Their eyes were watching god - Creative project

For this project, I chose to portray two of Janie’s husbands through the Marxist lens. In the picture you see a pair of glasses looking through at two settings in the book combined into one. These settings are the big white house on the hill in Eatonville and the fields where Janie works with Jodie when she is married to him. This picture is meant to show how much better off Janie was with Jodie then she was with Tea Cake. The House on the hill seems much more powerful and better off then the fields where Janie does physical labor. The whole thing is solidified by the dollar sign on the lens that looks at the house, and the cent sign on the lens that looks at the field. These symbols are the most clear in pointing out which of the husbands is better for Janie.

On the bottom of the picture there are two quotes to describe each situation. The first, on the side of the big house says “ You ought to know you can’t take no ‘oman like dat from no man lak him. A man dat ups and buys two hundred acres uh land at one whack and pays cash for it”. This quote is taken for one of the townsfolk in the newly bought Eatonville. Jodie has just bought two hundred acres of land without a second thought. He is clearly a rich and powerful man, and Janie should hang on to his acquired wealth for as long as possible.

The Other quote on Tea Cake’s side of the picture reads “Sometimes Janie would think back to the times in the big white house and store and laugh to herself. What if Eatonville could see her now in her denim jeans and heavy shoes?” Janie thinks to herself about her past as a powerful and influential woman. I wonder if she feels regret, because as it stands now with her new husband, she will be working in the fields for quite some time.

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