Their Eyes Were Watching God Clothing Analysis

Janie Crawford: The Woman Whose Clothing Conveys Her Relationships In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, endures two marriages before finding true love. In each of Janie’s marriages, a particular article of clothing is used to symbolically reflect, not only her attitude at different phases in her life, but how she is treated in each relationship. In Janie’s first marriage with Logan Killicks, an apron is used to symbolize the obligation in her marriage. “ Ah’ll cut de p’taters fuh yuh… When Janie had finished indoors she sat down in the barn with the potatoes ” (27). The apron represents Janie's role in the marriage as a farm-hand, which is not similar to the beloved role that Janie yearns for in marriage.

After Joe Stark’s death, Janie performs the overt action of burning her head rags. The narrator explains that “ Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swing well below her waist” (89). Janie’s hair symbolizes her power and in her relationship with Joe, Janie is forced to wear a head rag that constrains her identity. Joe uses the head rags as a symbol of his dominance, and overall uses it to convey that Janie is his “ trophy” by covering up her features. After Janie burns her head rags, she feels that she has ridden herself of Joe Stark’s “mark” and feels like a new women. Janie expresses this by stating, “ Tain’t dat ah worries over Joe’s death, Pheoby. Ah jus’ loves dis freedom” (93). This demonstrates Janie’s current state of freedom, and suggests that she is finally free from the shackles of marriage that Joe established upon her with male dominance, abuse, and inequality. All these discontents in Janie’s marriage are embodied by the head rag because it showcases the mindset of Joe, which was having Janie unwaveringly submit to his commands and not giving her a say in their decisions. Furthermore, Janie showcases her rejection with her man by rejecting clothing that connects her to him, but once she found the man that fulfilled her desires in loving her, Janie

The narrator remarks that “ What if Eatonville could see her now in her blue denim overalls and heavy shoes” (134). This supports how Joe and Eatonville both use judgement and male dominance in gender roles to prevent Janie from freely letting her hair open. However, Tea Cake did the complete opposite and gave Janie the equal opportunities and voice about their marriage, and the overalls symbolize the equality in their relationship. Although overalls reflect a working society, this clashes with Janie’s previous lifestyles as the wife of landowners and mayors, but also shows how she seems the happiest with Tea Cake than in any of her marriages even though she is with a simple and relatively poor man. This attributes to why Janie loved Tea Cake, and that is because he valued equality in marriage instead of materialistic objects unlike Janie’s previous marriages. Moreover, after Tea Cake's death Janie still wears overalls unlike how she threw out her clothing representing her partner in previous marriages, and this supports the idea that Janie truly did love Tea Cake. The narrator notes that “ … She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.” (189). This reflects that Janie does not care for formalities or what others think and wore overalls to Tea Cake’s funeral because