Their Eyes are Watching God

It is often thought that men maintain a majority of the power in a relationship. Their main duty as the male is to take on most of the external hardships in which women are too physically or mentally weak to handle. However, the reality is many men use this responsibility as tool to control the relationship. Most men feel like they are obligated to withhold a position of power, therefore they use their strength in the form of physical means to uphold this position. Zora Nelson adequately depicts these types of relationships in which a women, Janie Starkes, is unable to break free from the power of men. Janie Starks is a women of free will, but throughout the book she displays a level of weakness. She marries three times, and every marriage consisted of some form of abuse. Out of her three marriages, Janie only truly loves one of her husbands. Her weakness is displayed by the allowance of physical and verbal abuse. There is no excuse for a man to hit a woman, and there is no excuse for a woman to take it. Only a powerless woman allows a man to destroy her pride and dignity, however a woman of power will defend it to the death. Accordingly, Janie Starks was portrayed as a woman with no will power to defend her pride or dignity, but a woman with a weak mind who lived under total control.