Hajir Sailors

AP English
Summer Reading Log

Their Eyes Were Watching God-Chapter 4

The last chapter leaves us off at the start of the “Year of the Answers” and we
know that the year is not over because Neale Hurston’s first line is “Long before the year
was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talking in rhymes to her.” (26) Zora
Neale-Hurston gives us the answer to what Janie’s life on the farm will be like for the rest
of her life in the opening paragraph if not in the opening line. She goes on to describe
how Logan does not play with Janie’s hair anymore, Logan asks Janie to do more things
around the house, he feels tat Janie has been spoiled and now he needs to make her into a
real woman. This is the third time in four chapters that Janie is going to become a real
woman, yet she eludes it again.
Logan at the beginning of the chapter leaves Janie to cut up the potato seeds so
they can be ready to plant while he goes to find a mule and a plow so he can run two
plows when it is time to plow, except his plan is to have Janie run one of those two
plows. While he is gone Janie sees the exact man her grandmother described back in
chapter 2 or 3. This man is obviously from the city, looks spiffy, and is as the book states
“…a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these
parts…” (27) Janie wanted this man’s attention so she started pumping water, and she
quickly got it, soon Janie and this man were meeting every morning and slowly Joe
Starks took Janie and turned her back into a pear tree. He promised her the most
wonderful life she could imagine, and like a bee landing on that tree was ready to fulfill
her every desire.
The night before Joe Starks was set to leave Janie asks Logan in bed what would
happen if she got up one day and left him. It is obvious that Logan is hurt by the mere
suggestion of this happening and he definitely does not take kindly to it. The next
morning he tries to get Janie to do some work out in the barn, but rather than getting any
help he starts an argument. The argument is the final convincing factor for Janie to
realize that her answer does not lie within this 60 acre farm and the two mules out in the
country, she can never love that. Her new answer was with Joe Starks who was waiting
for her with a hired rig. They were married before sundown at Green Cove Springs, and
Janie had found “The new bee for her blossom.” (32)