What I found interesting is how different the characters and there customs were portrayed. The roles of men and women were very different than the usual portrayal of the southern gentlemen and the southern belle.
The opening paragraph started it, changing and challenging the gender roles. "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some then come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men." This opening looking back sets the stage for different gender roles. It seems like it is saying that the men dream of things, like being the southern gentlemen. So they seemed mocked by it trying to live up to a standard, trying to do the right thing and fight their desires. But it seems like eventually there dreams get the best of them and they make the change.
Like Janie's first husband, who she really didn't love from the start, gradually changed. I think part of it was that maybe he knew that she didn't love him, but he started out doing everything for her and treating her nicely. By the time she left him it seemed like she wanted her to do everything.
With her second husband, who I am still not sure it she truly loves goes through the same changes. He started out telling her she deserved more and needed someone to care. When they moved to the new town soon he had her running the store and doing things she really didn't want to do and maybe didn't know how.
It seems that part of the problem is Janie and not knowing what love is. It was like a tradition or a culture thing of that time to find a man based on how wealthy he was and if he had land and could support you. So I think that Janie at this point in the book doesn't know what love is.
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It's for sure that Janie didn't find love with her first husband. Her second husband it seems she was attracted too, and liked to flirt with but so far I'm not sure either if she was really in love with him. However, both men treating her so well in the beginning of the marriage seems a little bit too much. It seems that Janie didn't have to do anything at all except cook and look good. Although that may have sounded good, I think that she would have been pretty bored. I know the men wanted to do these things for her at first so that she could live this life, but it does seem like she starts out a little too spoiled. I don't think it would do her any good not to have to help out at least a little bit. As soon as she is asked to do something she gets kind of bitter, which I don't really like about her character. She seems to expect a lot from the men, and not really give much back.
Laura,
I really like how you pointed out how different Hurston was portraying men and women from the typical Southern depictions. The gender roles really do seem to be changing in her story. Although Janie is a woman, she exudes a strength that is not typically portrayed in a female character. She has desires and a will of her own, and when she finds that life isn’t living up to her dream, she acts with little hesitation. This is definitely a departure from the typical Southern belle, who is typically seen as a beautiful woman, fanning herself on a porch as the world parades by her.
I think that the first few lines of the novel are very revealing. Hurston sets the novel up to be the contrast between men and woman. And that is illustrated in the way in which Janie's husbands treat her. She is set into the role of a housewife. She fits into the cult of domesticity but in reality I think she wants to break out of the mold. She wants to take control of her own path.
Laura,
I agree that Janie is confused and does not know what love really is. I also feel that the author has Janie’s two husbands change over time in their actions towards her in order to prove a point. I think that Hurston was trying to show that Janie did not know what was going on around her, and did not believe that Nanny knew what she was talking about. Nanny however, did know exactly what she was talking about and hit the nail right on the head. Nanny said that “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.” This is shown to be true with the way in which both of Janie’s husbands treat her at the end of her marriage to them. They expect her to do all of their hard work and labor. It seems that they are only kind to her when they are trying to gain her affection.
The gender roles in this piece definitely do stand out especially because of the roles in which Janie and her husbands played. It seems that both of the men wanted to be rich and powerful, much like the typical southern gentleman, whereas they just walked all over Janie in order to try to achieve these goals. Janie also fit into her gender role, even though she tried to rebel against it, of the typical southern black woman who, according to Hurston, lived in a dream world.
I agree with your comment that Janie was not in love with her first husband. Her first husband was a life lesson that she had to learn in order to grow and realize what love really meant to her. She uses this as a way to see what love isn't, and it helps her to grow and understand what love truly is to her. I feel she grasped a better understanding of what love wasn't when she was married to her first husband. Janie, I think, married her first husband because she felt this was what she was supposed to do, and wasn't really thinking before she acted upon this idea.
I felt so bad for Janie because she really honestly didn't how to feel love she was clueless and I feel like that's why all of her marriages came to an end because she could never love them. I was never quite sure whether Janie loved Joe Starks either because she seemed like she hated life but in the end she gave him that extravagant funeral so I don't really know she could have possibly been in love.
I felt so bad for Janie because she really honestly didn't how to feel love she was clueless and I feel like that's why all of her marriages came to an end because she could never love them. I was never quite sure whether Janie loved Joe Starks either because she seemed like she hated life but in the end she gave him that extravagant funeral so I don't really know she could have possibly been in love.
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