Essay, Research Paper: "The Wind That Blows Is All Htat Anyone

"The Wind that Blows is All Anybody Knows"


As the inspiring song writer, Janis Joplin, sings, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose". In society today, everybody tightly grips on to their own definition of freedom. A large number of modern-day pro-rights groups, spend all of their efforts convincing people that someone or the government is taking away their God-given freedom. Like lifeless puppets, society confides in these freedom seeking institutions, such as the NRA and NAACP, for the excuse of living marrowless lives. How can this be? Rights can only be taken away by somebody that owns them. However, life was not always as simple as it is today. For instance, the African -American culture in the early part of the twentieth century faced difficulties such as segregation, unequal rights, and worst of all, a code among whites that labeled them as animals unfit for humanity. In Their Eyes Were Watching God , Zora Hurston demonstrates this deprived culture's struggle against the odds in an insular society. During the time period of the novel, blacks had just been freed from slavery. With this new legal freedom, many blacks began forming communities that revolve around the idea of freedom. However, true freedom for each individual cannot simply be found solely in the invention of a government. Nor can this independence be completely found in such personal sources as family. Hurston uses multiple examples of imagery to depict the transformation of Janie Mae Crawford from a conformed African-American girl into a strong-willed, free, and independent woman through self determination and a forever growing love for God.
Family influence plays a powerful role in the choices one makes about life because the family structure provides the only network of real people that stand as evidence to personal happiness. This situation exists in homes with or without freedom. A child's main role model tends to be the person who they feel they are the most like. Janie, an innocent, young, and strong minded female, begins life with the intent of finding happiness through her grandmother Nanny's advice on love based on materialistic qualities. Although Janie does not understand how love can be found simply by living with a man, she accepts this reasoning because it portrays the way Nanny envisions happiness. Entering adult hood weighs heavily on Janie's conscious. She does not know if she firmly stands behind any real issue except her well cut religion. These insecurities, nevertheless, do not stop Nanny from giving Janie's young hand to Logan Killicks, a hard-working single man, who owns 60 acres of land. In days such as these, a man with 60 acres stands as an insurance that will never be taken away. Logan utilizes this fact while persuading Nanny to make Janie marry him, knowing the priorities of the elderly woman. Janie tries to love Logan even though she cannot see how such personal feelings can come from a petty reason such as property. To Janie, Logan's sixty acres of land offer her nothing, put aside loneliness and desolation. Hurston uses the dark image of "a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been(20)" to describe the barrenness of Logan's haven. With this gloomy image the reader understands the unhappiness of anyone forced to live there.
After the realization of the lack of freedom one has in his/her own life, a series of events begin to unfold the true desires and problems of one's life. Often in these times, there are many uncomfortable feelings accompanying the uncovered truth. Once these truths are admitted, they can be dealt with in order to abolish feelings of discomfort. However, in Janie's situation the truth about her true desires are sheltered within tradition from Nanny, who imposes the marriage with Logan on Janie. After the anticipation and desire to happily fall in love, Janie's marriage with Logan only crushes her hopes. After hours upon boring hours of thought, Janie makes an usual visit to Nanny to discuss the marriage and to see if Nanny has any advice to help her fall in love. Nanny counsels Janie, explaining to her that should care for Logan because of his land, but Janie, being too cognitive to settle for this definition of love, remains dissatisfied. Her heart aches for something that does not exist, and only now does she make the decision of her definition of a husband. "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think"(23) , this evolution in Janie's acknowledgment of her desires of life, brings her over the first hill of being the person that will ultimately bring serenity into her soul. After Janie and Logan have been married for a short period of time Nanny passes away, thus releasing Janie form her captive ideas about life. Now Janie, ecstatic with her new slice of free-will, decides to leave Logan and pursue her dream of freedom somewhere else and with a different person. While leaning on a post by the road, pondering the power of God, a wealthy man by the name of Joe Starks comes dressed in a suit and asks Janie to go along with him to Eastonville, promising her power, wealth, and happiness. Janie, however, holds back because Joe "does not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees"(28); the thing that does intrigue Janie is the fact that he posses a way to get out, an avenue for change and chance. With the weight of Nanny's death lingering heavily on her shoulders, Janie decides to go with Joe and take a chance, she does not think he epitomizes perfection, but through him Janie can get out of her encagement by Logan. Hurston uses images, such as "the morning road air was like a new dress" to express the wonderful feeling felt by an escaping Janie . Janie symbolically throws off her apron on the way to Joe Stark's carriage showing that she does not plan to work for anyone anymore. Janie picks a bouquet of flowers from her old yard in order to carry the roots of her former life with her into the beginning of her new life.
