Their Eyes Were Watching God Critical Lens

Former Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius notes, “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been” (Goodreads). In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, it depicts the story of an African American woman, Janie, who lives in the Jim Crow south. In line with the quote, Janie’s story could be interpreted as follows: from her body she could be in a lot of pain, however this pain is relative, since her mind says otherwise, dictating what she is going through. Furthermore, if she thinks that she is the victim in the situation, then she becomes what she thinks of herself. Hurston's switch from first person perspective to free indirect discourse mirrors the shift of power dynamics as Janie

Considering that Janie is almost a young adult, she still fantasizes about meeting someone that will love her and will show her affection, however she does not understand the environment surrounding her. In a dissociated perspective, Janie needs the third person perspective as a way to tell her story because she feels weak, vulnerable, and needs someone else to determine how her story is filtered. In addition, Janie's innocence guides her curiosity and starts to teach her about her society. A year into the couples marriage, Janie questions why her husband “‘[needs] two mules fuh?’” and Logan replies with “‘Naw, Ah needs two mules dis yeah.’” Logan’s attention is towards the condition of his toil and how much profits he will end up making with “‘taters in de fall. Bringin’ big prices.’” Focused on how he will harvest potatoes, and to get “‘uh mule all gentled up so even uh woman kin handle ’im’”(Hurston 27). Hurtson uses the mule imagery to compare Janie to a mule. A

Janie doesn't like that her husbands have this control and power over her and she avoids making the same mistakes she made with her previous marriage. After not finding happiness in her first marriage with Logan Killicks, she runs away to Eatonville and marries Joe Starks. Through the hardships faced by the couple, Joe Starks falls ill, which gives Janie the courage to voice her opinion and express her feelings to him by saying that “‘ain’t de Jody ah run off’” with, because he changed after proposing a new life with Janie. She points out how Joe “‘wasn’t satisfied wid me de way Ah was’” which goes to show that her expectations and the place she stood in the marriage was not the way she envisioned it. Janie states that her “‘own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me’”(Hurston 87) portraying the relationship and power dynamics Janie has with her second husband. There is a shift in power dynamics because Janie chose to express her feelings in the most vulnerable state that Joe Starks was in. She makes her way towards the mirror and “had told her girl self to wait for her.” The little girl that she once saw had now become “a handsome woman” that “had taken her place”(Hurston 87). For Janie, Joe Starks was a lesson and a stepping stone to guide her path to finding herself in her relationships and where she stands as an individual. Enduring the abuse and the