Janie essays

Janie essays J A N I E In Zora Neale Hurstons "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie, a southern black woman, finds herself in several bad relationships before finding true love. Throughout the novel, being a dynamic character, Janie changes her ways in between each relationship. In Hurstons book, Janie grows from a wanderer to a martyr, before finally becoming a warrior. Janies life began when her grandmother raised her in west Florida twenty years after the civil war. Her conscious life began at age sixteen when sitting under a pear tree. At first, a reader could compare Janie to an orphan, but after being forced to marry Logan Killicks, she quickly becomes a wanderer. She moves with him to his sixty acres of land, and after discovering that she doesn't love Logan, she soon abandons her hope that she will grow to love him eventually. Rather than her deteriorating marriage, Janie desires "things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think". This is perhaps her first experience of true independence, a goal shared by many wanderers. She later met Joe and finds that he is unlike most other black men. She soon flees from Killicks to pursue a relationship with Jody. Like other wanderers, it soon became clear that she wanted to flee in search of new ideas. She also sees that Jody is unlike others, expressing an almost f ear of conformity. After meeting Jody however, the reader is able to see more martyr characteristics portrayed in Janies life. Janie seemed to take her wanderer traits as far as the train to Eatonville took her. For as soon as she arrived, Joe became the center of the town and overshadowed Janie. At the town meeting, after Jody was elected mayor, her first prominent martyr characteristic was shown. At its conclusion the townspeople wanted Janie to say a few words, but Joe interrupts, saying "mah wife don't know nothin' 'bo...