Their Eyes Were Watching God
...self-fulfillment. Of Janie’s three marriages, Logan and Joe provide her with a sense of security and status. However, only her union with Teacake flourishes into true love.
Janie’s first marriage to Logan Killicks was an arranged marriage by her Grandmother Nanny. One day Nanny caught Janie kissing the neighborhood riff raff Johnny Taylor, and Nanny becomes convinced that Janie has entered her womanhood, and needs to marry.
Nanny chooses Logan Killicks for her granddaughter simply because he has sixty acres of land on the main road. Nanny believes that this would provide Janie with the added security needed to be a black woman during the time in which the novel is set.
Three months into the marriage, Janie realizes that she still does not feel any love for Logan, so she decides to give Nanny a visit. When Janie addresses her concerns to her grandmother, Nanny immediately dismisses them and tells Janie that her mind will change as time passes, and to think about Logan’s sixty acres of land. Janie is unsatisfied with this justification, and goes back home still with doubts about whether or not marriage will “end the cosmic loneliness of the unmarried”.
A year into the marriage Janie decides that she is no longer happy in her marriage, she measures these months on terms of the seasons: “So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time, and orange time . Janie is a sensual woman who grew up in nature and learned about sex and love from sitting underneath a pear tree and watching the bees spread pollen. Land is not enough to satisfy her desires and make her happy in her marriage.
The last straw for Janie is when Logan stops speaking in rhymes to her. To Janie rhymes and love go hand in hand, also Logan stopped looking at her black hair which is symbolic to her sexual identity, so when Logan stops looking at her hair and speaking in rhymes to Janie, it means to...
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