Janie's Transformation in Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God , Janie begins her life journey as a naive, inexperienced teenage girl, who faces difficult challenges with men, but as a result becomes a smart, self-confident, self-reliant woman. The experiences she faces are painful, but they transform her into a better individual. From Logan, Joe, and Tea-Cake she learns a different lesson and grows from experience.

Janie's experience with Logan teaches her to resist injustice and to value herself. Janie begins this relationship as a naive teenager, who believes she can make herself love someone whom she had no previous attraction for. Logan treats her in a demeaning way, by expecting her to do painstaking labor out in the fields, and giving Janie little, or no value at all. Janie soon realizes this, and she decides to defend herself and leave him. "You'se mad 'cause Ah don't fall down and wash-up dese sixty acres uh ground yuh got. You ain't done me no favor by marryi'n me." (Hurston 31). Janie expresses her heart-felt anger and break free from this degrading relationship, she learns her first lesson about love.

Janie's experience with Jody allows her to re-gain her voice, and discover the liberating power within it. She also regains her self- love, learns to appreciate her beauty, and do longer hide it. Jody puts Janie in a good socio-economical status, she doesn't have to do hard labor, but is treated as a princess. Jody becomes too patronizing, when he doesn't allow Janie to give speeches, or to have fun with friends. She had to hide her sexuality and repress her emotions. He does great things, but kills the relationship by suppressing her voice. He takes away her voice, but she regains it by humiliating him, and she essentially kills him with her powerful voice. When he dies, Janis is liberated, she can free her hair, look in the mirror and actually love and appreciate herself for whom she is. " She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken place. She tore off the kercheif from her head and let down the plentiful hair. The weight, the length , the glory was there." ( Hurston 87). Janie is free now, she recovered her voice, her sexuality, her self-love.

Janie's experience with Tea-Cake teaches her the true meaning of love and happiness. It is in this relationship where Janie can freely speak her mind and be treated as an equal. She is grown, mature, content, self-confident, and self-reliant. He respects Janie for her autonomy, something her former husbands despised. Although, she had to endure many hardships before, and it took Janie a while to find true love, she found it, and this changed her as a person. "Naw. Weve been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people don't ever see de light at all." (Hurston 159). Janie is grateful for having found love and being the person she has become.

In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God , Janie begins her life journey as a naive, inexperienced teenage girl, who faces difficult challenges with men, but as a result becomes a smart, self-confident, self-reliant woman. The experiences she faces are painful, but they transform her into a better individual. From Logan, Joe, and Tea-Cake she learns a different lesson and grows from experience.