Sunday, February 22, 2009

A Crushed Dream - IT'S REALITY


Janie's spontaneous decision doesn't turn out so great after all... Her new life with Joe in the all black town has not been exactly what Janie dreamed of. At first she admired Joe's own dream of becoming a big voice in the new black community but once in power Janie feels uncomfortable with her life. Their is no spark in their love, nothing like when Joe first met Janie and he spoke in rhymes that would woo her. In her new life she no longer dreams, she has become a woman and the wife of a powerful mayor. Joe being busy and all does not have time to make his wife happy but he does make her special. Janie never wanted to be special. Everything that the town folks does Janie is not permitted because she is the mayor's wife and she cannot be seen among the townsfolk doing unmannerly type things. She feels like she's being caged up in a town and being treated like she's better than everyone else. I think more than anything she just wants to be a part of the town and live her own life the way she wants to instead of being the pretty mayor's wife who works the town store and post office everyday except Sundays. Later in chapter 6 Janie realizes she doesn't love Joe and this is not her dream. "Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just some thing she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over," (pg 72). Joe had slapped Janie into this epiphany when she had cooked a below average meal that furiated him. She realizes she only went with Joe in the first place to see what it would be like but he was not actually the dream she always wanted. She then realizes her dream is not dead and that the feelings that she has is not for Joe but "for some man she had never seen," (pg 72).

1 comment:

  1. I think the reason why Janie had an idealized vision of her life with Joe is partly due to the fact that her grandmother attempted to instill values of wealth and security in her. Though Janie does not completely adopt these values as her own, it seems that in combination with her wild, romanticized notions of marriage, this has led to high hopes for a perfect life with Joe. As Marco said, Janie is only in love with the "man she had never seen" because she was too blinded by her own idealism and her grandmother's values.

    ReplyDelete