Their Eyes Were Watching God

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was also emotionally hardened by the strain of her unsuccessful relationships. This is a notable change from the beginning of the novel where she was portrayed as a carefree, hopeful, young woman who did not have a single doubt about what true love was. These naive characteristics are recognizable when the reader discovers Janie’s newly formed thoughts of marriage after watching the pollination of a pear tree. Janie subconsciously compares this interaction with the aspects that her future holds when she has the following thought: "So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to witness a revelation!" (2.14). Janie had very high hopes for her romantic relationships in the future. However, after meeting Logan, Janie discovers that it is not possible to only celebrate someone’s virtues and ignore their flaws. This is shown through each of her marriages. For example, when meeting Logan for the first time the author states that, "the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor." (2.39). Janie is initially repulsed by Logan’s appearance, due to her unrealistic and naive outlook on what love is and how it presents itself. Later, Janie accepts her suitors’ flaws and becomes more tolerable of them. Towards the end of the novel, Janie takes into account someone’s personality instead of just their appearance. She learns this by being fooled by Jody’s first impression of kindness only to regret her enthusiasm of the relationship. Also, she can be seen standing by this patience when she puts up with Teacake’s transgressions against her in the name of forgiveness and fighting for what might be true love. This is more broadly noticeable if the reader analyzes her relationships in retrospect and compares her romantic standards as well as her patience with other people from the beginning to that of the end of the novel.

Another extremely notable change in Janie’s personality is that, by the end of the novel, she no longer feels the need to rush into finding someone to love and spend her life with. Quite the opposite can be seen as true in the beginning of the novel when Janie experiences her first frustrations with the reality of her marriage to Logan when she says, "’He don’t even even never mention nothin’ pretty.’ She began to cry. ’Ah wants sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think" (3.26-28). Janie’s idea of love includes sweetness, beauty, and romance, as shown to her by her pear tree experience. When Logan shows no tendencies to even try to achieve this type of immortal beauty, that is necessary to Janie’s concept of love, she felt cheated. Janie had such high expectations for what love would be like that when she was greeted with reality, she was disappointed. Not only with her love relationships, but with casual friendships, Janie adopts the thought that waiting for such miracles is foolish. At the end of her journey Janie shows her position on this subject when she says, "Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh themselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh themselves" (20.9). Janie no longer concerns herself with thoughts, actions, or gossip that she deems petty. Whereas, throughout certain parts of the novel, such as the trial for Teacake’s death, Janie genuinely cares about what people will think of her.

Overall, Janie’s journey did not have the purpose of finding love rather than finding herself. While searching for her identity, she developed casual as well as romantic relationships that exposed her to experiences that helped shape her personality in the end. Although these lessons were mostly unearthed at the hands of her romances, the point of the story was to track Janie’s growth and development as a dynamic character. The importance of her relationships is to show how and why she changes. Also, Janie is featured as the sole main character in the novel. This shows that the focus is mainly on her and not her changing relationships. In other words, her interactions with other characters served as catalysts to justify the resulting changes in her personality that she found within herself to discover. Ergo, when looking at the big picture, the audience should recognize that the story is solely about Janie and her growth, giving it reason to be classified