The newly wed couple, Joe and Janie Starks, begin their marriage on a happy and unified note; unfortunately, freedom for one man cannot always define freedom for another, no matter how many things are shared between them. Every individual must be able to live out his/her true definition of freedom. Janie has made one big step toward her freedom by leaving Logan in the lonely slums of grief by himself. To Janie, living with Joe will be the epitome of freedom because he plays such a powerful political role in the town of Eastonville. Nevertheless, Joe wants Janie to play the role he assigns her, the role of the Mayor's wife. Even though he has good intentions to use his "big voice" to make Janie a big woman in the eyes of the town, She feels another mold being cast over her. As the marriage begins to lose the blissfulness of the beginning, Janie notes many actions on Joe's part that inhibit her from living her life as she pleases. The locals of Eastonville habitually sit on the porch of the Stark's store humoring themselves with the sight and condition of Matt Barron's mule. Janie finds what these men say entertaining and yearns to speak some of her own humorous ideas out loud, but Joe will not let her because he does not want her to take after such "trashy people" (50-51). This imprisonment conforms Janie to Joe's image instead of her own. Zora Hurston describes Joe's stubbornness and tyrannical rules as extreme, and tells the reader that "This was the rock she was battered against"(51). For a long while Janie is unable to put her finger on the problem in the relationship but knows that something has let her down. One day after a terrible beating and criticism, Janie finally figures out the problem. Zora Hurston translates Janie's thoughts into vivid images as she describes Janie's image of Joe falling off a shelf inside of her, "her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered" (68). Now, Janie's mental time bomb of truth has set itself.
Time posses one of the strongest forces on earth; This force sides with a persons' desire for freedom. With a constant mind set on a goal and the will power derived from a strong relationship with God the fruit of life will ripen into it's full potential. For many days after Janie's self realization she ponders on the resolution to her ever existing quest for freedom. Janie realizes all the freedoms of the world have been waiting for her to find the strength to reach out for them. After years of ridicule in a shallow lake of coins, Janie finds the will-power to put an awakening halt to Joe's verbal abusiveness. Joe meets his destruction after making degrading comments about Janie's body and her intelligence. Janie confronts Joe with her soul behind every word she says, shocking everyone in the store with, "When you git through tellin' me how tuh cut uh plug uh tobacco, then you kin tell me wether mah behind is on straight or not"(74). Janie turns this accomplishment into the second, and final, turning point in her life. To Joe, Janie's deed is worst than "the thing that Saul's daughter had done to David" (75) because she has taken his identity as her master away. This religious allusion shows the terminal impact Janie's words have on Joe. Joe ends the relationship due to embarrassment, and moves all of his things out of the room he used to share with Janie. Shortly after this event Joe contracts a fatal illness. Without ever willingly talking to Janie again, Joe passes on to be come yet another string woven in Death's eternal cloak. Janie tells her long-loved friend Pheoby, "Tain't dat ah worries over Joe's death, Pheoby. Ah jus' loves dis freedom"(89), explaining her long awaited feeling of freedom. After Joe's death, Janie decides to live a spouse-free life, declining multiple suitors who come to take her hand (87). Then, a man named Tea Cake comes suavely into her life with no wealth outside of a golden heart, and Janie finds, in him, her companion in freedom. Tea Cake and Janie do everything together with equality. In all of the years Janie lived with Joe, he would never teach her to play the game of checkers because he said woman were not meant to play such a sophisticated game. On the other hand, Tea Cake enjoys teaching Janie the game and plays with her whenever the occasion arises. Also, Tea Cake and Janie consistently communicate with each other whenever one of the two feels the slightest bit of jealousy, which Joe did not do because he was too proud to admit he was jealous of the other men in his community. As time goes by, Janie and Tea Cake grow closer together. At one point, Janie stops attending church all together, symbolizing how she does not rely on society for means of self- happiness, and fulfills her relationship with God through personal conversations. Tea Cake Woods and Janie elope, which gives Janie an extraordinarily simple and free life. After living out the enjoyment of her previous marriages ten fold, Tea Cake's life comes to a tragic end. During the great flood that swallows the Everglades, the Wood's new home, circumstances force Tea Cake to save Janie's life by tackling a dog infested with rabies. This beast of a dog, before Tea Cake overpowers him, manages to sink his fangs into Tea Cake's eye, sharing his fatal illness. Janie's true freedom proves itself when Tea Cake, insane and crazy due to the rabies, tries to kill Janie with a shot-gun and in pure self defense, Janie regretfully forces herself to pull her own trigger to stop Tea Cake's insanity. These actions prove Janie's freedom in the fact that she sees everything in their relationship as equal; in order to save her own life, she has to take his, sadly expressing true independence. After Tea Cake's funeral, Janie goes home to Phoebe, displaying that she has a completed soul and has found inner peace forever, thanks to her numerous experiences in life. Now she can define love for herself. Hurston shows this enlightenment through naturalistic images comparing love to the ever reshaping sea(182). Pheoby tells Janie her advice about the two things everyone has to do for themselves, "They got tuh go tuh God , and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves"(183). Janie definitely finds out about living, but even more dramatically, she defines it.
In the world that we live in we own. However, often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and never even realize we behold the key. Leaders in society, such as Janie and Tea Cake, who need nothing but a smile to live, demonstrate precisely how freedom finds itself in the branches of simplicity. The philosopher Henry D. Thoreau said, "to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live simply and wisely". By living life as a pastime, or in other words a hobby, we mold our lives into a unique sculpture of art, as opposed to braking ourselves to fit into a common mold. Janie transforms her life into a pastime. Freedom, still and all, does not come in a prepared package for anyone. No matter how many wars are fought in the name of freedom, the freest nation in the world will still have the most prisoners. Truthfully speaking, freedom is only fully appreciated when, like many things, it is personally slaved and fought to be attained. By dedicating her entire life to the fight for freedom, Janie illustrates the value of freedom once achieved. " I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead"- Henry David Thoreau.