THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

As a child Jamie often spent time laying under her favorite pear tree dreaming of her knight in shining armor, who would one day come and sweep her off her feet and carry her away, to the life of her dreams. They would then form a union a live in harmony. "She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage! (Pg. 11)". Janie sees the marriage of the bee and the blossom as the way a human marriage should be, the bee represents the man coming to meet the woman, the blossom. The blossom waits anticipating the arrival of the bee, as Janie feels a woman should. When the blossom and bee connect it creates the perfect union in nature, both are giving and receiving of eachother.

When Janie first got married it was to a man who could provide for her, as her grandmother had wanted for her. Janie thought that after she was married the love that she had so often dreamed about would come, however she soon learned that love does not always come with marriage, "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Pg. 25).

Janie often dreamed of a marriage where both she and her husband had an unquenchable love for each other. However, Janie’s grandmother did not have the same opinions as Janie. She believed that Janie should marry a man who could support his wife, a husband who could protect, shelter, and provide for Janie’s needs, to provide enough so that Janie would not have to work for a living. She wanted Janie to have an easier life than hers. She wanted Janie to have the life that she could not have. To be able to sit on the front porch and sip lemonade, like the white women did, " She was borned in slaver time when folks, dat is black folks, didn’t sit down anytime dey felt lak it. So sittin’ on porches lak de white madam looked lak un mighty fine thing tuh her. Dat’s whut she wanted for me---don’t keer whut it cost" (Pg. 114). However this was not what Janie wanted. Janie longed to be like one of the common folk. For example, Jamie wanted to go with the rest of the town to bury the mule, however this was a low class event and the Mayor’s wife would not partake in this event, according to Jody, ""Tain’t nothin’ so important Ah got tuh do tuhday, Jody. How come Ah can’t go long wid you tuh de draggin’-out?" She wanted to be able to listen to the jokes and playful arguing and laugh long and hard as the rest of the crowd did, "Janie wanted to hear the rest of the play-acting and how it ended, but she got up sullenly and went inside" (Pg. 70).

Janie also learned the hard way that appearances could be deceiving. When Janie first met Joe she thought she fell in love with him. He would sit and listen to her thoughts and views and seem as if he respected her ideas, "Every day after that they managed to meet in the scrub oaks across the road and talk about when he would be a big ruler of things with her reaping the benefits. Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke of far horizon. He spoke for change and chance" (Pg. 29). He was a man who would be approved of by her grandmother because her grandmother wanted someone who could take care of her, "You come go wid me. Den all de rest of yo’ natural life you kin live lak you oughta" (Pg. 29-30), and Janie liked him because he seemed to respect her opinions. He also wanted to make a lady out of her; " "Ah wants to make a wife outa you."
"You mean dat, Joe?" This was a big factor in what helped make her decision to go with Joe.

Janie soon found out that Joe couldn’t provide the love that she needed. Joe wanted Janie for one purpose, the way it made him look in front of the towns people; to have a beautiful young woman as his wife made his social standing much better and made him seem more powerful to have a wife for looks and that obeyed his every wish, "Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ebout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home" (Pg. 43). Although Janie would have liked to give a speech to her new friends of the town, Jody’s comment refrained her from making a speech. The way that Jody tossed the honor of giving a speech away from Janie hurt her. She tried to hide her disappointment from the crowd, but inside she was crushed, "Janie made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy. She had never thought of making a speech, and didn’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off things" (Pg. 43).

Both Jody and Logan planned to make something out of Janie, Jody intended to make an important woman out of Janie, "You oughta be glad, ecause dat makes uh big woman outa you" (Pg. 46). Logan on the other hand did not intend to make anything perticular out of Janie, he only intended to change her from what she was, "Ah thought you would ëpreciate good treatment. Thought Ahíd take and make somethin’ outa yuh. You think youse white folks by de way you act" (Pg. 30). Although both Jody and Logan intended to make something out of Janie, neither of them accepted her for what she was. They only wanted to take what they saw and change it to suit their needs. Tea Cake was the only man who loved Janie for what she was, and not what he could make out of her, "Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ahím lyin’. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom" (Pg. 109).

After Joe died Janie did find the love of her life though, although it was not with a man who had money, or a man who had a high social standing. Janie fell in love with a man who came from nothing and had nothing, "But Janie, Tea Cake, whilst he ain’t no jail-bird, he ain’t got uh dime tuh cry" (Pg. 112), except for the one thing she wanted "Love", Janie loved her time spent with Tea Cake, and just like Janie, Tea Cake cherished his time spent with Janie. Tea Cake brought out the best in Janie and never tried to suppress her opinions or feelings, "Tain’t so big ub chance as it seems lak, Pheoby. Ahím older than Tea Cake, yes. But he done showed me where itís de thought dat makes de difference in ages" (Pg. 115).

Tea Cake loved Janie with all his heart and risked his life for her. His love for Janie was so strong that he was willing to give up his life for her, and to Janie this made him even more of the man of her dreams than before, "You was twice noble tuh save me from dat dawg. Tea Cake, Ah don’t speck you seen his eyes lak Ah did. He didn’t aim tuh jus’ bite me, Tea Cake. He aimed to kill me stone dead. Ah’m never tuh fuhgit dem eyes. He wusn’t nothin’ all over but pure hate. Wonder where he come from?" (Pg. 167).

The dog intended to kill Janie but itdid not get the chance because Tea Cake saved her. However, the dog did do what he intended to do. it did not kill Tea Cake in the river, but it did so by giving Tea Cake rabies. Janie’s heart was broken by having to watch Tea Cake die suffering, " She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her" (Pg. 178). Tea Cake gave Janie the love she longed for and that neither of her previous husbands, with all their money and popularity could have given her. Her life became complete when Tea Cake entered it, and this is all Janie had ever asked for.