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How is Janie an independent thinker?

In Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie Crawford, steadily grows into an independent woman. Indeed, her relationship with Tea Cake, which is viewed as a scandal by the community, perfectly embodies her strong will and independence. However, I argue that the real turning point that illustrates Janie’s strength occurs when her self-centered second husband Jody is on his deathbed. It is at this point that Janie...

In Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie Crawford, steadily grows into an independent woman. Indeed, her relationship with Tea Cake, which is viewed as a scandal by the community, perfectly embodies her strong will and independence. However, I argue that the real turning point that illustrates Janie’s strength occurs when her self-centered second husband Jody is on his deathbed. It is at this point that Janie reveals her inner thoughts, and she stands up for herself:



“Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo' you die. Have yo' way all yo' life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo'self heah 'bout it. Listen, Jody, you ain't de Jody ah run off down de road wid. You'se whut's left after he died. Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way. But you wasn't satisfied wid me de way Ah was. Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crosded out tuh make room for yours in me” (86).



Here, Janie is no longer constrained by Jody’s restrictive norms. She strikes out against him and affirms her own self-worth. Early in the novel, Janie’s self-confidence is apparent to her close friend Pheoby:



“They sat there in the fresh young darkness close together. Pheoby eager to feel and do through Janie, but hating to show her zest for fear it might be thought mere curiosity. Janie full of that oldest human longing—self revelation” (7).



Thus, Hurston portrays Janie as an independent thinker and a strong-willed woman at a time when these qualities were virtually unrepresented among African-American women in fiction.

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