Their Eyes Were Watching Janie by Grace Jones

Their Eyes Were Watching Janie

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston writes a compelling story surrounding the life of Janie. Hurston uses strategic writing to symbolize and follow Janie throughout her journey of finding herself. Many scholars target their studies towards the journey on the horizon that Janie takes in the book and the influence that communities and her relationships have on her journey. Studying Their Eyes Were Watching God with a feminist perspective will not only highlight what will impact Janie’s journey, but also concentrate on how Janie confidently finds comfort in her identity. Gilbert and Gubar’s “Madwoman in the Attic” concentrates on how “Women ‘can appear from certain points of view to stand both under and over the sphere of culture’s hegemony…’ a woman is not only excluded from culture but she also becomes herself and embodiment of just those extremes of mysterious and intransigent otherness which culture confronts” (598). In literature, when women are seen from others’ perspectives, they are then stifled to grow and completely embody themselves, which mirrors Janie’s personal experiences and struggles throughout the novel. Janie’s appearance and disposition are traditionally studied based off the points of view from the communities and the husband she has at that time in her life. While this is true, one symbolically important factor for Janie’s transformation into her true self, which many scholars have failed to highlight, is the impact that clothing has on Janie throughout this story. This paper will highlight and study the influential impact that clothing has on Janie throughout the communities she lives in and her journey in the book.

Many scholars have focused on the economic and marital impacts that shape and symbolize Janie becoming her true self. Yet, when taking a different approach to this analysis, it becomes prevalent that Hurston uses clothing as a significant symbol to represent Janie finding herself. The continuous theme of stylistic changes that appear during the novel take place during Janie’s most critical and influential changes in life, which are not focused on Janie’s economic and marital status. The approach and recognition of clothing’s impact on Janie allow a more diverse conversation to develop towards a female character that escapes the cycle of being a dependent wife that is subordinate to her husband. By studying how a woman can obtain personal growth and happiness outside of marriage, creates a striking contrast to many scholars’ focus on Janie’s character and Their Eyes Were Watching God’s impact on readers. In Gordon Thompson’s critical analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God called “Projecting Gender: Personification in the Works of Zora Neale Hurston,” he concludes that Hurston’s “style of writing does not make her a ‘serious painter’ of visual imagery” (739). Another article entitled, “Invisibility of the I’s in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” authors Daram and Hozhabrsadat write that it is “characters such as Janie… [that] model stories of women freeing themselves from the extremes of ‘othering,’ binary images set upon them by the dominant… men in their culture” (84). Yet, I argue against these criticisms that Hurston’s explicit imagery of Janie’s clothing does effectively deliver visual imagery to the readers, and that it also catapults Janie out of the image the men in her life have set for herself. When examined, clothing transforms Janie in almost every aspect of her life, and eventually is an eye-opening symbol dealing with Janie understanding her identity.

Scholars, like Maria Racine, in her article, “Voice and Interiority in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God,” focus on the isolation that Janie experiences throughout the book, and then connect that to Janie “learning to achieve her voice against the opposition of men” in her life (283). Yet, Beauvoir writes, in “Myths: Of Women in Five Authors,” that it is “the absence or insignificance of the feminine element throughout the work of an author… [that] is extremely important when it sums up in its totality all the aspects of the other… it remains important when [a] woman is viewed simply as an other but the writer is interested in the individual adventure of her life” (678). Hurston prioritizes Janie in this individual adventure of life rather than continuing the isolating and stifling disposition Janie experiences in the novel by writing her clothing as a symbolic reference to the changes that happen in Janie’s life. Even though, “that was the only change people saw in [Janie]” there is an inward shift and change that is still important, no matter who notices (89). These changes in Janie are seen by her surrounding persons through her clothing and whether Janie dresses as expected or if she dresses to accommodate her own comfort. Hurston uses explicit detail of Janie and her clothing to connect these major themes of finding personal identity and new beginning through a personal journey on the horizon. In her article “My Statue, My Self Autobiographical Writings of Afro-American Women,” Fox-Genovese writes on Hurston’s “strategies of representation… [being] set on an ideal beyond the horizon of everyday life” (64, 65). Hurston does this by utilizing the horizon to symbolize clothing and she uses both the horizon and clothing to vividly describe Janie and her surroundings in the novel.

