In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hursten the main character, Janie, has trouble finding her true love. Though Janie marries two different husbands whose character are completely divergent, she has yet to find someone who makes her happy even though she doesn’t know the true meaning of love. Janie’s grandma wanted Janie to get married for her protection before she dies because she wouldn’t be able to take care of Janie for long. So Granny planned Janie to marry Logan Killicks, even though Janie disagreed because she didn’t understand the meaning of love.
Janie thought that after she marries Logan, she would soon fall in love with him. Yet, Janie still doesn’t love Logan. One day Janie had a girl talk with Granny about Logan. She mentions that she doesn’t like the way he looks. For instance, “his belly is too big, and his toenails look like mule foots. ” (Ch. 3 P. 24) This shows that Janie favors looks more than protection. A year later, Janie’s relationship with Logan was soon gone because “Janie noticed that her husband has stopped talking in rhymes to her. He had ceased to wonder at her long black hair and finger it. Ch. 4 pp. 1)
One day Logan left to go purchase a mule while Janie stayed at home. As she was relaxing in the barn she heard “whistling coming down the road. ” (Ch. 4 P. 27) It was a man who was dressed fancy that didn’t belong in the parts where Janie lived. The man was so focused on where he was going, Janie wanted to catch his attention by, jerking the pump handle hard while she pumped so it’ll make a loud noise. The man “looked hard and the asked her for a cool drink of water. ” This shows that Janie knew this man was rich and wanted to “talk” to him.
The fancy man was amed Joe Starks, who once worked for the white people to save up money to come down to Florida, and to live in the new town that was being built for colored people. Soon after they met, Joe and Janie talked day after day about how Joe would rule the town after it’s built. All the talk about Joe’s dreams made Janie’s memory of her grandma strong and powerful. Joe wanted to make Janie his wife and not a dog, like Logan is executing. One night when Janie and Logan was sleeping, Janie woke Logan to ask about their relationship. She asked Logan what would happen if she had ran away and left him.
Logan feared for the worst , so he tried to brush the idea out of his mind by telling her he was getting sleepy. But Janie was persistent in telling Logan the truth about her feelings in leaving him for a better man who supposedly would treat her right. The next morning Janie was preparing breakfast when Logan called her to help move the manure pile before it got hot. Obviously Janie turned down the offer, because she felt that her place belonged in the kitchen and his was outside working. After their bickering, Janie finished cooking breakfast and decided to leave Logan for good.
Even if Joe was not there waiting for her down the road, the change was bound to do her good. ” (Ch. 4 P. 32) After her abandonment from the Killicks household, Janie was now renamed Janie Starks. Their wedding was completely different from her first marriage. This time she wore silk and wool and “from now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. ” Comparing her first wedding to her second, on the day she got married to Logan “nobody put anything on the seat of Logan’s wagon to make it ride glorious on the way to his house. It was a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods. (Ch. 3 pp. 3)
On the other hand when Janie marries Joe, “they sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged. “(Ch. 4 P. 33) Her second marriage seems better than the first because of how the wedding turned out, but there is always a turning point in one’s life. The day after she married Joe, he “didn’t make many speeches with rhymes to her,” but he brought her the best things the vendor had. (Ch. 5 pp. 1) As they entered the colored own, “they locked arms and strolled from end to end of the town” like a romantic couple.
Janie was more interested in the looks of Joe, and how he had a lot of money and the way he dressed. After Joe becomes the mayor of the town, Janie will soon realize that love at first sight isn’t always true. Joe was more concerned about the town, than he was with Janie and her feelings. He thought that since she was Mrs. Mayor of the town it would make her a big woman, even though coldness and fear took hold of her”. (Ch. 5 P. 46) As the town was ie’s “feeling of etting set up, Joe had two buildings built; a store and a post office, which he made Janie work in both of them.
This is where Joe’s true nature of his character showed. During her hours of working, Joe made Janie wear a rag over her head because of his jealousy toward her hair, yet he never told her the reason why. There were times Janie had to think “about the inside state of her marriage. ” (Ch6. P. 71) “The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but never went back inside the bedroom again. “(Ch. P. 71) Janie’s marriage in her eyes has completely vanish, “the bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in.
It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired,” (Ch. 6 . P71) After this point, it would of been smart for Janie to leave Joe, but she doesn’t. So one day Joe decided to strike at Janie because she didn’t cook the dinner correctly. Shocked and hurt, Janie soon realized that the man she so loved was no longer a “figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. ” (Ch. 6 P. 72) After the incident, Janie’s feelings oward Joe changed as she “packed her emotions in her heart where he could never find them” and continued on with her life. Ch. 6 P. 72) Janie’s ideal marriage was to be taken care of and be loved that’ll make her happy. Both husbands seem unsuitable for Janie, but one leans more toward her preference, which is Joe Starks. Though Joe is controlling and abusive, he also treated Janie better than what Logan did because he has money. Janie liked the way Joe acted towards her in the beginning of their relationship, because Joe bought her valuable things and treated her with respect in making her a “big oman”. With Logan Killicks, he treated Janie like any other person.
He felt that since she was married to him and lived with him, that she would do work inside and outside the house. This is a part of Janie that she wasn’t familiar with since she lived with her grandma who took care of her. Also, Janie wasn’t very fond of Logan’s looks. The life lesson is you could find your true love if actually know the person well, and not just marry them for their looks or wealth. Even if that person doesn’t have everything and only has a little, you shouldn’t judge them based on that.
