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Were Watching God Janie's Relationship

1330 Words6 Pages

In any relationship, one changes, whether it is with a family member or a more romantic relationship. Interaction with others affects how one sees themselves and how one will change through the course of the interaction. Janie Crawford, in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, experiences three different romantic relationships -- each different in its own right. Janie learns a great deal from each relationship. Each marriage provides Janie with different life experiences, and new ideas to consider in her life. Her independence and evolution truly comes from the uniqueness in each of her relationships. In Janie’s relationship with her first husband Logan Killicks, she learns about the concept of marriage and the different …show more content…

His name, Vergible Woods or Tea Cake, and he will show Janie a whole new world. From Janie’s new relationship with Tea Cake she learns about true happiness. Tea Cake is the first to truly make her laugh and smile. Tea Cake is the picture of a true gentleman. He introduces Janie to many new things such as fishing. Janie is quick to fall in love with it: “It was so crazy digging worms by lamp light and setting out for Lake Sabelia after midnight that she felt like a child breaking rules. That 's what made Janie like it" (102). Finally Janie is happy and she feels free for the first time in her married life. Because of this joy stemming from him, Janie loves to be around Tea Cake and spending time with him. They do absolutely everything together. They soon decide on marriage, and Janie gets a new, blue satin dress, earrings, high heels, and a necklace that Tea Cake has picked out for her. Unlike her previous husbands, she wants to make Tea Cake proud of her and proud to be married to her. When they leave to work on the muck, Tea Cake introduces another idea that is exciting for Janie as it is the start of something new “Folks don’t do nothin’ down dere but make money and fun and foolishness” (128). Life on the muck is consistently exciting. In comparison to her last few marriages, she has had a much better life with Tea Cake. Everyone on the muck is happy and laughing and Janie finally feels at home, not only on the muck but also in her

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1. Unlike Janie’s previous husbands, Tea Cake treats Janie with compassion and respect. In addition, he loves Janie for her personality instead of her looks and her role as a woman (housewife). 2. The speech characteristic that Tea Cake encourages Janie with is truth.

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For example, when she seeks love, she marries Logan. When she realizes that she cannot attain love through marriage, she desires wealth and power. In order to obtain this, Janie leaves Logan to marry Jody Starks. She is constantly moving from desire to desire every time she is unhappy with her present condition. It would be in her best interest to set realistic goals for herself, and settle in to her life in a way that will provide her with the most efficient method to obtain her goal.

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s flaws about love continuously brought her to the same ending with all of her husbands, no matter how long the marriage lasted. In The Odyssey, Calypso was trapped on an island to fall in love with men who washed ashore. The fatality of her faults was her over affection and her need for love while being so alone on her island, Ogygia. Their weaknesses are exact opposites, specifically in their relationships with men. The flaws are role in relationship, attachment to men, and lastly, their submissiveness to men.

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1030 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow our protagonist, Janie, through a journey of self-discovery. We watch Janie from when she was a child to her adulthood, slowly watching her ideals change while other dreams of hers unfortunately die. This is shown when Jane first formulates her idea of love, marriage, and intimacy by comparing it to a pear tree; erotic, beautiful, and full of life. After Janie gets married to her first spouse, Logan Killicks, she doesn’t see her love fantasy happening, but she waits because her Nanny tells her that love comes after marriage. Janie, thinking that Nanny is wise beyond her years, decides to wait.

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In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist Janie, is influenced by others to change her ideals. Hurston vividly portrays Janie’s outward struggle while emphasising her inward struggle by expressing Janie’s thoughts and emotions. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening the protagonist is concisely characterized as having “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions,” as Janie does. Janie conforms outwardly to her life but questions inwardly to her marriages with Logan Killicks, her first husband, and Joe Starks, her second husband; Janie also questions her grandmother's influence on what love and marriage is.

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Unlike her previous relationships that were full of contention and sadness, she has found the perfect love by being with Tea Cake. When Janie first meets Tea Cake she finds him very attractive and agreeable to be around. He asks her to play checkers with him and teaches her the rules of the game.

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s happiness and self-fulfillment greatly depended on the man whom she was in a relationship with. From, the beginning of the novel, Janie never followed the path that had the utmost value to herself; She always settled for what other people thought was best for her. This made Janie never quite content with her situation and caused her happiness and self-fulfillment to be hindered by her circumstances. The horizon, a motif representing dreams, wishes, the possibility of change, and improvement of ones’ self, is the point in which Janie’s journey of self-discovery is illustrated by.

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People come into our lives for different reasons. Some leave a positive impact, while others bring negativity. Readers and critics alike have treasured Zora Neale Hurston’s 20th century novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, for generations particularly for its complex portrayal of the different main characters. The people a person meet and the experiences that person many go through in their lifetime can alter a person significantly. Through the tyrannical words of Joe Starks and the inconsiderate actions of Nanny, Janie in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is negatively influenced as her actions and thoughts alter her life.

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Tea Cake trusts Janie and he doesn't feel threatened by other men but feels the need to be kind and caring and let Janie have the freedom she deserves. Janie enjoyed spending time with Tea Cake and loved the new experiences that he brought into her

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In the beginning Janie feels as if Tea Cake’s age would effect their relationship. She has strong feelings for him, but on the other hand people are saying he will run off with her money. Janie proves them wrong and runs off and gets married to Tea Cake. He makes Janie feel wanted, she feels like she could be herself. Janie states, "We been tuhgether round two years.

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Janie has many encounters with men where she felt love but she couldn’t maintain them. Her first husband held no love but rather only respect for Janie. The first husband was a gateway to her second lover, Jody. Jody loved Janie and she to him but as time progressed his ambitions destroyed what they had previously cherished.

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After Joe died, Janie “tore the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair” (87). Janie doing this could be an act of rebellion against Joe because he could no longer tell her who to be. Later when Janie meets and marries Tea Cake, she wear overalls, which puts her back to where she began. Janie began in a lower social class, then she was middle class with Logan and Joe, then regressed to a lower class with Tea Cake. This makes Janie realize that money is not everything and happiness comes with someone

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530 Words | 3 Pages

Self-discovery is essential to a prosperous life. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie, the main character, discovers who she is through her relationships. Janie learns from each of her experiences, but the most significant are her husbands: Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake. Each of these people attempt to control her thoughts and actions, but Janie rebels against them. Janie stands up for what she believes in, and through these confrontations, she better understands herself.

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713 Words | 3 Pages

When tea cake shows up janie 's feels something she has never felt before, she is set free but the townspeople don 't think so. “‘Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money him bein’ younger than you?’” (Hurston pg.133)Janie is in love with Tea Cake because he loves her for her youthful young side that was forced into hiding for so long because of her previous husbands. However the rest of the community is discouraging her and trying to keep her in the image as a mayor 's wife. They told Janie that Tea Cake was after her money

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1012 Words | 5 Pages

She questions why Janie would marry a dark man like Tea Cake. Mrs. Turner falsely assumes, like the rest of the people form the town, that Janie only married Tea Cake for his money because she could not possibly love him. Janie informs Mrs. Turner that her assumption is incorrect because Tea Cake was not wealthy when they met, and he is the only person that has made her truly

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