Although clothing can seem like a minimal impact to a person’s identity and journey throughout their life, Lauer and Lauer write in “The Language of Dress: A Sociohistorical Study of the Meaning of Clothing in America” that “by far the most common assertion about dress is that it conveys information about the wearer’s character and personality… for both men and women, dress is an extension of one’s personality [and] is the most obvious mark of personal dignity” (306). This article focuses on how clothing, in America, is a prevailing factor in understanding the personality of the wearer. While in Their Eyes Were Watching God, clothing is not a luxury that Janie has control over to style and depict her personality. It is not until the end of her journey when she stops allowing others to impose their opinions on her for what they expect her to wear. Janie not only adapts a sense of personal integrity and confidence, but she also adopts a sense of comfort throughout her dress. Lauer and Lauer’s writing suggests that this mirrors the idea that “Self-respect is always well dressed, while self-contempt is down at the heel” (306).

Hurston continually writes Janie’s desire to achieve “that oldest human longing—self-revelation,” highlighting specific details and types of clothing that Janie wears through impactful moments in her life (7). For Janie’s initial description, Hurston draws specific attention to the appearance of Janie’s clothing in the eyes of the community. Opening the impression of Janie from the community with “What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on? — Where’s dat blue satin dress she left here in,” immediately sets the tone and importance that Janie’s appearance will have in the remainder of the story (2). Hurston uses Janie’s “faded shirt and muddy overalls” to symbolize the ending of Janie’s great, yet difficult adventure that is not only apparent through the state of her clothes but is also noticed in the newfound persona that Janie emits as she arrives home. In the article “‘The Porch Couldn’t Talk for Looking’: Voice and Vision in Their Eyes Were Watching God,” author Deborah Clarke notes that through the community “looking at her body, the men see her as sexed; for the women, gazing on her apparel, she is gendered. In both cases, it seems, Janie vanishes. The men define her as female body parts and the women deny her feminine identity” (604). This introduces the continuing theme of Janie’s dress signifying her otherness and separate identity from others surrounding her. Hurston then transitions into Janie’s childhood, where she signifies Janie’s isolation and displacement throughout her youth. Since her adolescence, Janie remembers being dressed in the clothes from her grandmother’s white boss. Janie reminisces that she “uster dress up in all de clothes [Mrs. Washburn’s] gran’chillun didn’t need no mo’ which wuz better’n whut de rest uh de colored chillum had,” which is the start of Janie’s separation and displacement from others being signified through clothing (9). As Janie grows and realizes she wants to leave her first marriage with Logan, Hurston begins to tie the theme of potential new opportunities along the horizon with Janie’s clothing and appearance.

As Janie leaves Logan for Jody, Hurston writes that “the morning road air [is] like a new dress” (32). Janie starts this new journey with her new husband and “with new clothes of silk and wool” (33). While Hurston uses the road and clothing to symbolize this change that starts in Janie and writes how Janie is proud of this new chapter in her life. According to Lauer and Lauer’s writings, they would consider this newfound attire to represent Janie and Joe’s plans to successfully make their way in their new town because “style is the evidence for every snap judgement [people] make about a stranger” (309). Hurston exhibits this when Janie and Joe arrive in the town and the townspeople “stared at Joe’s face, his clothes and his wife” (35). This immediate attention to their appearance further shows how Hurston craftily uses clothing and appearance as a symbol of change and impact throughout this story. It is during this initial attention Joe and Janie experience that set’s Janie’s the expected dress and appearance of Janie for many years come. After Joe sees the attraction and attention that the townspeople project on Janie, he sets a strict standard of what she will wear when in public. Joe becomes possessive and domineering over Janie’s appearance and makes her adapt her look to fit within societal norms. Joe cares deeply about how others perceive he and Janie, so he tells “her to dress up and stand in the store all evening… [wearing] one of her bought dresses” (41). Janie obeys his desires, yet Joe begins to want more control of her look and was set that “her hair was NOT going to show in the store” because of attention it called to Janie (55). Hurston shares with the readers the shift of Janie’s appearance becoming only a benefit “for [Joe] to look at, not others” (55). This relationship transitions into a stifling nature that Hurston symbolizes through Janie’s strict dress code set by Joe. It isn’t until Janie gains the courage and confidence during Joe’s death that the readers realize the major negative effect and impact that this marriage has on Janie and her identity.

