The Struggle of No Struggles

Alonzo Smith

Saphyre Kelly

Pink

The safer one is the more one is inclined to find danger, struggle, or a challenge. This theme is explored thoroughly through the main character, Janie, from the novel There Eyes Were Watching God.  Janie, as a young girl, is looking around her yard as her grandmother lay asleep on her bed. She is making conclusions biased on what she sees and looking deeper in everything around her. She finds meaning in buds and trees and is compared to several springtime nature imagery. The author compares Janie as a tree. “She had glossy leaves and bursting buds” “where were the singing bees for her” (Hurston 11) This is telling the reader that she is a young girl in the prime of her age, ready to bloom and be a mother. The bees are depicting possible suitors who have not come because she hasn’t quite bloomed. She is still in the stage where she needs to experience more to be sure about herself and what she wants in a husband. Later on in the text she fights with her grandmother about being set up with a man against her will so that her grandma knew Janie was taken care of. Reluctantly she agrees and is married to Logan. He is not the best husband but helps shape her view of men into what she wants to better herself. Everyone that she has come in contact with has wanted to help Janie and make sure that she is safe and has everything that she could ever want or need. This caused the reverse effect in Janie, instead of being a yes woman, such as most women at the time; she wants to do her own thing and think for herself and form her own opinions. The constant attention causes a struggle within herself to find some sort of danger, struggle, or a challenge. She is “Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made” (Hurston 11) Her world to be made.