Words, one of the world's most powerful weapons; depending on how you use them. The way words are used in speech can effect your life, for the best or the worst. One author in particular who is a specialist in Novelist, Folklorist, and Anthropy had put her knowledge in to writing a novel called Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was written by Zora Neale Hurtson herself. Hurtson based this novel on a belief that most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be, but the main character in the novel proves that statement to be legit; if you don't change your life then it will never change.
One major step in changing your life is speaking up for what you believe in. Throughout the novel we find out the changes Janie goes through to pursue happiness. Imagine a sixteen year old girl, with no fatherly figure and no mother to guide her, she is left with her nanny; the girl is curious about love and emotions. This girl is Janie, when Janie was sixteen her nanny saw her kiss a young boy named Johny Taylor and told Janie that she was mature enough to get married. Janie had antipathy toward her nanny's decision; she thought that the man she was to marry, Logan Killicks, was old and gross.
Janie didn't want to disrespect her nanny's choice; so she married Logan. Although she voiced her opinion on him, it was weak; sometimes happiness for one's self brings dissapointment to others. Janie stayed with Logan for a short amount of time before she decided she was going to leave him. Her voice became heard more when she made her own decision on her pursuit of happiness. Down the road, Janie left Logan for a man named Joe Starks.
She seemed happy with him, he bought her everything she could ever dream of having.The only thing Joe couldn't buy her was happiness. He made her stay home all the time, made her out to be better than any women in the town; Janie felt tied down. Janie's hair was significantly important to her, it was part of her appeal; almost very symbolic to her freedom as a women. Joe made Janie wear her hair up, he was jealous of it. Janie just did whatever Joe said to do, afraid to speak up.
Joe didn't allow her to give any speeches either, it "wasn't her place" to do so and it wasn't her place to take word in anyone's conversations.One day when Janie was working at the store she cut a man's tobacco, she had cut it crooked but the customer just laughed about it but Joe instantly insulted her saying, "You ain't no young courtin' gal. You'se un ole women, nearly fourty", Janie stood up for herself and fought back with harsh words. Although Janie stood up for herself, which is good, she was punished; Joe slapt her. After that incident, Janie had lost her voice for a long twenty years; untill Joe died. When Joe died, Janie felt free again, she could still search for happiness.
Janie didn't have to search long, her happiness came to her. Janie met a man named Tea Cake, he was younger and fun. When she married him she realized that when she was with Tea Cake she can be herself and she is allowed to speak her mind. Tea Cake at one point even slaps Janie but she reacts by doing nothing, her silence symbolizes her love for Tea Cake.
It's good to speak your mind because no one like to be kept quiet all the time, sometimes you have to learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose. ventually Tea Cake does die at the end of the novel, from rabies and Janie shooting him.Janie was defending her life, she said that "He kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull. Then we lives offa dat happiness he made till some mo' happiness come along". Then shortly after his death, she returns to her home town; filled with gossiping neighbors. She ignores them, they will never understand her story.
Janie is quiet in various parts of the novel, some good silences and some bad, either way they effected her life.Words are powerful, but silence can also kill a person; what we do effects our life everyday. Janie's role of silence, outburst's, and joy lead to her everlasting love and happiness with life at the end. The role of silence throughout the novel was a lesson for change.
A person must find things out for themselves and morph into who they want to become. Like Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, "The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning".
