Janie Crawford evolving selfhood through
three marriages. Fair-skinned, long
haired, dreamy
as a child, Janie grows up expecting better
treatment than she gets. Living life as
one man's mules or
another man's adornment. Janie is one black woman who does not have to
live in lost sorrow,
bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams,
for Janie has learned "two things everybody's got tuh do
fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh
find out about livin' fuh themselves."
Janie
Crawford is better off at the end of the
noval Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Janie is confused when she was a young
woman. The noval explains her life as a
young girl.
Her mother left her when she was really
young. Janie never met her. Her grandmother explains that
her master rapped her, "Den, one night
ah heard de big funs boomin' lak thunder.
It kept up all night.
And de next morin' Ah could see uh big ship
at a distance and a great stirrin' round.
So Ah wrapped
mah way on down to de landin'. The men was all in blue, and Ah heard people
say Sherman was
comin' to meet de boats in Savannah, and all
of us slaves was free. So Ah run got mah
baby and got
in quotation wid people and found a place Ah
could stay." Grandmother was
wanting to make a school
teacher out of Janie's mother. Janie found out that a school teacher rapped
her mother so she never
met her father either. Janie's mother was seventeen, when she was
pregnant with Janie. After Janie
was born, Janie's mother took to drinking a
lot. Janie's grandmother raised Janie since she was born,
grandmother says "Maybe it wasn't much,
but Ah done de best Ah kin by you. Ah
raked and scraped
and bought dis lil piece uh land so you
wouldn't have to stay in de white folk's yard and tuck yo' head
befor' other chillun at school." When Janie turned sixteen years of age, her
childhood had ended with
a kiss from a boy named Johnny Taylor. Grandmother wanted to see her married at once
but Janie did
not understand what was going on. Janie did not feel love for this man or any
man at this time but
grandmother explains that she is not going to
be around forever and she wants to protect her from harm
and danger.
Janie's life as a young person was a hardship she did not understand
what purpose in life
she has and she does not understand what love
is.
Janie dreams marriage will bring her
love. Logon is a man wanting to marry
Janie. Janie had
no chance to know things, so she had to
ask. "Did marriage end the cosmic
loneliness of the unmated?
Did marriage compel love like the sun the
day?" After Grandmother's talks and
Janie's own conjectures
she made a sort of comfort for herself. She came to the conclusion that she would
love Logon after
they were married. "I saw no other way for it to come
about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it,
so it must be so. Husbands and wives always loved each other,
and that was what marriage meant.
It was just so." Janie felt glad for a moment in her life she
felt that for then it wouldn't seem so
destructive and moldy. She would not be lonely anymore. Janie married Logan in Nanny's parlor.
Janie felt lonesome when she went to Logan's
house "It was a lonesome place like a stump in the
middle of the woods where nobody had ever
been. The house was absent of flavor,
too. But anyhow
Janie went on inside to wait for love to
begin." After two months have gone
by Janie had to reconsider
her marriage with Logon. "Janie waited a bloom time, and a green
time and an orange time.
Nevertheless, when the pollen again gilded
the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand
around the gate and expect things." She did not know exactly what to expect. "Janie knew that God
tore down the old world every evening and
built a new one by sun-up." Janie
knew now that marriage
did not make love. Her Grandmother dies and leave Janie to
explore life for herself. Janie's first
dream
was dead, so she became a woman.
Janie's marriage with Logan is falling
apart. Before long Janie noticed that
Logan had stopped
doing what he used to do to her. He had stopped playing with her long black
hair. He said "If Ah kin
haul de wood heah and chop it fuh yuh, look
lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside.
Mah fust wife
never bothered me 'bout choppin' no wood
nohow. She'd grab dat axe and sling
chips lak uh man. You
done been spoilt rotten." One morning Logan has to go to Lake City to
see a man about a mule. Janie
had started noticing how beautiful it is
outside and went outside. Janie had been
outside for a long time
when she heard a whistling coming down the
road who she later found out his name was Joe Starks.
Janie and Joe starting talking and she found
out that he was aiming to go down to the new part of
Florida.
