Their Eyes Were Watching God Power Analysis

Power plays a key factor in Their Eyes Were Watching God, the dominant discourse is masculine, and the feminine is supposed to be submissive towards the men. Janie, the main character of the novel, plays both the dominant and submissive which in the case is the empowered and overpowered. She can be defined as a woman who is loving, caring, and self-willed. However, her power gets taken away from her from people who judge her and those who she loves dearly. Sometimes her being overpowered highly outweighs her being empowered. Janie was forced into her first marriage, received everything as far as materials but struggles to truly find herself because he was controlling. But her third and last marriage resulted in her really being able to find …show more content…
This is where jody would tell Janie his dreams in which she falls for but at the same time nanny’s controlling thoughts still roam throughout Janie’s head. This is a great representation of being overpowered by a woman’s words that no longer physically exist but for Janie, mentally, it does. However, Jody gives off this impression that he can give Janie love and support her financially, something that Logan couldn’t give her both of. Giving her escape to a new life with just a simple plan. Later on that evening she had a conversation with Hicks in regarding their marriage and if he really needed her being that he really didn’t love her. Logan felt as if Janie was spoiled so he really didn’t care because he felt as if though Janie would come back to him being that she didn’t have anywhere to go and he could provide for her financially. On the contrary, Janie did worked up enough courage to do whats right for her and leave. She meet up with Jody but it states, “ Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good (32).” So regardless if Joe was going to meet up with her, she was going to go off anyway just to do herself good and find happiness which was basically a new chapter for her. This is Janie trying to find herself, taking over her life and finding empowerment within. Jody seems charming to Jamie at first, giving her a town a and other materials. However, he does become controlling making her tie her hair up, banning her from being able to hang with everyone else, especially the men. This is one sign of Jody taken Janie’s voice, her human rights, making it hard for her to escape from male domination thrown upon her from her husband, a man she actually loved. She wanted to be submissive to her husband but have her voice of reason and