Complex Relationships - “Their eyes were watching god”

This week in class we discussed about the complex relationships of characters in literature. Also this week in class I started to read “Their eyes were watching god” and this book weaves many complex relationships, where the novels protagonist, Janie Crawford, battles with her evolving sense of identity and societal expectations of marriage. Janie is single and sexualized by many men around her. At the beginning, Janie’s relationship with nanny(her grandmother) is one of caring love and also of control. Nanny is born into slavery and is deeply shaped by her traumatic past and who also desires Janie to marry for financial security rather than love. She arranges and forces Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a much older farmer. The relationship between these two characters are complex since Janie who dreams for romantic love, now feels trapped in a loveless marriage. Logan also sees Janie as someone who can help him as a worker rather than a wife. Eventually Janie leaves him after she ...