In Knudsen’s article, “The Tapestry of Living: A Journey of Self-Discovery in Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” he notes that “Hurston dedicates two chapter to the documentation of what can be accurately described as Janie’s fragmentation at the hands of Joe Starks… [and] Janie’s inner feelings so accurately describe her fragmentation” (222). Hurston writes that this marriage with Joe makes Janie realize “she was a rut in the road” and that she misses the freedom she had “before Jody, while… she sat under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her clothes” (76, 77). This marriage shifts from Joe’s initial promise of the “far horizon” on “the morning road [with] a new dress” to the disappointingly heavy burden that Hurston pens as “every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun” (29, 32, 51). This exciting journey’s shift to its rut that was shaded from growth and new possibilities is notably unbearable for Janie. It is after Joe’s death that Hurston writes a major shift in Janie, once again symbolized through clothing. Janie approaches Joe exclaiming that he “ain’t de Jody ah run off down de road wid. You’se whut’s left after he died” (86). This “dead Joe” Janie identifies represents the domineering nature Joe adapted over Janie that killed her individuality and put a temporary hold on Janie’s personal growth and journey. Joe no longer “[represented] sun-up and pollen and blooming trees” and he stopped yearning “for the far horizon” and when he dies Janie notes that how his selfishness has stifled her (28). After Janie realizes this, she “tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair… and before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house the next morning with her hair in one thick braid” (87,89). Hurston uses this to represent the major inward shift beginning again. By immediately changing the style of dress Joe set for Janie, Hurston again uses clothes to symbolize Janie’s “great journey to the horizons in the search of people,” where she does not focus on the materialistic things that she has noticed from people in her life thus far (89).

To further the symbolic importance that clothing appears to have on Janie, Hurston combines one of her prevailing themes of the journey on the horizon to connect the impact that dress has on Janie. The journey along the horizon to a better life and new experiences, is an initial theme Hurston introduces at the start of her novel, while continuing to reference it until the end of her book. The connection of these two themes in the book assist Janie in reaching self-revelation and comfort. Hurston notes Janie’s desire to continue her “great journey to the horizons” by writing the horizon in the context of a prohibiting accessory, contradicting the way it is normally described throughout the book (89). For, Janie realizes after Joe’s death that that her grandmother altered “the horizon for not matter how far a person can go to the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (89). The anticipated journey along the horizon, in Janie’s eyes, had been taken from her and turned into a restrictive accessory in the relationships she has endured; and along with her husband’s began to choke and prohibit her to embrace herself. Yet, Hurston uses Janie’s failed past attempts to “show her shine” to prepare her for the change that will take place in her life (90). Racine writes that through the death of Joe, “Janie comes to understand herself, [and] uses her power to create the face and the voice that the community wants to see and hear in the announcement of Stark’s death” (288). Janie’s freedom from her first two marriages now leaves her with the capability to loosen the tightly pinched horizon from her neck and begin to wear “the sun for a shawl” (Hurston 193).

Janie’s act of burning her wardrobe that Joe inflicted on her symbolizes the inwards and outward changes Janie decides to embrace. The shift that Hurston writes in Janie after Joe’s death, continues to agree with Lauer and Lauer that clothing heavily impacts people’s perceptions on others when Hurston writes that Janie’s appearance through her clothing “was the only change people saw in her” rather than the inner confidence and strength that formed in Janie through this marriage (89). Despite the burning desire that Janie had to show the extent of change that has taken place in her life, she could not because of the projected expectations of the community around her. Lauer and Lauer reveal that there is a “strong pressure to accept the prevailing fashion because it [reflects] one’s acceptance of the social order,” and as Joe’s widow, Janie was expected to wear the appropriate mourning attire (312). Huston writes Joe’s funeral scene to exemplify how smothered Janie’s desire to embrace her new image is by Joe. Hurston writes “Janie’s starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil” and describes her funeral clothing like “a wall of stone and steel,” which represents the weight that this relationship had on Janie. Rather than trying to find another man to guide her Janie realizes that “these men didn’t represent a thing was wanted to know about. She has already experienced them through Logan and Joe” (90). Rather Janie had grown weary of her “six months of wearing black” and “emerged into her mourning white” (91, 92). Lauer and Lauer write that “clothes are more likely to reveal than to conceal a character,” while Janie’s clothing represents both her concealment of expression during the beginning of the book and her revelation of self in the end of the book (309). Janie’s dress at the beginning of her life and during her marriage with Joe, continually exhibit concealment and lack of self-expression, and it is not until Janie finds her third husband that she truly is able to find herself and reveal her understanding of self through her clothing. Knudsen references Kohut’s argument that “every major changeover or transition in life shakes up an image of the self and is usually accompanied by the loss of a selfobject” (220). This is most notable when Janie transitions from her life with Joe into her life with Tea Cake.

