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Victoria Balcom

Angela Guerrero

English 4

6-11-2017

Women Oppressed In Marriage: Power and Control

In Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston discusses the topic of

women oppressed in marriage by exploring themes of arranged marriage, gender roles, and

abuse. In the early 1900s, marriage was seen as the way to gain protection and a purpose in life.

For many young women, marriage meant that they would be seen as a cook, a maid, and a nanny.

The protagonist, Janie Starks, is a young African American woman who recounts her marriages

and young life to a friend. In her first marriage, readers see how she is oppressed by her

grandmother and her husbands inability to love her. Joe, her second husband, resorted to

physical violence and emotional abuse to control Janie. After Joes death, Janie is finally free to

live her life as she chooses, and in that process, she meets Tea Cake, a charming young man

whom she eventually marries. In that marriage, Tea Cake and Janie start strong and happy, their

lives filled with love and joy. However, eventually, the influence of gender roles and possession

that were common at that time took control of Tea Cake. Through reading about these

experiences readers explore the way she was treated in each of her marriages, how she was

oppressed, and how she found freedom.

In her late teens, Janies grandmother forced her into a marrying a poor farmer named

Logan Hillicks, a man she did not love or want to marry. She convinced herself to be devoted to

her husband, and tried to form some attachment to him. After three months in her lonely and

isolated marriage, Janie confronts her Grandmother, Nanny, about her decision to force Janie
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into marrying Logan. Nanny berates Janie for not appreciating her husbands generosity and

protectiveness, persuading her to stay in the marriage, stating, Taint no use in you cryin,

Janie...Better leave things de way de is. Youse young yet...Wait awhile,baby. Yo mind will

change, (Hurston 24). Soon after Janies conversation with Nanny, she dies, leaving Janie alone

in her marriage. A year after her grandmothers death, Janie still did not love Logan. And neither

did her husband, Long before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped

talking in rhymes to her, (Hurston 26). To Janie, love is devotion and adoration. As a result of

Logan never being able to truly satisfying her needs, Janie leaves Logan, running away with a

striking man named Joe Starks. In this new marriage, Janies mistreatment will continue.

At the beginning of her second marriage to Joe, Janie is treated like royalty. Pampered

and prodded, Janie is revered in Eatonville. Joe Starks, a natural leader, becomes the mayor of

Eatonville, the small town they travel to shortly after they are married. In his first act as town

mayor, Joe erects a streetlamp, lighting the main drive through the town. At its lighting

ceremony, townspeople ask for some words of encouragement from Mrs. Mayor Starks, to which

Joe immediately shuts down. My wife dont know nothin bout no speech-making. Ah never

married her for nothin lak dat. Shes uh woman and her place is in the home, (Hurston 45). Joe

is quick to assume Janies unintelligence, stating that she is not there for that purpose.

To Joe, Janie is his cook, housekeeper, store runner, and pin cushion. This relates to the

age-old idea that wives are property, only there to make dinner and raise the children, preferably

males. Since Joe believes that he owns Janie, he controls how she interacts with people, and how

other people interact with her. He holds all the power. So when he catches another townsperson

rubbing his hand on his wifes hair while shes working in his store, he orders her to tie it up in a

rag. That night he ordered Janie to tie her hair up around the store. She was there in the store for
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him to look at, not those others, (Hurston 55). He is exterminating Janies femininity, forcing

her to demean her beauty in order for him to keep his jealousy in check. Before Joes death over

20 years later, Janie is still wearing the rags around her head. When her husband finally dies, she

burns them. In her marriage to Joe, Janie never experienced autonomy. She was Joes doll. After

his death, Janie was finally able to shed herself of Joe, of his possession. Her burning her hair

rags represented the birth of her freedom, and after meeting Tea Cake, the doors to freedom only

continued to be opened.

Months after Joes death, Janie is still independent, moving on with her life as a widow.

Although many people have offered her companionship, she has graciously refused. However,

one night, a young man named Tea Cake stops in her store. He offers to play checkers with her,

but she refuses- Ah cant play uh lick, (Hurston 133). Nobody ever showed her how. In her

marriage to Joe, he often suppressed her desire to connect with the townspeople on even that

level. Joe said she was too good for them. But Tea Cake showed her how to play. He treated her

as an equal. Eventually, they fall in love, and leave Eatonville for the Everglades, where they can

be together without the judgment of the town. Tea Cake and Janie get married, this time for love.

Janie is free, but not alone. But even in this idyllic marriage, power struggles ensue. After

meeting a friends son, Janie is beat by Tea Cake. Before the week was over, Tea Cake had

whipped Janie. Not because her behavior was justified. Being able to whip her reassured him in

possession, (Hurston 147). After Tea Cake beat Janie, the people working with Tea Cake in the

bean fields lauded Tea Cake for the control he had over his wife. Janie loved him so much she

didnt even react. The way she clung onto him after was like he had almost killed her. The men

in the town dreamed of such submission, and the women craved that dominance, clearly relating

to the existence of gender roles in 1900s America. Men we're seen as dominant, superior people,
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while women we're seen as submissive and less strong, physically and emotionally. In Janies

case, even she, someone who often stood up for herself, allowed Tea Cake to physically punish

her for his own insecurities.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston paints a detailed picture of the life of a young

woman in the 1900s. By divulging into Janies past, you glean lessons about freedom,

happiness, love and control. In exploring the intricacies of oppression, especially that of a young

woman in a loveless, abusive or confusing marriage, you learn how to truly gain freedom. In the

end, Janie mentions that her life felt new. That the air was fresh, the wind clearing out the

negativity in her home. Freedom may not be running across fields of daisies. It may just be

finally being able to breathe in a house once filled with flames.

Works Cited

1. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
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