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Their Eyes Were Watching God Theme Analysis

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Love is crucial to one of the most important themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, love in many different forms are displayed. In this novel, when Janie marries Logan for the sake of her grandmother’s satisfaction, she immediately realizes that she doesn’t love Logan as a husband in any shape or form. Logan rarely shows Janie any form of affection to display that he loves her. Janie’s relationship with Joe Starks is somewhat similar to the relationship that she had with Logan. Both Logan and Joe have this mindset that men should always be the authoritative figure in the relationship, which is ignorant and unjust. Both partners should have equal rights in a fully functioning relationship. As Janie’s relationship with Joe Starks progressed, she realized that her idea of love wasn’t displayed when they were together. Joe had an idea of love that wasn’t equal for both him and Janie. However when Janie was married to Tea Cake, he took Janie’s feelings and opinions into consideration. Considering that Logan, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake all have different ideas of the term “love”, this explains their differences in actions towards Janie. Their Eyes Were Watching God displays the theme that when loving someone, their ideas and opinions can affect you as an individual.
Janie’s freedom was decreased when she married Logan. …show more content…
When Janie was married to Joe Starks, her freedom of speech was taken away from her. Janie began to hold in her opinions because she knew that Joe wouldn’t listen to her if she said them. When Janie married Tea Cake she was affected positively; she became noticeably happier with her life. Love in a relationship should always allow both individuals to be affected positively, similar to the way Janie was affected when she married Tea

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