The Black Women in "Their Eyes were Watching God"
Stubborn and hardy, mules are the classic symbol of labor. They toil in the field and carry heavy loads across long stretches of land, reliant on their masters to provide them food and shelter. Broken in mules let their owners pull them to another task or chore without any dissent or retaliation: to an owner, the mule becomes the supreme work animal not only work with, but to also dominate, as are the Black women portrayed in one of Zora Neale Hurston’s most famous work, Their Eyes were Watching God. Like the archetypical mule, the women undertake a tremendous, disproportionate amount of labor. Despite their household contributions, the men regard them as incompetent and unthinking; it is common to think women need their male spouses to guide and shepherd them. Many characters refer to Janie, the biracial main character, as a mule, which not only alludes to her biracial heritage, but also the intense physical labor and the hardship she endures, mostly from her husbands. Using the main character’s relationship as a focus, Their Eyes were Watching God focuses on the idea that Black women are a seemingly subservient workforce, and the mistreatment that Janie receives from her husbands to turn her into their ideal woman, and to ultimately make her carry their load.
Janie’s grandmother Nanny, an older Black woman, states as much: Black men pick up the load the white man throws down at him but hands it to the Black woman so that the Black woman alone can tote it. The Black woman is “de mule uh de world so fur as [she] could see (14)”. To Nanny, men perceive women as mules, the steppingstones from which a society is built yet trod upon. Janie is characterized as a mule, but not solely due to her mixed heritage; she is the recipient of ridicule of and service from her three spouses. What’s more, she cannot live for herself while in their marriage; similar to a mule, she cannot produce anything from herself; in these circumstances, she relies on her husband, her owner, for sustenance.
In turn, Janie, the analogous mule, should live for her owner, and commit to physical labor that leaves scathes mental and physical. Women like Janie are subject to abuse, and submission inflicted upon by their husbands and men in high positions of power. But Nanny, wanting Janie to have a life free from toil opposes this thinking for her granddaughter. So she gives Janie away to a rich man in order for Janie to becoming a cracked plate (20) like Nanny, broken by the labor forced on her by the men in her life. Nanny’s wish for her granddaughter does not come to fruition at first; instead, Janie’s relationships make her more resilient towards labor.
Two of the men in Janie’s relationships want Janie as their ideal woman; for Logan Killicks, the man Nanny sends Janie to, Janie labors for him goes “wherever [he] wants her to go (31)”. In his eyes, Janie is his servant first and his wife second, which denies Janie of the romance she desired from their marriage and contradicts Nanny’s reasoning about marriage as an escape from back-breaking labor. But Logan’s kindness was a façade; his doting on Janie and possible sweet-talking with Nanny was a method of getting “uh mule all gentled up so even a woman kin handle ‘im (27)”.
Nanny’s point is further contradicted by the same man, as Logan coerces Janie into working for him rather promptly scaring her with the amount of work he had intended for her. Janie was more willing to become Logan’s pack mule after he buys her with his affection and trust by talking in rhymes with her and “[wondering] at her long black hair (26)”. Logan’s initial emotional investment worked out for him since Janie marries him a few days after meeting him. This type of investment makes the relationship, from the outset, more than romantic; it would start a long-lasting romantic relationship that lasts forever in holy matrimony, yet Logan doesn’t stay with Janie for as long as he promised he would. When he tires of her, he goes “tuh Lake City tuh see uh man about uh mule (26)”, another woman that Logan pursues out with the false pretense that he wants to have a genuine relationship with and then utilize, exploit, even, on his farmland, which still proves he picks his mules with the intent to make women love him, and then make them like working for him, breaking in their minds so he can break their bodies.
To restate, Logan’s actions refutes Nanny’s claim that marriage between a man and a woman are beneficial for both parties; to her credit, she has a dearth of positive, healthy relationships with men from her past; her former slave master had his way with her and she gave birth to Janie’s mother nine months later after that encounter. Logan uses the strife against Janie’s, in a twisted bid for control over the relationship, when he accuses Janie of lacking any interest or appreciation for his efforts by stating “ah’m too honest and hard-workin’ for anyone in yo’ family (32)” and revealing that Nanny “raked and scraped and bought dis lil piece uh land so you wouldn’t have to stay in de white folks’ yard (19)”. He took the labor of the women, and then made it seem like the labor was not only his to begin with, but also a means to gain his affection. The notion that Janie marries Logan for his labor makes her leave him for another man with whom she could reciprocate her love for him, without working for him in return.
