Janie's Got a Gun

Janie’s Got a Gun

In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Janie is a woman who has gone through a lot in her life. She was raised in a time where women, especially black women, were forced into marriages for stability, protection, and money, but she knows she wants something better for herself, she wants the one thing that money cannot buy. She has had three marriages and they have all ended in her learning a little about herself in each one. As she grew as a person in these unaffectionate relationships she began to realize that she was looking for a sort fulfillment and each time she got married the hole began to fill a little at a time, but they did not fill the one area she needed to filled, the area of love. That is way she does not stop looking for love until she gets it. Janie final becomes herself after the men are out of her life and she realizes all she needed was some love. By finding love she has been able to love herself.

Janie’s first husband, Logan Killicks, was a man who her grandmother, Nanny, wanted Janie to be with because of his financial stability. There was no love involved in the pairing of these two people, therefore, in Janie’s eyes, it was not like a real marriage because there was no love involved. As eloquently put by Alice Reich “Janie marries not a man but sixty acres and protection” (Pheoby's Hungry 164). She is absolutely correct, there was no sustenance in the relationship of Janie and Logan. After a little while into the marriage Logan demands that Janie start working in the farm with him but she denies to do anything outside and they begin to fight over this. Janie could never truly give herself so this man she did not care for, which includes giving her time to his farm. Soon after this event a man named Joe Stark comes into town and wins Janie over by his new and imaginative future for himself and possibly her. She thinks life will be better if she leaves Logan and goes with Jody but she soon realizes this is...