Janie's Life In The Bee By Joe Starks

Register to read the introduction… Joe Starks provides Janie with an escape from the protective and unsatisfying love of Logan. Janie feels for the first time in her life that she may be able to find true love with Joe, who wants her to be treated like a lady, rather than being a farmer’s wife. Her first instincts tell her he is not her bee, “he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees” (29). Although, this chance at change, changes as she yet again hopes to find “a bee for her bloom” and she vowed that “From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). After being married just a short time, Janie realized how possessive Joe turned out to be. Joe views Janie as his possession, neither a wife nor a woman. He expects Janie to follow his orders, just as the townspeople abide by the laws he creates as mayor. Janie during her marriage with Jody grows to be a little more independent. As Joe treats Janie as his possession instead of his wife, Janie gains an inner strength. Her strength builds, and one day she stands up for herself to Joe in front of the men who sit around on the porch in front of the store. This act is Janie's first of her inner strength. Her strength and independence grow as Joe becomes weaker. As Joe lies dying, Janie explains to him that he is not the man that she ran off with years ago. She …show more content…
From the beginning, Janie's dreams are limited by her circumstances. Early in her life, "Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon--for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you--and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her." (89). She expresses how her grandmother eventually crushed her dreams and hope to almost nothing. Nanny essentially made Janie to marry Logan at the age of sixteen, and ignores her wishes. Nanny seemed to not care about her granddaughter’s dreams and wishes at all. Throughout the novel, Janie lives her life hoping it to be like the horizon but her reality seems to be going in a different direction. At the end of the novel, the audience can see how Janie has finally fulfilled her dream or has come to her own