Janie’s shift and transition with her great love and last husband, Tea Cake, is the defining time in her life where she comes to understand her identity. After Tea Cake and Janie start their relationship, people begin to notice Janie “dressed in blue, [and] high heel slippers and a ten dollar hat [because] Tea Cake told her to wear it” (110). It is in Janie’s newfound happiness and confidence that she begins to dress to reveal her character, rather than to conceal herself like she does in the majority of the novel. Furthermore, Hurston writes Janie explaining this shift saying “Tea Cake love me in blue, so Ah wears it. Jody ain’t never in his life picked out no color for me. De world picked out black and white for mournin’, Joe didn’t. So Ah wasn’t wearin’ it for him. Ah was wearin’ it for de rest of y’all” (113). By having Janie explain her reasons for why she wears the clothing she does not only show how clothing impacts and symbolizes her love and commitment to her relationships, yet also shows the important symbolic impact that clothing has on Janie and the community around her. Authors Daram and Hozhabrsadat argue that “Janie learns to value her vision and see herself better when she is with Tea Cake” (89). Janie now happily wears the “high heel slippers, necklace, earrings, [and] everything [Tea Cake] wants tuh see [her] in” because it is in this relationship that Janie is supported and allowed to flourish and enjoy her beauty (115). Hurston writes Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship as the redeeming freeing relationship that is the catalyst in Janie’s personal growth and revelation. Hurston hyper focuses on the color blue and the appearance of Janie and Tea Cake while they prepare to meet and marry. Throughout their marriage, Hurston continually describes the colors and specific clothing they are wearing and draw it to connect their happiness and eagerness to be together. Janie decides to “wear the new blue dress because [Tea Cake] meant to marry her right from the train,” while Tea Cake was “in the big old station in a new blue suit and straw hat” (116). Blue represents the happiness and comfortability that resides between Janie and Tea Cake. While many people would rather notice Janie’s growth in this new marriage, people question “Who wants to be mixed up wid uh rusty black man, and uh black woman goin’ down de street in all dem loud colors, and whoopin’ and hollerin’ and laughin’ over nothin’” (141). Janie happily left the more pristine clothes that were the standard and expectation for her to wear, to the “work clothes” and “blue denim overalls and heavy shoes” because the materialistic expectations and appearance of her dress is no what drives her in her journey; rather, Janie found acceptance, love, and encouragement to flourish in her individuality.

The height of symbolic importance that clothing seems to have on Janie comes after the death of Tea Cake. What Hurston describes as “the meanest moment of eternity,” drives Janie into a loss that she did not expect or want. Knudsen writes that it is because of Tea Cake that “Janie [can] fact the court and the community, [be] exonerated by both [and] not only [be] free to continue her life, but strong enough to continue it” (227). It is because of the growth Tea Cake encouraged and supported in Janie that during her trial, the attention Hurston brings to the white women who “wore good clothes and had the pinky color that comes of good food,” while wondering “What need had they to leave their richness to come look on Janie in her overalls,” does not have the same impact that past communities have had on Janie (185). Instead of following her past behaviors of adapting to what people expect of her, Janie embraces the love and loss she endures. Instead of letting the community and expectations of others impact her dress, Hurston writes “No expensive veils and robes for Janie this time. She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief” (189). Daram and Hozhabrsadat write that “this feeling and its relation to clothes make readers notice her integrity at the end of her journey” (89). This leads the readers back to where the novel starts; Janie returning home in her overalls and the community immediately noticing her appearance and wondering what has brought her back. Janie explains to her friend Phoeby that “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back now” (191). The novel ends with Janie confidently knowing and possessing the so sought out self-revelation and confidence. Janie ends by understanding the “two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They go tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ for theyselves,” which she obtains by experiencing living for others for the majority of her life (192). Janie realizes that she will not be able to finish her journey unless she embraces herself and lives confidently in her individuality. Tea Cake provided the support needed for Janie to obtain this and be able to live it after his death. Janie now is left “combing road-dust out of her hair” from her great journey, now using “the sun for a shawl,” and “[pulling] in her horizon like a great fish-net… around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder” (192, 193). Hurston ends the novel by incorporating the themes of Janie’s clothing and the horizon, leaving the readers and Janie to reflect on what brought Janie back home and how she learned to embrace and understand who she is.