Summary: Their Eyes Were Watching God

In a way, it seems as if Janie was always in competition with someone, whether it be with her grandmother, Logan, Joe, or Teacake. “Naw, Jody, jus’looks lak it keeps us in some way we ain’t natural wid one ‘nother. You’se always off talkin and fixin’ things, and Ah feels lak Ah’m jus’markin time. Hope it soon gits over” (Hurston 46). “But Nanny, Ah wants to want him sometimes. Ah don’t want him to do all de wantin’” (Hurston 23) . “But anyhow, watch yo’self, Janie, and don’t be taken advantage of. You know how dese young men is wid older women. Most of de time dey’s after whut dey kin git, then dey’s gone lak uh turkey through de corn” (Hurston 113). There was never any separation between the initial problem between Janie and the other characters and the motivation behind the problem. “One
The journey that Janie took with Logan, Joe, Teacake, and finally herself changed her outlook on things in life like love and life. “Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony in a song” (Hurston 2). Even when returning from her journey people expected for Janie to conform to a“normal” woman of Eatonville.The aspect of male dominance was used when Janie returned home when she was being noticed by the men, but the aspect of freedom and feminism is also shown but soon taken away from her in hopes that she would conform like the rest of the women in the town. “The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume; then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt. They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the