He later decided he needed a rest so it would do him good to rest a week
or so. Every day
after that they managed to meet. They would talk about when Joe would become a
big ruler of things.
He spoke for change and chance. Still Janie hung back. The memory of Nanny was still powerful and
strong.
Joe says "Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a
dog outa you, youse wrong.
Ah wants to make a wife outa you." Janie debated the matter that night in
bed. That morning Janie
hurried out of the front gate and turned
south. She thought that even if Joe was
not there waiting for
her, the change was bound to do her
good. After she came, their Joe Starks
was waiting for her with
a hired rig.
He was a very solemn and helped her to the seat beside him. With him on it, it sat like
some high, ruling chair. She thought "From now on until death she
was going to have flower dust and
springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom. Her old thoughts were going to come in
handy now, but new words would have to be
made and said to fit them." Joe and
Janie were married
before sundown, just like Joe had told
her. Janie starts a new life with Joe
Starks hoping to find love.
Janie understands that she is an
independent person it's she that makes her not her husband
that makes her. On the train the day after they got, married
Joe did not make many speeches with
rhymes to her, but he bought her the best
things the butcher had, like apples and a glass lantern full
of candies.
Mostly he talked about plans for the town when he got there. Janie liked the looks of Joe.
Joe and Janie go to the new down and they
noticed it was a major disappointment.
People thought that
Janie was Joe's daughter because of the age
difference. Joe wanted to be a big voice
in this town.
Life went on in Eatonville and Joe bought
some more land for the town. People were
impressed about
Joe.
They astonished Janie to see the money Jody had spent for the land come
back to him so fast.
Later ten new families bought lots and moved
to town in six weeks. It seemed all too
big and rushing
for Janie to keep track of. Joe had a store built for him, before it had
a complete roof there where
canned goods piled on the floor and was
selling so much he didn't have time to go off on his talking
tours.
The people of Eatonville have liked him so much they decided to make him
mayor. Janie was
talking to Joe "Joe, it jus' looks lak
it keeps us some way we ain't natural wid one 'nother. You'se
always off talkin' and fixin' things, and Ah
feel lak Ah'm jus' makin' time. Hope it
soon gits over. Joe
says "Over, Janie? I god, Ah ain't even started good. ah told you in de very first beginnin' dat Ah
aimed
tuh be uh big voice. You oughta be glad, 'cause dat makes uh big
woman outa you." Janie soon began
to feel the impact of awe and envy against
her sensibilities. "The wife of the
Mayor was not just another
woman as she has supposed. She slept with authority and so she was part
of it in the town mind."
Janie started to think the inside state of
her marriage. She was not petal-open
anymore with Joe. She
was twenty-four and seven year's marriage
when she knew. She found that out one
day when Joe had
slapped her face in the kitchen. Joe had got really badly sick and died. Janie never loved him, and the
first thing she did when he died was to get
ride of the embargoes he had put on her like him wanting
her always to have her hair up. Janie is finally starting to understand who she
is and she understands
what independency means.
Janie is going to do things her way not
her grandmother's way. After Joe Starks
death Janie
spent six months or more grieving about
him. She would dress in black and after
awhile she dressed
in white.
One most of the town went to a ball game so the store was very
slow. A man came into the
store and asked for some cigarettes. Janie later found out that his name is
Virgibil Woods whom
everybody called Tea Cake. This man did not want to go to the game. He asked Janie if she wanted
to play checkers but she did not know how
because nobody has ever taught her. Tea
Cake showed
her how to play checkers. Janie felt good for the first time, she did
not understand what this feeling was
"Janie found herself flowing
inside. Somebody wanted her to
play. Somebody thought it natural for
her
to play." Janie looked at Tea Cake and like what she
saw "Janied looked him over and got little thrills
from every one of his good points. Those full, lazy eyes with the lashed curling
sharply away like drawn
scimitars.
The lean, over-padded shoulders and narrow waist." Tea Cake came back a week later for
some snub.
