In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character, is shown in her middle age returning to her hometown. She is immediately met by quiet judgment from the locals. They believe at 40 years old she was much too old for Tea Cake, who was around 25. They pass judgment over her appearance, “What she doin coming back here in dem blue overalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on?” (Hurston 2) They even go as far as making jaded comments about her hair and how she carries her body, as evidenced in this quote, “What dat forty year ole ‘oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal?”(2) The townspeople seem as if they would be very happy should Jani

Merricat’s pattern of having to have complete control, having to have Constance for herself, is already fully established by the time it is known that Merricat killed half of her family by poisoning them with arsenic in their sugar. We learn this by the conversation between Merricat and Constance after the fire, where Merricat made reference to poisoning the townspeople’s food and Constance asked her, “…the way you did before?” and Merricat replied, “Yes”…”the way I did before”(161). The act of her killing her family is not exactly even specific enough in the story to explain how it happened, what Merricat’s motives were. Based on anecdotal comments it would appear that this stemmed from something that challenged her direct path to Constance. But this isn’t really ever taken into any detail, other than Uncle Julians retelling of the story, which is wrought with his own eccentricities.

e do as they please. Janie finds that everyone has an opinion on what she should do. Janie finds her old friend Phoeby and tells the story of her life to that point. Her tales are nothing less than a lifetime of being controlled by others. She speaks of the stories her grandmother, Nanny, told her, about how she once was a slave, and how her child, Janie’s mother, was the result of a rape. This story of the rape is very significant to the aspect of control, rape is quite possibly as controlling an act as a human can perpetuate on another, with a close second being slavery. So the two most heinous acts of controlling another human being are shown working hand in hand to control Janie’s grandmother. Nanny also speaks directly about the lack of control that black people; especially black women have over their world. These warnings by Nanny don’t seem to be fully appreciated by Janie at first. In a way for Janie to realize these ideas at this stage in her life would be, in some small part, giving up control over herself, and her future. This ends up happening anyways as Nanny pushes Janie into an early marriage against Janie’s will. Despite the fact that this was done by Nanny to try and protect Janie from the horrible fate of so many other black women, that kind of protection is very controlling, even if it isn’t meant to be. Janie’s first marriage shows more aspects of control. Logan, her husband, shows some control over Janie directly, but his story of control is mostly over his general environment. Logan tells Janie what to do when it comes to something that has to do with the farm. Logan insists on buying a mule so Janie can help do some of the plowing, which Janie doesn’t want to do. Complete rule over a person’s environment is another manifestation of the theme of control. People are controlling her, but not in a direct “you cannot do this” kind of way. This would all chan

Some topics in this essay:
Tea Cake, Unlike Hurston’s, Joe Starks, Despite Nanny, Merricat’s Constance, Helen Clarke, Janie Joe, Uncle Julians, Lived Castle, Merricat Constance, tea cake, main character, theme control, merricat control, control people, story control, lack control, eyes watching god, eyes watching, control janie, merricat feels, janie feels control,