Their Eyes Were Watching God 583because “This freedom feeling was fine. These men
didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about.
She had already experienced them through Logan
and Joe.”
The next time Janie goes with a man, it is on
her own terms. Even though Tea Cake is 15 years
her junior and she fears what the townsfolk will say,
she chooses to make herself feel happy. Tea Cake
treats her as an equal, taking her fishing and to a
baseball game. What’s most important is that Tea
Cake seems to know exactly what Janie needs: to
live her life on her own terms and he offers her just
that. They go to the Everglades where they work
together, side by side, in the fields.
Janie’s final choice of herself comes near the end
of the novel, when she must shoot Tea Cake in order
to save herself. Even though the townsfolk are talk-
ing about her, Janie recognizes that the choices that
she has made have been in her best interest. In the
end, Janie “pulled in her horizon. . . . Pulled it from
around the waist of the world and draped it over her
shoulders. . . . She called in her soul to come and
see” (184). Janie is able to live her life in the way
that she chooses.
Nancy Cardona
iSolation in Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hurston begins her novel with the tension between
the individual and the collective. Janie returns from
her “adventures” with Tea Cake a different woman,
now able to exercise and enjoy her individuality even
as the rest of her community seeks to hold her at
arm’s length. Despite their rejection of her, the com-
munity wishes to know what happened to Janie in
her absence. Uninterested in satiating their curiosity,
Janie chooses to tell her story to her friend Phoebe,
to whom she gives permission to retell her story by
saying “. . . mah tongue is in mah friend’s mouf.”
Janie’s story can be seen as a series of moments
of isolation from her community, beginning with her
marriage to Logan Killicks. Concerned with provid-
ing for Janie’s needs, her grandmother arranges this
marriage to a husband who can provide for Janie’s
needs. Soon frustrated with her loveless marriage,
Janie seeks to make connections through Jody
Starks, a man who woos Janie with the promise of
living in an all-black community.
Janie’s hopes for a better life that is connected
to other people does not come to fruition, as Jody
insists that Janie hold herself apart from the com-
munity. He forbids her from joining in the sto-
rytelling and checker-playing that takes place on
the porch of the store that he owns. Instead, Janie
must remain isolated from the group, symbolizing
the superiority of Jody’s possessions. This isolation
proves frustrating for Janie, but she waits out the
marriage and “celebrates” Jody’s death by wearing
her hair down and participating in the community
that congregates on the store’s porch. Janie vows to
live life on her own terms, never again sacrificing her
own happiness for another’s. Soon, she meets Tea
Cake, a young man who shares Janie’s philosophy of
living life for the moment.
Janie is finally able to join a community in her
marriage to Tea Cake. He teaches her to play check-
ers and allows her to work alongside him when they
go to work in the “muck.” In this place, Janie finally
is able to bridge her isolation and be accepted by
others on her own terms. She makes friends among
the women in the community and entertains friends
in their modest home. This ideal moment, however,
comes to a close when Tea Cake dies in a hurricane.
Janie again must assume her position of isolation as
she goes on trial for Tea Cake’s death. In her return
to the town where she lived with Jody, Janie remains
isolated from the community. But at this stage, Janie
no longer has as great a need to join a community, as
her life with Tea Cake has shown her how to live life
on her own terms, regardless of what others think.
As Janie tells Phoebe, the townspeople have only to
do two things, “They got tuh go tuh God, and they
got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”
Nancy CardonaStaGeS oF liFe in Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Hurston’s novel follows the development of Janie
Crawford, who begins as an idealistic 16-year-old
girl. Over the course of the novel, Janie attempts to
define herself as a woman, first marrying for stabil-
ity, then adventure, and finally for happiness within
herself.
At the beginning of the novel, Janie’s grand-
mother catches her sharing her first kiss with a boy.