husbands.

Janie’s grandmother was one of the most important influences in her life,

raising her since from an infant and passing on her dreams to Janie.

Janie’s mother ran away from home soon after Janie was born. With her

father also gone, the task of raising Janie fell to her grandmother, Nanny.

Nanny tells Janie "Fact uh de matter, Ah loves yuh a whole heap more’n Ah

do yo’ mama, de one Ah did birth" (Hurston 31). Nanny’s dream is for Janie

to attain a position of security in society, "high ground" as she puts it

(32). As the person who raised her, Nanny feels that it is both her right

and obligation to impose her dreams and her ideas of what is important in

life on Janie. The strong relationship between mother and child is

important in the African-American community, and the conflict between

Janie’s idyllic view of marriage and Nanny’s wish for her to marry for

stability and position is a good illustration of just how deep the respect

and trust runs. Janie has a very romantic notion of what marriage should

be. "She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the

thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace . . . so this was a

marriage," is how the narrator describes it (24). Nanny’s idea of a good

marriage is someone who has some standing in the community, someone who

will get Janie to that higher ground. Nanny wants Janie to marry Logan

Killicks, but according to her "he look like some ole skull-head in de

grave yard" (28). Even more importantly to Janie, though, was the fact that

"the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree[1]" (28). Nanny

tells Janie "So you don’t want to marry off decent like . . . you wants to

make me suck the same sorrow yo’ mama did, eh? Mah ole head ain’t gray

enough. My back ain’t bowed enough to suit you!" (28). After they have the

fight over Logan Killicks, Nanny says something, by way of an explanation

of why Janie needs to marry up the social ladder, that reveals a good deal

about the reality of being an African-American woman. She says "De nigger

woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see" (29). Janie, out of

respect for her grandmother, went off to start her role as a wife.

For the most part, Janie’s experiences as a wife are typical of what many

women go through, at least in terms of the roles that she is cast in. In

contrast to the role of the mother, which is one of giving and nurturing,

the role of wife is characterized by giving up one’s self in the marriage.

Janie, although she tries, cannot make herself love Logan Killicks. "She

knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so

she became a woman" (44). This point is important because it, more than

even the marriage ceremony, marks Janie’s transition from Nanny’s child to

a woman, not only in the biological and social sense, but also in the sense

that Nanny is talking about when she says that the black woman is the "mule

of de world . . ." (29). It is not long before the newness of marriage

wears off for Logan and he introduces Janie to the physical bondage that is

expected of a wife. Logan tells Janie "I aims to run two plows, and dis man

Ah’m talkin ‘bout is got a mule all gentled up so even uh woman kin handle

‘im" (46). There is little doubt why Logan would need a mule so gentle even

a woman could handle it. As Logan realizes more and more that Janie is not

happy with him, he tries to force her into the traditional wife role by

having her do more and more of the demeaning work around the farm. The last

straw is when he asks her to get a shovel and move a pile of manure. "A

feeling of newness and change came lover her. Janie hurried out the door

and turned south" the narrator says. She leaves Logan behind for a young

man, Joe Starks, who she thinks is her answer to the pear tree. In some

ways her marriage with Joe Starks is more of a hardship on Janie than her

marriage to Logan. Although she stays married to Joe until he dies, she

soon begins to understand that she has exchanged the physical and emotional

bondage of her marriage to Logan for intellectual and social bondage by

Joe. The scene where Joe Starks is elected mayor illustrates this point, as

the crowd wants to here from "Mrs. Mayor Starks" (she no longer has her own

identity). "Mah wife don’t know nothin ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never

married her for nuthin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home

" (69). It soon becomes apperant that Joe, is only interested in having a

wife to use as a show piece. Janie wants to feel a part of the community,

but Joe keeps her isolated so that she will continue to be his "prize" and

not become just another woman in the town. "Janie loved the conversation

and sometimes she thought up good stories . . . but Joe had forbidden her

to indulge . . . ‘You’se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie . . .’" (85). Janie tries

her best to fulfil her role as Joe’s wife, but the relationship between

them deteriorates. The fight scene in the store is the breaking point in

their relationship. Joe start to make comments about Janie’s age and looks.

