Essay about Janie's Marriages in Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston follows the main character Janie’s journey to find love on her own terms. The first man she married, she married to appease Nanny, her grandmother. The second man she marries is Jody Starks, who she marries because she failed to find love for her previous husband. After the oppressive Starks dies, Janie remarries Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods, the only man she has ever loved. They move to “the muck” where Janie feels more at home than ever before because she is with Tea Cake and because she can choose to indulge in her own relations without anyone telling her what to do or with whom to associate.

Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks was the first stage in her growth as a woman. She hoped that her obligatory marriage with Logan would

Janie's attraction to Joe Starks' charisma quickly diminishes when his overdose of ambition and controlling personality get the best of him. Although he is a big voice in the town, Janie only sees him as a big voice. All his money and power have no effect on her when all he does is ridicule and control her. He makes it clear where Janie belongs: "Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home" (Hurston 43). This is ironic because when she is with Logan, she wants to be in the house doing her own thing, but Joe is making it sound like confinement. It's as if she has no choice in the matter and Joe intends to make his power over her known. People have different desires and sometimes when we get caught up in our success, we can end up hurting others. Joe's reply to Janie is a great example of the insensitivity that can form from the pride we can possibly inherit when we achieve success: "Ah told you in de first beginnin' dat Ah aimed tuh be uh big voice.

The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

Her decision to leave Logan for Joe Starks shows her determination to achieve her dream of love; she does not want to give and take this dream for stability. Logan is extremely ignorant of Janie′s feelings. When she tries to talk with him about them he simply replies: "′Ah′m getting′ sleepy Janie. Let′s don′t talk no mo′.′" (Hurston,30) He does not realize that Janie is serious about leaving him and that she wants him to show his feelings for her. Instead, he tries to hurt her like she hurt him, by pretending not to be worried about her leaving him. Janie gets to know Joe during her marriage with Logan. Right from the beginning he treats her like a lady. This is one reason why Janie is so attracted to him.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie Crawford, is on a quest to find true love. Like many people, she begins her journey not knowing what love is. Janie encounters many obstacles in her quest for love. Even when she finds love with Tea Cake, more obstacles challenge their relationship. "de very prong all us … gits hung on. Dis love! Dat's just whut's got us uh pullin' and uh haulin' and sweatin' and doin' from can't see in de mornin' till can't see at night" (22). But, what is true love, and how does one know when they have found it?

      Human beings love inertia. It is human nature to fear the unknown and to desire stability in life. This need for stability leads to the concept of possessing things, because possession is a measurable and definite idea that all society has agreed upon. Of course, when people begin to rely on what they know to be true, they stop moving forward and simply stand still. Zora Neal Hurston addresses these general human problems in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston, however, does not present the reader with the nihilistic hopelessness of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but rather offers an understanding of the basic human aspect that causes us to fear emptiness. Janie, the

     In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the reader is given a particular glimpse into Janie's life with reference to the men she has known.  Janie's three men are all very different, yet they were all Janie's husband at one point in her life.  Although they all behaved differently, in lifestyle as well as their relationship with Janie, they all shared certain similarities.

The world of Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God was one of oppression and disappointment. She left the world of her suffocating grandmother to live with a man whom she did not love, and in fact did not even know. She then left him to marry another man who offered her wealth in terms of material possessions but left her in utter spiritual poverty. After her second husband's death, she claims responsibility and control of her own life, and through her shared love with her new husband, Teacake, she is able to overcome her status of oppression. Zora Neale Hurston artfully and effectively shows this victory over oppression throughout the book through her use of

However, she quickly learns that Logan, finds her useless, “spoilt rotten” and compares her to his old wife, who did manual labor for him without many complaints (26). Not only does Janie find Logan unattractive, but she does not even find him intellectually or emotionally stimulating, as he never shows her affection (24). Attempting to gain some perspective on how to liven up her marriage, Janie seeks out the advice of her Nanny, an unmarried former slave. Janie claims that she “wants to want him sometimes” (23), but her efforts are in vain. Due to the conditions Nanny was raised in, Nanny told her granddaughter that love was bound to happen eventually because Logan was financially stable. Nanny did not understand Janie’s wishes of love; she was on a basic level of understanding. While Janie obeyed Nanny’s wish of her to stay with Logan for almost a year, when Janie knew the marriage was headed nowhere except disaster, she runs off with a man named Joe Sparks who she had correspondence with for almost a year. Janie concluded from her time with Logan “that marriage did not make love” (25). Janie’s view on love did not change with her relationship with Logan. In fact, it was because of the horrendous outcomes of the marriage that Janie decided to chase after her ideal relationship with

Joe Starks is a “quick-thinking, fast-talking, ambitious man, headed for a newly founded all black community, where he plans to make a fortune” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody offers up a new start to Janie and she leaps at the opportunity of marrying him, “committing bigamy” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody becomes the mayor of Eatonville and provides Janie with a middle-class furnished house that does not provide her “with the felicity and self-fulfillment that she needs” (Ha 33). Janie is treated no more or less than that of the mayor’s wife.

Janie’s relationship with her second husband, Joe Starks, is perhaps the most damaging. In the beginning of their marriage, Janie is proud and admiring of the successful, strong man she marries and runs off with. At first, it seems as though Janie has executed a successful breakaway from her unfulfilling life with Logan Killicks, and transitioned to an exciting, happy life with Joe Starks. Unfortunately, Janie and Joe’s marriage retracts from the infatuated love it once was, into a

Janie, in Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, was a unique individual; as a half-white, half-black girl growing up in Florida in the early 1930's, a lifetime of trials and search for understanding was set for her from the start. As the main character she sought to finally find herself, true love, and have a meaningful life. Growing up, in itself, provides a perfect opportunity for finding that essential state of self-realization and ideal comfort. Michael G. Cooke reviews Their Eyes Were Watching God in his article "The Beginnings of Self-Realization"; within the article it is falsely criticized that every time Janie is negatively impacted she grows to become more

    In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford is the heroine. She helps women to deal with their own problems by dealing with hers. She deals with personal relationships as well as searches for self-awareness. Janie Crawford is more than a heroine, however, she is a woman who has overcome the restrictions placed on her by the oppressive forces and people in her life.