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We speak student!

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Janie

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a la Shmoop

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Walk us through

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how Janie is first presented to us

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and how she evolves,

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because, boy, she changes

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through this and the pears and honey bees

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that she kind of relates to in the beginning of the story

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- seem awfully innocent by the end. - Yeah.

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It's a classic coming of age story,

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and so we're gonna have that path from

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innocence to maturity, or innocence to loss of innocence.

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And, at the beginning, Janie's just really curious

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about the world.

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She says that she started her life

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when she left Nanny, so when she left her grandma's.

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So we can kind of think of that as

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the jumping-off point. And she was young.

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She was a teenager when she got married.

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And that's when she started her journey to self-discovery.

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Unfortunately, that was not an easy journey.

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She meets several men who really wanna suppress

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that individuality and suppress that desire to discover herself.

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So she has Logan, who really just wants to

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turn her into a mule, like into a work horse.

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And Joe, who puts her on a pedestal,

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and doesn't -- He wants her to be seen and not heard.

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Joe becomes the mayor. She's the mayor's wife,

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and he's kind of like, "Oh, no, she can't give any speeches."

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It's very clear that he kind of idolizes her,

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- but in a... - As a decoration.

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Exactly. Exactly right.

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And the names of these characters

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show us this. It's Logan Killick

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and Joe Stark. It's very clear what's happening here

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is that these men are really suppressing the individuality of the woman.

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Eventually, Janie really just begins

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to detach herself from what's going on.

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And she has what she kind of considers this inner self,

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and the outer self.

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And the inner self is the one that's on this journey

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to self-discovery and trying to be strong.

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The outer self is totally stoic.

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And so she starts pretending that nothing's happening.

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So to the outside world,

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people seem to think, "Oh, she's putting up with this?

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She's doing this?" But on the inside, she's like

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really kind of riled up and trying to get through it.

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She does make a lot of active decisions.

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She leaves her first husband for her second.

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And she gives Joe, her second husband, a piece of her mind.

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So she's very active in what she does

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in some instances,

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but, for the most part, she really just starts to detach herself

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and is very flat on the outside.

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So my sense of the character is

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that it's -- I don't know who's being indicted here,

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meaning is it the lack of choice of good men

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who actually respect her brain? They're just not out there?

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Or they are out there and they're not attracted to her

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and so she feels bad about that?

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Or is desperate?

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Or is it kind of the plight that she's in

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being a Black woman at this time?

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She just didn't have a whole lot of choices to start with

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and having a brain was a hinderance?

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If you were happy being a mule

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or happy being a decoration, well, life was great.

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But she wasn't that. She didn't fit that normal mold.

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So is there a message here? What's your read?

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That is an awesome question, because that is exactly what Hurston wants us to ask.

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What Hurston is trying to do is show us

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a bunch of different people who do not fit a mold.

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So Janie is one type of person

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who has this inner and outer self

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that she can't -- She's strong on the outside, not on the inside,

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kind of strong on the inside.

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And that people don't have to fit a perfect mold.

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And that not all men are bad. Not all men are good.

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Not all women are bad or good.

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Whites, Blacks. And she's trying to show us that.

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That's kind of part of what got her in trouble

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in the Harlem Renaissance

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is that a lot of these male Black authors said,

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"We should be glorifying Black culture." And here she's kind of showing that

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Black men are kind of jerks sometimes.

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And Janie makes mistakes and kind of

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no one is perfect and no one is a pure villain.

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And she's really trying to show shades of grey.

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So asking, "Who is it that's being indicted here?"

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That's a great question, because it's almost everyone and no one at the same time.

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[ pen writing ]

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What comprises Janie's inner character and outer character?

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Who are Janie's husbands? What are they all about?

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What is Hurston trying to tell us

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about how people fit into stereotypes?

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Let's see. It's a weird phrasing.

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