To that, she meets Joe Starks, a “cityfied, stylish dressed man”, and falls for him because of his attire and confidence: “He…walked like he knew where he was going (27)”. During their first conversation, Joe makes it clear that he is going to treat Janie well: he states “stating “…if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, you’re wrong. Ah wants to make you a wife (29)”. He makes Janie work in his shop as soon as he gains popularity with the townspeople, and all seems well for Janie; she’s in the domestic space instead of the field, so Joe kept his word to shepherd her from intense physical work. But labor is still labor, regardless of the type of work performed. And instead of convincing Janie to give her loyalty to him like a dog to a master, Joe uses Janie like a mule in the store; all he did was change the workplace from a farm to a pen, with an extra caveat of treating her like a show pony when they are seen together in public and removing her voice from the public space; in one outing, when Joe becomes major via an instantaneous vote by the townspeople, he states “. . . mah wife don’t know nothing about speech-making. . . she’s uh woman and her place is in de home (43)”.
Jane’s physical and aural presence would deprive Joe of his “big voice (28)” he uses on the townspeople; in that regard, Janie would obstruct his plans for gaining the mayorship in Eatonville invalidating the belief that he is better than all the other people due to his possession of a softspoken, obedient wife. If Janie, a mere mule of a person, could articulate her thoughts better than he could, or talk about his abuse, then her account grants permission to the townspeople to dissent within him on his style of governance and leadership.
Out of fear, he isolates Janie from the townspeople in a way that Janie states as being “classed off (122)” to remove any possibilities that she might sabotage him. By cutting her off from other people, he forces Janie to rely on him for social interaction instead of social interaction and support from the townspeople, a connection that she craves during her time in Eatonville. After Joe liberates the yellow donkey from an abusive farm keep, Janie voices Joe’s power over the residents of Eatonville, including her: “You got uh whole town so you freed a mule. You have the power tuh free things… (58)”. But Joe confines to her pen of a store; if she left, he would not be able to control her action and shape her into his ideal woman.
To reiterate, Joe and Logan, two of her husbands, keep breaking her down, much like a master does to a mule, until she depends on them for support; after all, mules cannot produce anything due to their infertility, and require a miracle to create something. Mules need a guiding hand, and these men think they are the hands of God; at one point, Joe refers to himself as “God Almighty (78)”, exerting his authority as Janie’s master and husband to change her into the woman he wants. And other men follow suit and take extreme measures to demand obedience from their wives. A man from Eatonville “moved here from up de State hopin’ to change [his wife], but ain’t (74).” The man’s attempt at breaking his wife is ineffective, thus he “can’t bear tuh leave her and he hate to kill her, so ‘tain’t nothing tuh do but kill her (75).” To the men in Their Eyes Were Watching God, women are best when they’re servants or dead.
When a married woman asks Joe for food, one man claims he would “break her (114)” just for being vocal about her husband’s inability to provide for his family; in other words, in order to make a work horse obey, the owner must break its will through starving it of any sustenance, whether emotionally or psychologically, like with Janie’s isolation, or even through restricting access to comestible goods, such as the case with the married woman. The woman’s starvation allows for the men to break them into subservience; some men want “…her submission and [they would] keep fighting on until [they] felt he had it (71).” The men in the Their Eyes were Watching God justify their actions in subduing their women to docility with that they are the only people who can think for the women since women “sho don’t think for themselves (71)”.
The men reason that women do not need their assistance yet are the same group women rely on for their basic needs, thus creating a dependent relationship fueled by illusions of power and authority; to the men, women are weak-minded, guileless work animals. Janie, upon hearing Joe talk about his so-called divine right to rule over women, responds with, “it’s so easy to make yo’self out God Almighty when you ain’t got nothing tuh strain against but women and children (75)”; she denounces the men of any power. The men exert their power over vulnerable communities instead of God’s domain: the forces of nature and all life on Earth. They are the same weaklings that God commands, but they only have power through the subjugation over men with lower social status and not-well-off women.
This statement contradicts Nanny’s claim of marriage as an out from physical labor. Janie is in a relationship in which she commits to labor-intensive work instead of Joe; she beaks most of the burden, which opposes Nanny’s desire for Janie of living without labor, the wish that Janie avoids the fate of becoming a “cracked plate (20)”, like herself. But mules, once weakened, yield to their owners since they have little motivation to defy their master’s wishes. Like broken-in mules, the women in Their Eyes were Watching God, break and become receptive to their husband’s demands. Janie asserts that the forces of nature God contends with are stronger and more resistant to submission than the women and children that men control: they are false gods, but still hold precoordinated power in their communities and families.
Nonetheless women like Janie are determined to fight their husbands and assert themselves in the relationship. Near the end of her marriage with Joe, Janie thinks “thought [the fight] was gone from her soul…she got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and what she was giving away what she didn’t value (76)”. Her valuable possession was her submission to her husband; she remains unbroken despite her isolation from the townspeople and Joe making her “…own mind…[squeeze] and [crowd] out tuh make room for [his in hers] (86)”.
