There has been a lot of
talk lately about Janie and her two marriages, from both perspectives, those
who feel sympathy for Janie and those who think she is being "whiny."
In her first marriage
Janie is married, against her will, to Logan Killicks, a farmer with 60 acres
of land. Logan really loves her and for about a month he waits on her and
praises her constantly. But after a while he stops and begins asking her to help
out around the farm by doing things such as chopping wood and shoveling manure.
Janie refuses to do these things and takes them almost as an affront, it seems
as though she believes that these tasks are beneath her. Then along comes Joe
Starks all handsome, suave, and rich and she immediately runs off with him. I
don't think that this is something that Janie should be severely criticized for;
she didn't love Logan at all and was forced to marry him.
After living with Jody
for a while with him as that mayor of Eatonville and her as the mayor's wife
Jody begins to seem like a bad husband as well. He forces her to work in the
shop all the time, even forcing her to wear a hair rag so that the other men won't
look at her. He won't let her partake in the town gossip since that is
"beneath" her in her position as mayor's wife, and as they grow older
he begins to point out her signs of aging like wrinkles, in an attempt to draw
attention away from his own aging. Some people seem to be very sympathetic for
Janie at this point and there is some sympathy to be had for Janie but I think
that it is partially her own fault. What was stopping her from just leaving
Jody when he started acting like this towards her? It says that they were
married for 20 years, so this isn't a new occurrence by the end
of their marriage. It seems to me like she could have just as easily run away
from Jody as she did from Logan.
.
I first just want to say that I find your title interesting because she really hasn't been in a ton of marriages at this point in the book. She's only been married twice, but we are surprised at how fickle she is. With that being said, she doesn't really have a lot of experience with relationships, as she married Logan when she was still a teenager, so I think this is part of why she changes her mind so frequently. She's still trying to figure this stuff out herself. Also, I agree that Janie shouldn't be criticized for her marriage with Logan. I wasn't even sure if he loved her, I got the idea that he just wanted a wife, and didn't feel love, but more lust (that sentence was written weirdly I'm sorry). Janie did try to love him too, but she went into the marriage without any affection and couldn't bring herself to love him and his faults, so I don't think the marriage would've ever made the both of them happy. With Jody, Janie does go into the marriage with affection, and I think that's why she stays with him until he dies. She definitely could've just walked away from him like she walked away from Logan, but I think an important difference between her marriage with Jody and her marriage with Logan is that she was more capable of loving Jody, though she never does fully love him because of how she treats her, but it's enough to make her stay. I think she definitely wasn't more happy with him though, especially because after he dies she feels a newfound sense of freedom.
ReplyDeleteSomeone brought up a really good point in class: Janie chose to enter her marriage with Jody, however arbitrarily it was, while she was forced into the marriage with Logan. I suppose that she felt an obligation to own up to her choices.
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't Jody everything she dreamed of? He is the fertile, attractive, young, and ambitious man that came to sweep Janie off her feet. It seems that she gets money, power, comfort, visibility, and passion. Although it didn't quite work out like that internally, I imagine that Janie was deluding herself a bit, holding on to the small pieces she enjoys of this lifestyle that, at least, trumped what she had with Logan.
Wow, today's conversation must have really appealed to a lot of people, myself included...(or just that blogs are due tomorrow :). Anyway, I think that you bring up a good point about how Janie could have left Jody. I feel like I should have commented on the fact that Janie stayed. There is no doubt that Janie stopped loving Jody, and she left Logan when she realized she felt no love for him, so why did she stay? I would like to think that Janie endured all the beratements and harsh treatment from Jody just to have the opportunity to tell Jody what she thought of him and give him a piece of her mind. In many ways, I feel like she was waiting for the right time when she would be able to reciprocate the harsh treatment that he had given her.
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