Florida State College at Jacksonville - HUMANITIES 2210Final Essay Paper Humanities 2019

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Janie’s American Dream is a dream fundamentally linked to her realization of selfhood and organic union with another in a period when women, especially women of color, are forced to accept traditi... onal expectations of womanhood both confronting and subservient. In searching for her Dream, Janie is made somewhat of a “heroine” to others in the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. In the very beginning of the novel the difference between men and women in made apparent with these words, “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” (p1-p2) This is a defining moment, women can take pieces of their past and mold it to how they wanted to be. So Janie’s search begins for selfdiscovery. She certainly becomes a role model for others as she realizes just how pure life can be. While trying to maintain a solace life, Janie transforms and finds self-definition all the while discovering some of life’s true remarkableness. Janie also undergoes some self-realization in spite of the fact that she had experienced love and its losses with a whole other multitude of disasters, Janie had achieved things she never thought she could before, this is where she blossoms and becomes the “heroine.” Her American Dream solely involved finding someone to feel about her the same as she felt about them, essentially love and care for her as she did for them. It was reminiscence of the dream she had while laying under the pear tree, but she would always be chasing that feeling that she had gotten while watching the bees pollinate the blossoms. Janie’s idea of the American Dream is obtainable while her reality evolves throughout this book. As this novel takes place in the early to mid 1900s. In this era the women, those especially of color, are forced to accept the desires of womenfolk that are both unbreakable and submissive. Janie does experience these through her marriages but she does not let it tame or bridle the way she feels inside. These marriages however do shape to some degree her idea of the American Dream but it does not change Janie’s identity or self being. Her first marriage was an arranged marriage through her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny was getting old and she needed to make sure that Janie was “protected,” (p15-p7) meaning she would have a roof over her head and food on the table. So Nanny gave Janie no choice in marrying Logan Killicks, he had sixty acres of land and a way provide for her. This is not something that Janie wanted for herself. Before her marriage to Killian she often felt that love would offer a feeling of freedom, but this marriage had no love, at least not for Janie, and she tried. But it seemed that Logan only wanted someone to wait on him hand and foot, treating her like a “mule.” She felt like Logan had “desecrated the pear tree” (p14-p2). Logan and Janie maintained reciprocal attitudes about gender roles in [Show More]

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