|
Chapter 4 Summary
Long before the end of the first year, Logan stops sweet-talking Janie, who refuses to help him with the farm chores. She does her job in the kitchen and figures that is enough, but Logan accuses her of being spoiled—by her grandmother and by himself. One day, he leaves to buy a mule she can use to plow the fields and, cutting potatoes in the front yard, Janie encounters Joe "Jody" Starks; a stylish, well-dressed black man on his way from Georgia to a town in Florida he heard is being built by blacks. Jody is a man with his eye on the horizon. Having saved his money for thirty years, he says he has finally found the opportunity to be a voice in the black community. Immediately attracted to Janie, Joe sticks around for a couple of weeks, telling her finally that he wants to marry her. He says if she runs off with him, she will never have to do any work—he will treat her like the queen she deserves to be.
Mulling it over, Janie asks Logan what he would do if she left him. Hurt, Logan says he did her a favor by marrying her, given her origins, and if she listens to the lies of some scoundrel, she will soon find out the reality and come running back to him. The next morning, Logan demands Janie help him move the manure pile in the barn, but she refuses. He accuses her again of thinking she is better than she really is, as good as white people even. Then he says he ought to take the ax and kill her, but he damns her instead. Janie goes back in the house, thinks it over for a minute and then goes to meet Joe Starks, who is waiting with a hired wagon. Before sundown, they are married.
Chapter 4 Analysis
Janie quickly begins to perceive herself more as a mule than as a wife to Logan, who resents the fact that Janie is not more appreciative of his willingness to marry her. Joe Starks, with his eye on the "far horizon" presents Janie with an opportunity to leave the drudgery of her marriage. Although she does not see Joe as "sun-up and pollen," he does represent "change and chance," and when he asks her to run away with him, Janie takes a chance, hoping the change will lead to the fulfillment of her dreams.
Before she makes her decision, though, she gives Logan the opportunity to convince her why she should not. Young and still caught between the traditional expectations for a black woman and a wife, Janie feels both a certain loyalty toward Logan and a respect for the institution of marriage. However, Logan, hurt that Janie would even think of leaving him, throws her origins in her face, using the same tactics the children had used to belittle and scare her into staying. His bullying has the opposite effect—Janie rebels against the notion that Logan is better than she is, and that she deserves any less than what she wants. She is not convinced that Joe Starks is the fulfillment of her dreams, but Janie decides that any change will do her some good. This is one of the turning points of the novel, in which Janie exerts her independence, rebelling against masculine authority and societal expectations by running off and marrying another man without bothering to divorce her current husband. Janie's courage and inner strength are the two characteristics that define her and that have endeared her to so many readers.
|
