Kat O’Connor
Eng 234 – Paper 2
Strickland
5/7/2007
Never Let the Hand You Hold, Hold You Down
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main
character, Janie, goes through several relationships looking for love and found a struggle
with every man she married. Within these struggles, there is a powerful mixture of
feminist and anti-feminist attitudes from Janie. Janie’s first encounter with the confusion
of love in her life is based off of her grandmother’s beliefs. Then, when Janie is forced
into marrying Logan Killicks, her role as a wife is a very different from what I believe a
woman’s role in society should be. This confusion is furthered once Janie marries Joe
Starks. When she actually falls in love with Tea Cake Woods, she still struggles to grasp
what a man’s role in her life should actually be.
Janie’s first perspective on relationships was a direct result from her
grandmother’s opinions. Her grandmother was a former slave who believed that women
should marry a man who could financially support them rather than marrying a man
because you love them. Janie realized that she disagreed with her grandmother’s beliefs
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while lying under the pear tree in Nanny’s backyard. Her thoughts on love changed
when:
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand
sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree
from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom & frothing with delight.”
(p.11).
She decided then that marriage should be beautiful like the pollination of a flower. This
is when Janie discovered just how beautiful love is and that it is important in a
relationship.
When Janie’s grandmother saw Janie kissing a neighborhood boy, Johnny, under
the pear tree, she forced Janie to marry Logan Killicks. At this moment, Janie was not
getting into a relationship based on love. Instead, she was marrying Logan to be
financially supported, to be protected, and to not become a “mule” like her grandmother
had said. Logan was a farmer who wasn’t too wealthy, but could still support her. At
first, Logan treated Janie very nicely. He was always kind to her and they had a
relatively happy marriage. After about a year or so, Logan began to treat Janie very
poorly and forced her to do manual labor as if she was a mule, which was one of the
things that her grandmother had not wanted Janie to end up as. He treated her more like a
servant than a wife. Through all of this emotional abuse, I don’t feel like Janie stood up
for herself enough. She basically let her husband control her life. However, due to her
unhappiness, Janie soon ran off and married her second husband, Joe Starks.
Joe Starks seemed much different to Janie than Logan Killicks. He was a very
wealthy man who was very powerful and ambitious. However, these characteristics
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actually created many struggles in Janie and Joe’s relationship. First, Joe Starks viewed
Janie as property. She was basically his arm candy that he wanted all for himself. He
needed to feel like he had control and power over people in order to feel good about
himself. This can further be seen through all of the purchasing, construction, and politics
in which he participates. He even treated his wife in the same manner. Janie was a very
beautiful woman with gorgeous hair. Joe wouldn’t allow Janie to let her hair hang down
and instead she had to wear it in a head rag during their marriage. He didn’t want any
other men to desire his lovely trophy-wife. At the same time, this is a very submissive
role that Janie is taking because she is letting a man tell her what to do. In addition, Joe
Starks also purchases a mule. While Logan Killicks worked his mule hard just as he had
worked Janie, Joe Starks also treated Janie the same way as his mule by only having it as
a symbol of power and as a possession.
However, Janie does not let Joe Starks walk all over her for the whole novel.
Another way in which Joe Starks took away freedom from Janie was by not letting her
play the dozens. Earlier in the novel, Janie’s sense of humor shines through and the
fellows in the town know that she is very good at playing the dozens as well. However,
Joe Starks realizes that the only way he can have a perfect wife is if she is mute. So, he
doesn’t allow Janie to participate in these manly antics.
Janie remains very submissive to Joe until chapter seven. Here, we can see the
feminist side of Janie as well as much character growth and development. In this chapter,
Janie is cutting a tobacco plug for a customer and does it the wrong way. The customer
doesn’t really mind, but Joe gets upset with her for not doing it the right way. He begins
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to bash her in front of the men there not only for cutting the tobacco plug wrong, but also
about her appearance.
While she would normally sit back and take whatever insults he would dish her
way, this time was different. At this point in the novel, Janie has a very feminist
approach about her relationship with her husband. She stops letting him walk all over her
and instead plays him in the dozens. She starts to make fun of Joe right back, insulting
him about his saggy old man body and how he shouldn’t be talking about her in such a
negative light because he is much worse to look at. She belittles him in front of all the
men who find this very humorous.
These insults are also a display in which Janie is taking away some of Joe’s power
that he needs in order to feel better about himself. He tries to regain some of this power
by hitting Janie for insulting him, but at this point she has already won and has made him
look bad, while in turn, empowered herself as a woman. While Joe is lying in his bed
dying, Janie gets into an argument with him further empowering herself as a woman by
standing up for herself while she had not done this earlier. When Logan dies, Janie rips
her head rag off symbolizing her freedom as a woman who was once oppressed by her
husband, while the rag represents this cruelty.