Janie’s unrequited love and labor she commits to each day is unequal and unsatisfactory out of Joe’s constant abuse. He treats her like a mule, not a wife and an equal; she may be following his direction, but she maintains her sanity despite the years of hardship done alone. Joe makes fun of her appearance near the end of the marriage to divert Janie’s attention from his looks. She stays with him longer due to reduced self-esteem when Joe displaces his insecurities of his appearance onto her. Joe’s abuse is worse than Logan’s since she becomes isolated from the townspeople and unable to leave until Joe’s death. Joe keeps Janie submissive since she is a threat against his popularity with the townspeople, even more as his god-like features begin to fade; however, Janie is resilient in spite of the years of Joe’s beratement and wearing her down to the point where Janie “thought [the fight] was gone from her soul (76)”; Janie has yet to succumb to her lover even with the amount of strife he puts in her way.
To repeat, Joe repeatedly deprives Janie of social interaction with the townspeople of Eatonville by forbidding her from speaking in grand speeches and leaving the store for events such as the mule’s funeral. During the funeral, Joe, Joe “stood on the distended belly of the mule for a platform (72)” like Joe’s breaking Janie down until she became quiet and obedient. His words and magnetic personality are the only ways he holds dominion over the townspeople (“he was no fist fighter…he had a bow-down command in his face”); in this stance, Joe uses Janie as his platform to be seen as a reputable mayor and a good husband. The suffering of two mules — the yellow mule and Janie—benefit him; he uses both to gain sympathy, and once again, Joe uses Janie’s affection to trap her into working for him, from a place where she cannot intervene or defy him. In which case, she furthers his career, reputation, and prestige, but she still, after Joe’s death, pursues someone who can respect her as an equal.
Janie’s last husband, Tea Cake, aka Vergible Woods, is the only man that reciprocates her feelings of affection without gaining any social credentials from the people around them. Instead of depriving Janie of anything and neglecting her emotional needs like her previous husbands, Tea Cake gives her experiences that empower her, such as teaching her how to play checkers. Joe stopped her from playing the game even though it was a popular game. In fact, ; in fact, “…de men folks treasure de game (95)”. To the men, checkers is an activity that requires wit and strategy, masculine traits a man can have to appear as valuable to his peers; having a woman, a gender thought to lack the ability to think for themselves, participate in an intellectual’s game and win against a man would not only insult him but also reduce his worth in the eyes of other men.
Still, Tea Cake lets her participate in other masculine activities like fishing and shooting a gun; she becomes the superior marksman to Tea Cake. In a romantic gesture, Tea Cake ““picked some strawberries (107)” because he figgered [she] might like it (107).” Unlike Bonner’s mule that the townspeople accuse of “not [feeding] de mule (52)”. Tea Cake does not starve her of anything she desires out of their relationship.
This romantic gesture is different from Joe’s, in which Joe “bought a little-lady spitting pot for Janie (47)” and other trinkets that had little use outside of making Janie a show pony. When Janie doubts herself, Tea Cake does not quell her thoughts or drive her further into self-doubt; he tells Janie his true feelings about her (106), hearkening back to Janie’s own thoughts about romance in that “husbands and wives always loved each other… (21)” since it is the only natural way love happens. Cake later betrays her sentiment of romance by persuading her to work with him, stating that he would get “lonesome out dere all day ‘thout me that lill time…you better get a job uh work out dere lak the rest of de women (133)”. This statement belittles Janie into appearing as just another woman; it is also the antithesis of Nanny’s reason for getting Janie to marry so Janie can have a life free from labor. But yet, again, the promise of a work-free life is the false pretense for the relationships Janie gets entangled in; first, the man in the relationship treats Janie well; then, the man puts her to work on his property until she reaches a breaking point and leaves the relationship.
Although Tea Cake treats her well as first, he becomes just like the previous men in her love life. At work, he asks her to deposit her earnings in the bank because he believes he does not “need assistance tuh help me feed my woman (127)”. Yet he asks Janie to work for his sake and hits her since it “relieved that fear inside him (147)” that she could do better, and be better, than him. The attention Janie receives from the other workers caused that fear, so whipping her reassured Tea Cake of his possession over her. He wants to show everyone that he is Janie’s owner. Yet the labor and theft of her independence does not deter her; his attempts at taming his wife are ineffective. He, like all Janie’s previous husbands, can and will Janie poorly if they can strip her of her humanity and get her to do their bidding. Janie’s husbands cannot force Janie to work for them without this perception of their authority. They had to debase her into a mule so that eventually she would think she’s looking up at a god.
Bibliography
Hurston, Zora Neale. 2006. Their Eyes Were Watching God: [a Novel]. New York, Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
