| The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face.
For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No
matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had
learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road.
Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept
beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future,
imagining her life different from what it was. But
mostly
she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances
like shade patterns in the woods—come and gone with the sun.. She got nothing
from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she
didn’t value.
Now and again she thought of a country road at sun-up and considered flight. To where? To what? Then too she considered thirty-five is twice seventeen and nothing was the same at all. “Maybe he ain’t nothin’,” she cautioned herself, “but he is something in my mouth. He’s got tuh be else Ah ain’t got nothin’ tuh live for. Ah’ll lie and say he is. If Ah don’t, life won’t be nothin’ but uh store and uh house.” Their Eyes Were Watching God, 76.
Notes on the text: No: This sentence is addressing the theme of speech/silence in with reguards to Janie's silence in this situation symbolizing her subordinance to Joe. He has for so long repressed her ability to talk that she no longer feels able to speak at all, and is in that reguard subservient to Joe. "But chiefly and most significantly, he silences her. Joe’s own desire is to possess a “big voice” [27-28] so his wife must not be permitted to express herself. “Mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.’” [43] [Thoughts taken from www.stanford.edu/class/ihum/21a/dox/ihum21b-week6-b.doc] These thoughts reiterate that idea that Joe suppresses Janie's speech. Talk some/Leave some: This sentence also speaks to the theme of speech and silence in the context of her marriage. Janie learns how to silence herself and considers when to speak in order to keep her marriage. She knows that Joe does not allow her to express herself. "The suppression of Janie, both as a woman and a human, is Jody's most interesting facet. He sets a limit on her self- fulfillment, treating her more like an object than a woman." [Thoughts taken from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God essay on www.i.am/zora ] This idea reiterates the fact that Janie is forced by Joe to suppress her identity as a woman in order to keep Joe pleased as a husband. Plenty of life: This sentence speaks of the same idea that Janie must keep her emotions and opinions inside her, this being the life beneath the surface, however she is forced by Joe (the wheels) to keep them inside. Hat and Heels: This sentence addresses the issue of silence and speech in reguards to the fact that Janie feels that she cannot express her emotions, so she is forced to keep it inside of her, "between her hat and her heels". Something in my mouth: With this statement Janie uses the image of Joe ion her mouth to symbolize the ideat that Joe is her identity at this point. He is in her mouth, so he is the one who does the speaking for her, acting as her identity. Store and a house: In this sentence Janie is beginning to realize that through her silence, and Joe acting as her identity, she is void of an individual identity. She is now questioning her justification of Joe as her identity, realizing that without him there she has nothing but a house and a store.......not even her own identity. |
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Last updated: 7/24/2002