More Good Work

Alvin Dean

Molly Fenn

English 4

3/12/17

Janie’s Love Life

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young lady by the name of Janie Crawford , her life is a journey to find her one true love. Janie tells the story of her three marriages and her search for her love to her best friend Pheoby. When Janie is young girl , her grandmother sets her up with a nice looking man by the name of Logan Killicks , who becomes Janie's first husband.

She married Joe at the age of 17 and now is 35 she feels that because he is older he is able to get people's attention that Joe piles more and more ridicule on poor ol Janie, making her appear to be an old hag and even calls her a “ole hen”.Eventually like any person would Janie snaps and stands up to Joe in the store. She soon confronts him of his actions and demands he stops pointing out her age soon after this he reacts with Janie with violence thought of being pitted by the men of the town so he puts hands on her yeah like what's wrong with her. With all of this does Janie think her relationship with Joe will last?

Janie and Teacake are met with a hurdle because Teacake is getting a job but this particular job only enlists white folks but Teacake still gambles and tries his luck even though Janie insists that he doesn't , but he lands the position; but his job isn't the normal everyday job.Teacakes job was burying the dead bodies of those white and black men and women who were killed by the hurricane , while burying and carrying the bodies to dump into the ditches but soon the job task is changed when the white superiors of the job say that the black and the white bodies aren't allowed to be dumped in the same ditch and are meant to be separated and that the white bodies will have coffins made for them but the blacks won't. Several weeks after the hurricane Janie is tending to Teacake who has caught rabies from a dog that bit him after the hurricane, Janie's tries to feed him food and water but he only gags it's all out.What will Janie now do that her lover has rabies.

Another thing about what Janie wants in her love life or her marriage are “ Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think” so those are the type of things she was looking for while she was married but how does she think those things were going to happen if she had never spoke of those things with any of her spouses? Insted she thought to keep all her feelings about what she wanted and did not say anything about it and just let all of her marriages end the way they did because she did not tell them what she wanted. What did she think was going to happen if Janie was always sad and Tea Cake, Joe , Logan did not know what to do so they continued to do the things they wanted which led to the physical abuse. The reason why Joe had slapped her because she tried to come at him side ways so then Joe thought it was a good idea to hit a woman who does not stand up for herself, now when I put it that way you think hmm why would she stand up for herself now for that question I personally have no idea but that still does not make it right for him to hit her. Which brings me back to how her marriages ended, Janie should not let things like that happen but how was Joe to know it was not okay to hit her. Joe knew she wouldn't do anything about it but he still should know not to hit her that is not right to hit a woman.

Another thing about Janie’s Love Life is to me that she was waiting for someone to tell her who to love and who not to love “cause you told me ah wuz gon love him and ah don’t.” to me this means Janie has no control over what she does. She just “follows the leader” in that sense she was just listening to her grandmother until she knew she was not in love with Logan and her grandmother was trying to get them married but Jaine stood up for herself hell even I was surprised when she did that. But at the end of the day the only person with the last say so in her life is her own self so if she decides to marry Logan it was her own choice because no one can force her to do that so somewhere in her heart she actually did love him. But after her going through all of those marriages now does she truly know what she wants and will she ever find someone with the same interest as her but that’s for her to know another thing is Janie needs to stop all that damn crying and stand up for what she want’s and not just follow someone around who she thinks will have all the answers.

So all Janie needs to do is what she want’s and not let someone tell her what to do or just blindly following her grandmother around and letting her pick who she should be with but again Janie needs to find the right man or she might end up getting slapped around again. And I know she doesn't want that to happen again so whenever she feels like getting back out there in the dating scene she should chose to move slow and try and get to know the man before she tries to marry him.

Works Cited

The Book (Their Eyes Were Watching God)