The Significance of Words

Through out the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford elects specific and crucial moments in which she allows herself to openly speak her mind. In these moments, the reader is shown the depth and perception in which Janie observes the world around her, and how her thoughts mirror, however improper when spoken out loud, the thoughts and ideals of other women her age. With Janie's words she illustrates her ever growing self worth and reliance, and with her silence she expresses perhaps even more.

Janie Crawford, as observed within the novel, is an extremely free spirited and independently thinking women of her age. During the time period in which Their Eyes Were Watching God takes place, women were not expected to hold opinions of their own, and those who did were expected to keep their thoughts to themselves. Many women, such as Nanny and the other women within Janie's hometown, came to except this way of life, which is where Janie's tendency to remain silent during the majority of her relationships with all of the men in her life took root.

Contrary to her upbringing however, Janie did not see it fit to constantly keep her lips sealed during certain moments in her life when she felt that her thoughts would be beneficial to the situation. Her first experience with speaking her mind to the current man in her life came about when she noticed that her marriage with her first husband, Logan Killicks, was not panning out in the way that she had envisioned an ideal marriage would. She questioned Logan on how he might feel if she were to leave him, because she did not feel as though she was being validated in the relationship as the equal in which she believed she should have been. Janie had just recently met Joe Starks, a man who seemed to hold much more adventure, hope and potential to be an attentive husband than Logan had ever proved to have. It was the thought of perhaps finally being able to have the sort of life she had dreamt about with a man before her Nanny had forced her to marry Logan that drove her to speak her mind on the matter of questioning Logan's infatuation with her, and of her leaving him.

During her second marriage to an enthusiastic and providing Joe Starks, Janie chose to remain silent as she noticed that her role in this relationship was beginning to transform into something completely opposed to what she had originally sought after. Her position as dedicated and doting house wife became increasingly tiring and fruitless, as Joe eventually began to take her leniency and kindness for granted,