Their Eyes Were Watching God

Introduction

Janie manages to express what she’s up against through roles played by her mother, nanny, and other women. Janie starts recollecting her life by overviewing her years with women such as her Nanny and mother. Janie and Nanny lived in Mrs. Washburn’s property, an extremely sympathetic and helpful employer. Janie would play with Mrs. Washburn’s grandkids. As a kid, she had pleased times but such times came to an end when the school girls picked on her just because she was better dressed and groomed than them (Ahmed & Glory, 2019). Different women played very critical roles in shaping Janie’s character and what she was up to as shown by the forthcoming sections.

Relevance of Leafy: Janie’s mother

Leafy is Nanny’s and her slave-master daughter. Her slave master raped Nanny prior to the end of the Civil War era. Subsequently, Leafy was raped by her teacher which made her pregnant. Leafy began drinking each night just before Janie was born and finally, she runs away upon giving birth to her. This left Nanny to take good care of Janie, her grandchild. Nanny, through her explanations, reveals her initial intention of offering an improved life for Leafy. However, the dreams ran away when Leafy became a victim of rape by her own instructor who then got her pregnant with Janie. Once Leafy gave birth to Janie, she began a habit of drinking and then fled in a bid to escape what occurred letting Janie remain with Nanny (Cepeda, 2020).

Fortunately, Nanny then shifted her hopes towards Janie’s desire for a better living. Janie is seen protesting against getting married to Logan where Nanny defends her decision very firmly. She does this by describing her hard past that she got born into slavery and became a victim of rape. Out of that rape ordeal, she gave birth to Leafy. Additionally, the master’s wife took offence that her husband was Leafy’s father and she became furious. She even organized that Nanny be brutally whipped and for Leafy to become sold once she got a month old. Fortunately, Nanny escaped with Leafy to the southern marshland to a hideout until the end of the Civil War.

Relevance of the Nanny

Nanny in the story is Jannie’s grandmother. Nanny was born right into slavery and her life experiences made Janie miserably aware of what could occur to attractive women like her. Leafy, her daughter, unfortunately was the product of her white master’s attentions. Nanny escaped a brutal beating by her mistress. Fortunately, days later she found excitement of her emancipation at Florida where she lived, worked and raised her daughter. She hoped that Leafy would become a schoolteacher (Hurston, 2020). Unfortunately, these hopes faded when Leafy became a victim of rape by her town schoolteacher who then left both the mother and kid.

The life of Nanny rotates around the kind of huge love that she has for Janie. Within this little world’s limits, Nanny is certainly a highly ambitious woman. She manages to buy land and build a small house which is rare for lone women. She has a deep desire and aspirations for Janie, a girl who didn’t go through the wrath of working in a white woman’s kitchen just because Nanny filled the void. Undoubtedly, Nanny loves Jannie. This is a love based on both duty and also responsibility. Definitely, this is a case of transference of dreams that she couldn’t achieve that for herself. In a given case, two females need one another since they didn’t have any other household. Nanny desires that Janie grows up to become a decent young lady.

Janie is seen coming to Nanny with inquiries of type of love that a spouse and wife must have. Unfortunately, Nanny did not manage to provide such answers just because she has not been part of her own life. Logan has the ability of providing child security because he has up to sixty acres of potato farm. Nanny does not see any need for love that Janie is asking about. A month later after their conversation, Nanny died and Janie remains alone and unloved (Hurston, 2020).

Relevance of other women

Other women such as Mrs. Washburn didn’t directly influence the life decisions of Janie.

Janie’s life decisions

Janie’s decision when she was left alone reflects her response to the fate of other women around her. Once she was left alone, Janie began a journey of examining her feelings where she realized her hate for Nanny for the kind of values where she raised her. It seems that Nanny only taught her to find superficial prizes like wealth, security and status. Unfortunately, Nanny didn’t teach Janie how to chase her dreams. Within no time, many men suitors began approaching Janie because she was very attractive and wealthy (Shi, 2019). But no matter the several advances, Janie survived six months of mourning with no suitor making any real progress. Her newfound freedom and independence made her very happy. She did not desire whatsoever to be tied down to other men. She was no longer happy about the store that she ran just because she felt the domineering presence of her dead man in every corner. In summary, evil isn’t localized much within a person unlike in wider sets of beliefs. Nanny too isn’t necessarily a villain; she was just misguided by the flawed manner with which she viewed the world.

References

Ahmed, J., & Glory, A. (2019). Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Quest for Love and Independence. Language in India, 19(6).

Cepeda, E. (2020). The Critique of Capitalist & Racist Logic in Their Eyes Were Watching God (Doctoral dissertation, Northeastern Illinois University).

Hurston, Z. N. (2020). Their eyes were watching God. Prabhat Prakashan.

Shi, L. (2019). Black Feminism in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Advances in Literary Study, 8(01), 1.