Journals ch16-18 (2/15/09)

Ch 16-17 Journal:
The Turner's marriage seems to be very similar to a lot of the other marriages on the muck, but compared to Janie and Tea Cake's it's quite different. Like a lot of the other married couples such as Sop-de-Bottom and his wife, the women in the relationship seem to have the overall power. Sop-de-Bottom's wife seems to have the power because she fights back when Sop-de-Bottom tries to beat her showing that she is a prideful woman. Then there's Mrs. Turner who is a very strong-willed woman which seems to make up for her husband's lack of manliness/strength, physical or mental. Mrs. Turner seems to hold the power in her marriage like a lot of other wives except for Janie. Janie is smitten with Tea Cake and she seems to think that she has no worth or happiness without him. This mindset of Janie's gives Tea Cake all the power. Even after he beats her she is still very submissive and people were surprised by, "the helpless way she hung on him"(Hurston 147). Janie, unlike Sop-de-Bottom's wife and Mrs. Turner, does not have the power in her marriage, but she instead gives it freely to Tea Cake.

Ch 18 Journal:
The title of Zora Neale Hurston's There Eyes Were Watching God has great significance in expressing the relationship between the characters and God. A lot of the characters seem to believe there is a God, but that they don't rely or look to him until they need him. The characters seem to think of God as this greater being that has more power than they could ever imagine which is seen through nature such as the hurricane. Hurston suggests during the process of this event that the characters hold great reverence for God, but that it is a reverence which comes out of fear.