use many women to represent these roles, but Janie Crawford, the main character and Mrs. Turner, one of Janie's friends in the town play two of the biggest roles of this portrayal. Although there is many different roles of women in the novel, the main one is that they are supposed to stay within their boundaries and not speak out for or against any other male. Hurston uses her unique portrayal of these two characters to illuminate how poorly they are treated by males and how they feel the need to place themselves above the negroes. This novel was set in a time where it was acceptable for a women to be treated as a possession. There are many instances in the novel where Janie is perceived as a prize or a “trophy wife”. In current times, none of these actions of men would be acceptable and any women under these conditions would speak out and stand up for herself. Their Eyes Were Watching God provides a story that shows how life was like for women in the early 1900’s. While sitting on a porch looking pretty all day may seem like the perfect life, nothing compares to freedom of speech and being able to stand up for yourself in times of criticism. Janie learns this important lesson in the novel, and it becomes clear that her quest she set out on, finding love, is complete, but something else is also. In the book How To Read Literature Like A