I believe that Janie is on a journey. Three of the five qualifications
of a journey are displayed within the first thirty pages.
The
quester is Janie. Immediately people (society) are resenting her even before
she makes it to the gates of her house. They are gossiping and judging
everything about her; “what she doin coming back here in dem overall?” (2).
Societies’ standard would be for Janie to be in a satin dress.
The way people are judging her ties into the challenges
she face. The setting - the South and the time period, post Civil War - oppress
who she really wants to be. Janie and other women, especially African American
women, are treated as “de mule uh de world…” (14). Janie’s existence has no
meaning if she does not have a husband; her “rank” is too low for men to treat her
as an equal. Being independent and a woman is not typical during this time. On
top of that, there are rumors about Janie and Tea Cake because he is younger
than her, portraying her as a cougar. These ideas tie in with the concept of
gender in-equality and racism, and my guess would be; this is what she will try
to overcome.
The
third qualification fulfilled is reason. Her reason for returning is “…Tea Cake
is gone… Ah ain’t got nothing to make me happy no more where Ah was at,” (7). These
first few chapters are the basis for the story. Between the chapters a lot of
time had passed, now she is telling the story to Pheoby and reflecting on her
experiences, by the end of the book I believe that we will discover the real
reason why Janie returned home.
Janie is definitely on a journey to find herself. As you pointed out, throughout the first few chapters of the novel, she is immediately judged and characterized based on the men in her life. The women in her town find it odd she married a young man and question why she has now returned home alone. Also, when the story flashes back to when Janie was younger, she is forced to marry a man she doesn't love because living as an independent woman is unheard of at the time. She is drowning in other people's identities and has finally come home to find her true self.
ReplyDeleteJust as you said, Janie was quickly resented by society in less than the first three pages of the book. This resentment shows that there can be an underlying theme that you so precisely picked up on and examined with more examples, like how her "rank" is too low for men to treat her as an equal, too. I also think that this is what she is going to overcome somewhere down the road in the story.
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