In all three marriages Janie grew up. She was only 16 when first married. Everything she learned was from the time she was 16 to when Tea Cake died. Not only did Janie become the women she wanted, but became someone she felt comfortable being. Nothing could take that away from her.
Being a woman did not allow her dreams to be on the horizon which made her lay them on Joe. This chapter makes Janie realize what she wants in life and it is not what her grandma wants. She wants love and freedom. Joe gave her more than what her grandma wanted for her although Janie did not achieve the life she wanted while being married to Joe. Janie may have placed her goals in life onto Joe although he did not give her what she wanted deep down which made her resent him, show her selfish qualities,
From a younger age, Janie is immediately pressured into a relationship, specifically with somebody who has plenty of money by Nanny’s standards. However, as much as the grandma could be blamed for this, she also enabled herself to fall into the trap of desperation. The first occurrence seems to be on page 28, when “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation.
Janie experiences a loss of independence during her first marriage, and that loss is magnified with her marriage to Jody. Jody exhibits a controlling, narcissistic, and dominating personality which leaves Janie powerless and oppressed. “She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life left beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels” (Hurston 76).
Janie values her adolescent view on marriage and Mr. Killicks, as she calls him, does not fit the image. She had a
Jeremy, Although I have not seen every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, I have seen enough to understand your discussion. Furthermore, I can see the distinction between the gender roles. I completely agree with you regarding Raymond’s mother, Marie, and Raymond’s wife, Debra. Way too often, Marie criticizes Debra’s abilities. She not only complains about her cooking, but also on the way she cleans and takes care of the children.
Throughout history there have been standers that have been set by the time, that men and women have followed. Many men and women have had to follow the male and female roles set by society, the macula role and the feminine role. Each defining the way a person acts and how they are perceived by others. In the short story Franny by J.D. Salinger a young college student names Franny and her boyfriend Lane spend their time in a restaurant after being apart for a while. The spend most other there time taking in the restaurant then eating.
Women are confined to single roles and are expected to be submissive and respectful. When Joe married Janie, he forced her into a role of subservience. Hurston indicates that Joe attempted to mold Janie into what white women do on a daily basis which is to “sit on their high stools on the porches of their house and relax.” Doing this, Joe believes he is granting his wife all the wishes she ever wanted while neglecting the fact that Janie takes pleasure in the simple things in life like chatting, laughing, fishing and dancing. “Janie [especially] loved the conversation[s]” that took place on the porch and sometimes “she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge” because he didn’t want her to talk after those “trashy people” (Page 104).
The first time she kissed a boy, her grandmother, who she referred to as Nanny, immediately had a talk with her. This first kiss was her step into womanhood. As a young girl in this time period, she was put into a marriage. Nanny did this out of concern, for she had raised Janie from birth.
She does not care about what society or her grandmother wants her to do. She took a stand, not only for gender equality but also independence for herself. Janie is tired of being a servant, specifically to Joe, but also to society and her grandmother?s expectation. Janie wants equality, independence, and happiness. This response is the start of a ?new?
Janie also demonstrates racial pride after her husband died because she expressed her true beauty, in which she was forced to hide in Joe's efforts to control Janie. During the Harlem Renaissance, women like Janie began to showcase their skills and break off from being controlled over. They began to work, creating books, singing, making music, and accomplishing more than an average person does in their lifetime. This was done all from an increase in determination and pride. Although their initial feelings of gaining pride can never be truly understood by
After Joe dies, Janie “[tears] off the kerchief from her head and [lets] down her plentiful hair” (87). For all of her marriage, Janie was forced to hide her beautiful hair because it made her husband jealous of other men. Once Joe passes away, she is finally free of the control he had on her. Janie forcefully “tears” the cloth that covered her hair, which demonstrates how much she longed to be free from her husband’s control. By tearing off the kerchief, Janie’s hair turns from a symbol of oppression by men to a symbol of freedom.
Jody wanted Janie to know that women were less than men and that they don’t think for themselves, he almost compares women to animals, “Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves” (Hurston 180). Once he passed away, Janie took a more feminist stand in her life, she started doing more of what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it. Letting her hair down is an important point in the novel because it shows strength, “Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging below her waist”
She expected to obey for her husband like others. “He ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store” reveals that she did everything to his happiness not for her. Even though she is a wife of a mayor, she didn’t get any privilege rather she lost her social relationship with other people. She lived under the dominance of her husband
Curley’s wife has always been taught to sell her-self, whether it was to a road show or into the hands of a husband. Richard Hart recognizes that Curley’s wife is more like a store bought good, rather than an actual wife and writes, “Curley’s wife views herself as a commodity, and an object of sensuality” (36). Curley’s wife’s dream was to be an actress on a traveling road show, but she is too ignorant to realize that that dream is long gone and selling herself is not in the least bit attractive or becoming of a young woman. Stein-beck characterizes the men on the ranch as male chauvinists who cannot fathom a woman ever being half as important as themselves. “Curley’s wife stands as a glaringly bitter and ironic illus-tration of the immorality of narrow minds and the social conditions that produce them” (Hart 39).
