English
Their Eyes Were Watching God: Pursuit of True Love and Happiness
It is human nature to search for happiness. Some find it in materials, others find it in money, but most find is in love. Finding true love is a difficult task, especially now with all the cell phones, computers and expensive cars. In today's society, money and power play a huge role influencing people to want material possessions rather than the love of another human being. Although it is very rare, there are still cases where a woman is married off to a man through an arrangement made by her parents. One's place in the community means a great deal, just like how Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God illustrates.
Since Janie's mother ran away, she lives with her grandmother. As a child, Janie lives in the house where her grandmother is a nanny for a white family. She was treated the same as the white children and unlike most of the blacks at that time, so she neither saw nor experienced discrimination while she grew up. “So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn't nobody left except a real dark little girl…So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don't see me.' Ah looked at the picture a long time and seen it was mah dress and mah hair so Ah said: ‘Aw, aw! Ah'm colored! But before I seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest” (9). This was the building block of her strong personality. Although there was some teasing in school about her living with white people, Janie never paid attention to it.
Nanny wanted for Janie to attain of position of security in the society—“high ground.” As her benefactor, Nanny felt that it was for Janie's benefit that she push her own dreams and ideas of what is important in life on Janie. In result, a conflict arose: the novel shows a strong relationship between mother and child and the importance of that bond in an African-American community. This conflict between Janie's very idyllic view of marriage and Nanny's wish for her to marry into stability is a good picture of how deep the respect and trust runs. Janie pictured marriage as “a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace” (11). In contrast, Nanny's idea of a well put together marriage was some one who had some class, some one who had money, and held that position on higher ground. In her mind, Logan Killicks was the perfect choice; however, Janie said that “he look like some ole skull-head in de grave yard” (13). More importantly, though, was “the vision of Logan Killicks;” he was “desecrating the pear tree.” Nanny told Janie, “So you don't want to marry off decent like, you wants to make me suck the same sorrow yo' mama did, eh? Mah ole head ain't gray enough. My back ain't bowed enough to suit you!” (14). Nanny explains this need to marry up the social ladder and reveals the reality of being an African-American woman: “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see” (14). Since Janie respects her grandmother, she goes off to be Killicks' wife. However, she chose her grandmother's happiness, and not her own. Janie tried very hard to make herself love Logan, but she just could not. “Ah wants to want him sometimes. Ah don't want him to do all de wantin'” (23). As time passed, Logan realized more and more that Janie was unhappy with him; he tried to force her into the typical wife role of those times by having her do more demeaning work around the farm. Finally, Janie runs off with a younger man, Joe Starks, who may be the answer to her pear tree.
In some ways, Janie's marriage to Joe Starks is more of a hardship than her marriage to Logan was. Janie has gone from being bonded physically and emotionally to being bonded intellectually and socially. When Joe Starks is elected mayor, the crowd wants to here from “Mrs. Mayor Starks” (43). With these remarks, Janie has lost her identity and Joe laughs and tells the crowd, “Mah wife don't know nothing ‘bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nuthin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home” (43). Apparently, Joe only wanted a trophy wife—a woman who would make him look good and do the work around the house. In order to feel happy, Janie desperately wanted to become a part of the community, but Joe made sure she was kept isolated so that she would not become just another woman in town, but remain his prize. When Janie was thirty-five, Joe died; she was a young woman still full of hopes and dreams and was also very wealthy. Nanny was right—it was not love that had given Janie all the things she now owned. But even when she came into the wealth, Janie still had not experienced the one thing she wanted most—true happiness.
Janie meets Tea Cake soon after the death of her second husband. She fell in love, the real, sweet love that she had waited her whole life for. Janie saw the difference in him. He was loving and caring and he did not want anything but Janie's love in return. “You got me in de go-long” (105). Tea Cake tells Janie that he loves her because he does not want to see her go. Surprised, Janie looks at him, and than believes him. Janie's life with Tea Cake were the happiest years of her life, but it ended in heartbreak. After being bitten by a rapid dog, Tea Cake tries to kill Janie so she is forced to kill him; but she did not kill the Tea Cake she knew and loved; she killed a replica of his image but with none of his mental capacity. Janie knew Tea Cake was never coming back, but she knew that she had accomplished everything she had wished for in life.
In many forms we search for happiness, we search for love. In many different forms, both of those come to us. Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “`Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all.” We get too caught up in the excitement of new things, new possessions, and new trinkets to play with, that we forget the importance of what it means to be truly happy. It is only possible to find happiness in love, true happiness that is, a happiness that is permanent and continuous. Happiness that loves, and a love that is happy—this is something we all need to find.
Bibliography
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