Tea Cake told Janie that he loved her "Ah didn't aim tuh let on tuh
you 'bout it, leastways
not right away, but Ah ruther be shot wid
tacks than fuh you tuh act wid me lak you is right now. You
got me in de go-long" Tea Cake was twelve years younger then Janie,
Janie told him "Aw, Tea Cake,
you just say dat tuhnight because de fish and
corn bread tasted sort of good. Tomorrow
yo' mind would
change."
Tea Cake disagreed to the comment and Janie said that she would love to
hear what he
thought of her in the morning. Teak Cake came back two days later to tell
Janie his thoughts about her.
Janie was starting to feel what love really
is "Janie awoke next moring by feeling Tea Cake almost
kissing her breath away. Holding her and caressing her as if he feared
she might escaped his grasp
and fly away." After found days Tea Cake returned to her
Janie adored him and hated him while she
felt how could he make me suffer so much by
not being here. Janie and Tea Cake were
to be married.
Janie's first dream has come true. She has finally felt love.
Janie's first love was her last love. Tea Cake was a gambling man. He played dice, cards, or
anything in which there was a stake. At first Janie was afraid Tea Cake was going
to leave her because
she had twelve hundred dollars and it was missing
she thought he took it and left her. Tea
Cake came
back and said that "Ah don't blame yuh
but it wasn't lak you think." Tea
Cake had promised that he
would pay back every dime with his gambling
and he did. Janie felt really wanted for
the first time Tea
Cake wanted her to participate in everything
that he did. Tea Cake taught her how to
shoot and hunt,
play cards, anything that he did he wanted
her to do. Tea Cake missed her when he
was working in
the fields so he came back and sees her
throughout the day. Janie finally went
to work in the fields with
him so they would be together always. Janie and Tea Cake moved to the
Everglades. Everything in
the Everglades was big and new for
Janie. Janie learned what it felt like
to be jealous "A little chunky
girl took to picking a play out of Tea Cake
in the fields and in the quarters. If he
said anything at all,
she'd take the opposite side and hit him or
shove him and run away to make him chase her." Janie
thought that Tea Caked loved this women and
not her Tea Cake said "New, never did, and you know
it too.
Ah didn't want her. Mrs. Turner
was a person that did not like black people and she thought that
it was such a sin for Janie to be married
with a person so black. Mrs. Turner
wanted to introduce Janie
to her brother, Janie did not want that, she
had no feelings for Mr. Turner. When
Mrs. Turner's brother
came and Mrs. Turner brought him to be
introduced to Janie. When that happened
Tea Cake had a
brainstorm and before the week was over he
whipped Janie "Not because of her behavior justified his
jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear
inside him. Being able to whip her
reassured him in possession."
Later there were a hurricane coming and Janie
and Tea Cake decided to ride it out. The
hurricane we
much more then they had expected "Tea
Cake touched Janie and said, "Ah reckon you wish you had
of stayed in yo' big house 'way from such as
dis, don't you?" Tea Cake was the only love Janie has ever
had.
After the hurricane has passed many, repair and work up was due. Three weeks or so Tea Cake
started getting really sick. During the storm a Wild Dog and got rabbis
bit Tea Cake in the face. Tea
Cake started getting delusional about things,
the doctor wanted Janie to sleep by herself.
Tea Cake
could not drink water and he was dieing. One day Tea Cake started wondering why Janie
was leaving,
he did not understand that she was going to
the doctors to find if there was. Janie
really started to
worry about the well being of her life. Tea Cake was confused about everything and he
got a gun and
aimed it at Janie. There were only three bullets in the gun and
he pulled the trigger three times on an
empty chamber. Janie shot and killed Tea Cake in self
defense. Her first love was out of her
life
forever.
Janie is better off at the end of the
noval Their Eyes Were Watching God then at the beginning.
When Janie was a young girl she was confused
about many things. Although her
grandmother told her
that marriage will bring her love Janie finds
out for herself that love must come first.
Logan treats her
as property not as a wife. Janie understands that you are what you make
your self to be nobody else
makes who you are. Janie figures out that she must do what she
feels she must do not what her
grandmother wants her to do. Janie felt love for the first time with Tea
Cake and when Tea Cake was
gone so was her last love. Janie experiences a lot throughout the noval
but the greatest thing she has
achieved is that she knows who she is.
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