After Logan’s death, Janie marries Tea Cake Woods. This time, things are
different. Janie marries Tea Cake because she loves him for his sense of humor,
creativity, and overall personality, rather than because he can support her or protect her.
At one point, Janie actually thinks that Tea Cake may only be marrying her for her
money. However, he soon proves her wrong by showing up in town driving a beat up car
with the desire to make their relationship public by taking her to the town picnic. This
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relationship is also different because Tea Cake never owns a mule which is symbolic in
Janie’s other relationships by reflecting the way in which Janie was treated. In addition,
Janie is genuinely happy being in a relationship with Tea Cake because he actually cares
about her and likes her for who she is.
Also, in the beginning of the novel when Janie is under the pear tree, she realizes
that her grandmother’s concept of love is all wrong. This is the first time that Janie is
going against her grandmother’s beliefs and she has more hope for Tea Cake. Chapter
eleven is the first time in which this metaphor is re-mentioned. She had never used it
regarding Joe Starks or Logan Killicks. Janie actually says that, “He could be a bee to
the blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring” (p.161).
We can see that Janie’s only initial struggle in her relationship with Tea Cake is
trust. She doesn’t trust that he is with her for love and she doesn’t trust him with her
money, so she keeps it pinned in the front of her shirt. However, Tea Cake proves to be
an honest man who gets a job to support her and he doesn’t make her lift a finger. It was
actually her choice to join him in the fields.
However, later on in the novel, Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake also starts to
have its problems. He is often absent from Janie’s life and is barely around before the
wedding. In addition, Janie finds Tea Cake play wrestling with a girl who works in the
fields with him. She gets really upset about seeing this but kind of blows it off because
she loves Tea Cake so much. This is disappointing in Janie’s character, because it yet
again shows that the man in the relationship has the upper hand. While she wants Tea
Cake to be completely loyal to her and wants to know if he is for sure, she cannot have
this.
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This negative impact that Tea Cake has on Janie’s life and new-found free-spirit
continues when he tries to get Janie to stop hanging out with Mrs.Turner, one of Janie’s
friends. While Mrs.Turner doesn’t have a very positive and caring personality, no man
should be able to tell their spouse who they can and can’t be friends with. If she listened,
she would be giving him too much power, and if she didn’t she wouldn’t be showing him
respect as a spouse since Mrs.Turner wanted Janie to marry her brother. Tea Cakes
jealousy about this continues when Mrs.Turner’s brother actually comes to town and he
beats Janie to show that he still controls her life. At this point, we can see very many
negative correlations with her past relationships. It isn’t a healthy relationship for her
seeing as she has very little power as a woman.
At the end of the novel, Tea Cake saves Janie from drowning by killing a dog that
was attacking Janie in the water. Some might say that this was actually a very heroic
thing to do and he was showing his love for Janie, which in turn made him a good
husband. However, I am seeing things differently. The cow can be compared to the
mules that her past two husbands owned. However, the reason that it was a cow was
because she had true feelings for Tea Cake while she didn’t for her ex-husbands. In
addition, she is holding onto the cow to help her from drowning. I think this represents
Janie’s struggle as a woman to get by without a man. She holds onto Tea Cake much
more than he holds onto her in his life. I believe that Tea Cake saved her from drowning
not out of love, but because he also viewed her as a possession or trophy-wife towards
the end of their relationship. He needed her in his life to have power and feel like he
could control her while having her adore him the whole time much like what Joe Starks
had wished for from Janie.
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In the very beginning of the novel, we could see that her thoughts on love were
shaped by her grandmother. Since her grandmother was a former slave she had much
different views on marriage than Janie did by the end of the novel. However, Janie never
seemed to grasp what it was like to be loved in a manner that she deserved. In some
ways, I actually find Janie to be naïve for this reason. While she ended up leaving Logan
Killicks for working her like a slave, she went right to another man to help support her.
Joe Starks treated her like a possession and hit her. Then, she moved on to Tea Cake who
she loved, but he did all of these things to her. Overall, Janie’s struggles in relationships
did not teach her very much. She is never a strong character by putting up with domestic
violence and emotional abuse. While relationships like these still occur, I feel that
women in the 1920’s had it much harder than women today. I believe that many women
in the 1920’s dealt with relationships like these because they honestly weren’t given as
many opportunities as women are given today as far as jobs, women’s suffrage just
ending, as well as other things. Janie is portrayed as being the strongest when she is not
married, and I think this still holds true for many women today.
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