In both towns, Janie speaks as an outsider. The men’s stories feature silent women who are included in the stories as objects for the men to lust after or win, rather than active characters with their own emotions. They only include women in the stories about men. These tales cast women as men’s objects of desire, reduced to their appearance and the social status it affords them. In Eatonville, Coker and Hicks, just after greeting Janie and Jody to Eatonville, discuss what getting a wife will need:
“It takes money to feed pretty women. Dye gits uh lavish uh talk.”
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“Not like mine. Dey loves to hear me talk because dey can’t understand it. Mah co-talkin’ is too deep. Too much love co to it.” (Hurston 36)
From a man’s perspective, women want to listen to men speak, because they cannot understand “lavish” speech; the men believe they can use this speech and their money to earn the women—just as they would earn a prize. Joe earns Janie as he talks her into leaving Logan and gains her as a wife through his monetary power. The scene where Joe is named mayor reveals his view about a woman’s proper place. The men in town invite Janie to talk and Joe responds by saying, “mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin'.’ Ah never married her for nothin’ like dat. She’s uh woman and her place are in de home” (Hurston 43). In this instance, Joe is clarifying for the community that Janie’s role does not include being a speechmaker or a storyteller. In short, there is no room for her in the public sphere. Silencing Janie and assigning the realm of home as her rightful place shows his role as a gatekeeper for patriarchy.The novel draws a picture of a storytelling town in which Janie wants to participate. Cheryl A. Wall, a Hurston Scholar, describes this image as “neither wholly public nor private, it fosters free expression for blacks whose labor is exploited during the day. For women, however, it is not a safe space” (Wall 381). In this “safe space,” men are free to share their stories without worrying about their social status and how these statuses affect their ability to interact with each other, but the same is not true for Janie. Some may argue that Their Eyes Were Watching God is indeed a feminist novel as she breaks the norms after each marriage. Janie first marries Logan Killicks not because she wants to be with him but to please her Nanny. Logan means well but oppresses Janie and insists she work with him out in the field. She continues to suffer from this emotional oppression until she becomes fed up with his ways and musters up the courage to leave the only home she’s known. Her second marriage with Joe Starks is even more complex and damaging as he does not allow Janie to speak in public and berates her. Through this marriage bits of feminism can be seen with her flashes of rebellion while mostly acting like the subservient wife Joe expects her to be. In addition, when she finally voices her thoughts, Joe dies due to being brought down by her retaliation and gives way to her freedom. Her marriage with Tea Cake is considered to be one with emotional and intellectual compatibility. For the first time, Janie is doing what she wants rather than conforming to what others want her to do. However, their relationship still falls short as he beats her to show who is boss, flirts with others, and gambles. But despite his flaws, she is still truly happy. However, Tea Cake has white-inspired values when it comes to his behavior towards Janie as he is very possessive of her. He acts as if Janie has a free choice of will, but behind the façade of kindness, there is patronizing contradicting feminist ideals. From a feminist view it could be said that at in her last relationship, Janie is a free woman, enjoying financial stability and a supportive husband. However, she is blinded by her love for Tea Cake, the man she visions him to be. Tea Cake charms Janie by treating her as a fragile, high-class woman without having the means to support this lifestyle. She is not forced to work even though Tea Cake goes through many struggles to provide an income for themselves. She allows Tea Cake to take care of her and she even allows him to patronize her, not showing any resistance or taking any actions. In her eyes, Tea Cake is protective of her, but in fact, he is re-establishing his manhood by controlling her, diminishing her, and behaving as though she were a child. A lthoughThough the novel is regarded as a feminist work as Janie gains her independence after oppression by men, it cannot be regarded as a feminist novel as there are aspects that conflict with feminist theory. It struggles to combine feminist ideals of equality of men and women with traditional gender roles. William M. Ramsey claims that he claims that Janie’s determination to be an independent woman contradicts her traditional ideas about men and women in that she believes that a man must provide the woman with a good living and to love and protect her. According to Ramsey, the text is “both a precursor to the modern feminist agenda yet also a reactionary tale embalming Hurston’s tender passions for a very traditional male” ( Ramsey 38). He declares that Hurston did not manage to create a strong female character as she is very dependent on men. Janie is unable to function without a man by her side as she demonstrates no ability to survive alone and never perceives herself as an independent human being. She ends up with a man who dominates her instead, hoping he will provide her with a sense of self-definition and identity. Longing for a man to take care of her, opposing the feminist ideals that the novel is attempting to convey. Despite the alleged feminist character of the novel, Janie’s relationships are defined by male dominance. During her marriages, it looks as if Janie trades up in terms of recognition and equality, but that is not the case. The first two marriages being filled with dominance and violence, make the third marriage seem like one where both are of equal standing. However, in her marriage to Tea Cake, she is tricked into believing that she is in an equal marriage due to her blindness to Tea Cake’s degrading actions, thus making her unsuitable to have a feminist role.
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