He yells at her for not cutting a plug of tobacco straight, saying "don’t

stand dere rollin’ yo’ pop eyes at me wid yo’ rump hangin’ nearly to yo’

knees" (121). Janie pays him back however, saying "talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’

old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look like the changeuh life"

(123). As far as Joe is concerned, Janie has broken her role— she has

humiliated him in front of his peers when it was supposed to be her place

to make him look good. "You wasn’t satisfied wid me de way Ah was . . . Mah

own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out to make room for yours in me"

is the way Janie explains it to Joe as he is dieing of liver disease (133).

After Joe dies, Janie meets and falls in love with a younger man, Tea Cake.

The character of Tea Cake is important in looking at women’s roles because

he shows that it is traditional male attitudes toward women that keep them

in their submissive roles. Janie and Tea Cake leave town to get away from

the image the people still have of Janie as "Mrs. Mayor Starkes." This

means a new identity for Janie— but this time she is able to build her own

identity and what she gave up for Tea Cake she gives up willingly, because

she loves him. Janie is able to have this kind of relationship with Tea

Cake because he was carefree; he is not caught up in the social or

political roles than most men strive for — he just wanted to have fun and

support Janie. The difference in this relationship is illustrated by the

fact that Tea Cake asks Janie to come work with him in the fields. "Tea

Cake asks and Janie consents to work in the fields . . . his requests stem

from a desire to be with Janie . . . it isn’t the white man’s burden that

Janie carries; it is the gift of her own love" (Williams, xv).

The same roles for women can be seen in James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the

Mountain, a book written be a man, from a male’s perspective. Gabriel’s

relationship with his mother is similar in many ways to Janie’s with Nanny.

Gabriel is drawn to a wild lifestyle, against his mother’s wishes.

"’Honey,’ their mother was saying, ‘don’t let your old mother die without

you look her in the eye and tell her she going to see you in glory"

(Baldwin 76). It is Gabriel’s mother’s wish that Gabriel dedicate himself

to the lord, and straighten his life out, and just like Nanny’s wish that

Janie marry for social position, Gabriel’s mother’s wish goes against his

most basic personality. When Florence decides to leave, however, Gabriel

takes over caring for the sick mother, and gives in to her demands, as much

as he can, that he dedicate his life to religion. Just as Janie married

Logan for Nanny’s sake, Gabriel denies himself to please his mother, and in

this way the mother passes her dream along to be lived in the child.

Gabriel’s wife is an interesting character because Baldwin shows her as

both a wife and a mother, two roles that, although they should be, are not

always compatible. She has to defend her husband for beating the children.

She says "your Daddy beats you . . . because he loves you" (23). When Roy

is stabbed, Gabriel blames Elizabeth. "I’m sure going to have some

questions to ask you in a minute, old lady" (43). He goes on the say "and

for all the care you took of him . . . he might as well be dead. Don’t look

like you much care whether he lives or dies" (47). Gabriel is telling her

that she has failed her job as a wife — who is supposed to care for his

children, and as a mother — who is supposed to care for her children.

Gabriel couldn’t have insulted Elizabeth more. When Gabriel slaps

Elizabeth, however, Roy comes to her aid. "Don’t you slap my mother. That’s

my mother. You slap her again, you black bastard, and I swear to God I’ll

kill you" he says to his father (48). That he would take the abuse he knows

his father will give him to stand up for his mother shows that deep bond

between mother and child that is such an important part of traditional

women’s roles.

Both There Eyes Were Watching God and Go Tell it on the Mountain are

important works of African-American literature that show clearly the

importance of the mother figure and the bondage of the wife in

African-American culture. Malcolm X was on the right track when he said

that black men must respect black women before they could ask that anyone

respect them. Malcolm understood the importance of the mother in passing

along cultural values and dreams to the children. It must, then, have a

great impact for young children to see the submissive and degraded role

that many women are forced into by a male-dominated society. The men learn

by example that this is the way women should be treated, and the women are

conditioned to have so little self-respect that it is easy for men to

dominate them. Only by breaking the cycle of having women in submissive

roles can the society advance. The best way to do this is to recognize the

importance of women in the African-American community and use that to build

self-respect for the women that will then be passed along, like the dreams

of Nanny and of Gabriel’s mother, to the children.