Their Eyes Were Watching God starts with Janie, the main character only days after the discovery of her own sexuality being forced into an unwanted marriage. The marriage is forced by Janie's grandmother and is the attempt to do what is best for Janie's future. Janie marries an old farmer whom she doesn't love but assumes love will blossom as the marriage continues. Not only does she not love her husband, she also hates the work that is required of her. When her husband finally decided that Janie is too spoiled and needs to work the fields along with the housework does she escape and find a new man.
Chapter 4 gives the impression to the readers that Janie hates doing manual labor and is very spoiled, why else would she run away from her husband while he buys a mule for her to help on the farm? Its seems very clear that only reason she runs away is to get away from the “dirty” lifestyle and not have to do the hard work on the farm. In reality she was planning to run away whether or not Logan was to force her into working the fields, then when she sees a man on the road she uses her opportunity and escapes into a better life. This makes it clear that Janie was fed up with her lifestyle and wanted a change. However when Janie finally finds her true love: Tea Cake.She changes her attitude regarding work. When Janie and Tea Cake move to the Muck, Tea Cake starts working and picking beans out in the field to make money. Despite the fact that Janie has over one thousand dollars in saving she decided to work with Tea cake and take part in all the lower class activities that she previously avidly hated.
The change in opinion seems to stem from the lack of choice, but when Janie chooses to work on the glades she is giving herself a second attempt at happiness. The reason why Janie feels the need to find happiness is because when she only started to accept herself and learn more about her feelings to become happy, she was immediately sent off to the “right” stable life choice. Since after escaping her forced marriage she was once again forced into a role she did not enjoy. In order to finally fulfill her life she does what she wants, and what's she wants is to spend time with her true love no matter what work is required or the social class that she is with.
Does this portion of the text cause the reader to think if Janie loves Tea Cake so much that she will tolerate the work or does her opinion of the work change? I would love to know your opinion.
We have to consider how young Janie is when she is married off to Logan--sixteen. It's not hard to imagine why she'd resent laboring in his fields all day at that age, especially because love hasn't followed from marriage, as her grandmother suggested it would. The prospect of a life lived solely on this farm is scary for her, and she runs away--it's to get away from work, but also to get away from working *for* Logan.
ReplyDeleteWhen she goes to the Muck with Tea Cake, she's a lot older and more mature, and she's *been* working for years at the store. Her problems with this job have more to do with the social isolation than the work itself, and social context is crucial for defining labor in this novel. Her movement out to the fields with Tea Cake is depicted as the moment where she integrates into this community and is socially accepted by all the people who'd assumed she was seeing herself as better than them. Working is a sign of solidarity and social acceptance, and it's cast as allowing her to be around Tea Cake during the day. The actual physical labor might be just as hard as on Logan's farm, but the company she keeps--the social context for that work--is entirely different.