Their Eyes Were Watching God Chapters 5-8

Janie and Jody arrive in Maitland on a train, and they immediately set about to look at the town of Eatonville. Jody is unimpressed by the small clump of buildings but asks a couple of people about the mayor. He learns that the people of the town haven’t yet thought to select a mayor, and they point out a place where Jody can find rooms. Before he leaves them, Jody informs them that he intends to buy into the town in a big way. As soon as the married couple departs, the two men they had been speaking with begin to discuss the new arrivals. One of the men is particularly impressed with Janie and her beauty, while the other man focuses on Jody’s behavior and how he carried himself. Jody learns that the town only has 50 acres of land that was donated by the neighboring landowners. He discovers that most of the surrounding land is owned by Captain Eaton, who had been among the first to give out a parcel of land to the African Americans. He goes to visit the man with half the town in tow and almost immediately buys two hundred acres of land from the man.

The town is set in a frenzy when the residents learn that Jody intends to build a store and have the government set up a post office. Some of the black people in the area are skeptical about the plans and believe that Jody is lying to them. However, Jody soon has the town committee clear trees for roads, and orders lumber from the sawmill so that he can begin to build a store. He goes out to spread the word about Eatonville, and a few families buy lots very quickly. Jody quickly recovers his investment and has begun to sell canned goods from the store before even the roof has been put in. Jody asks Janie to dress up as well as she can for the first night of the fully built store. All of the people in the town come to the store where Jody offers them refreshments without charge. One of the men makes a speech and expresses his welcome to both Jody and Janie. However, the speech is cut short by a heckler, and Jody is invited to speak. He thanks the people for the welcome, and informs them that he has big plans for the town, but the first order of business had to be to incorporate the town. The people of the town unanimously declare Jody to be their new mayor. They invite Janie to speak as well, but Jody intervenes and remarks that his wife has no oratory skills and that since she is a woman her place is in the kitchen.

Janie feels a coldness creep into her at his words. Jody then has a streetlamp commissioned for the town, and although some people on the committee are reluctant, he manages to push through a majority. Jody prepares for the event with care and invites several people from the surrounding places to the lamp lighting ceremony. He has the town put together a feast for the visitors, and a prayer is said before the lamp is lit at dusk. The town soon grows used to the benefits that Jody brings, and some resentment begins to grow towards him. He has people dig a ditch to drain the street in front of the store, and builds a huge white house right next to the much smaller houses of the town. Jody also keeps a golden spittoon in his office, which has a big desk and a spinning chair. These symbols of wealth mark him as being different from the rest of the residents of Eatonville. People begin to gossip about how Jody has profited off of them, and how horribly he treats Janie whenever she makes a mistake in the store. Janie had disliked the idea of working at the store, but Jody had insisted upon it. He had made Janie start tying her hair because he had once seen one of the townsmen touch it when Janie wasn’t paying attention.

Jody was extremely controlling of Janie’s behavior, he never wanted her to sit about the porch with the other people of the town as they talked about nonsensical things. Janie’s favorite were the stories about an old and thin mule that was owned by a stingy man from the town. The townspeople mocked the man for never feeding his mule, both Jody and Janie laughed merrily along with the others, but Jody never let Janie linger around the porch too much. He always wanted her inside the store, and she had grown to hate the inside of the store. Her work wasn’t simple either, since she had to perform complex arithmetics with both money and measurements due to the nature of ration requests she would get.

One day, the mule stayed out of the barn, and he wound up in front of the store porch where the men began to hassle the poor creature. Janie noted the cruel treatment of the animal and expressed her anguish at his poor fate out loud. Jody heard her and sent her to the house to fetch him another pair of shoes. When Janie returned she found Jody haggling with the owner of the mule and discovered that Jody had bought the mule to set it free. Janie expresses her pleasure at Jody, whom she believes has made himself similar to men like Abraham Lincoln for he has given a creature its freedom. The town was fascinated with the liberated mule, and they all watched in amusement as the mule became fat on the fodder that Jody and the others put out. The mule continued to feature in the stories of the town until he died. The town gathered to drag out the mule from the town, and Janie wished to go but Jody didn’t want her to associate with the riff-raff of the town and so told her to remain. Jody was angered by Janie’s displeasure at being denied for he felt that she did not appreciate him working so hard to create a high seat for the both of them to occupy above the rest.

Janie’s attitude towards Jody changed from that point forward, no longer was their bedroom a place for the both of them to play, but only where they found their bed at the end of the day. However, Janie did her best to be the dutiful wife, and behave obediently in public. She also learned that it was better to keep her silence rather than argue with Jody, but alas their marriage continued to deteriorate little by little. One night, Janie failed to serve up a tasty plate of dinner despite her best efforts, and she was rewarded with a slap for her troubles. She stayed still a long time, as Jody got up and left-back for the store. She remained silent as she went back out to the store, and stood listening to the men talk about how they would beat a wife if she refused to be grateful for the things they provide. Janie interjected, but Jody dismissed what she said and commanded her to shut her mouth and return inside.

As the years went on, Jody began to age more quickly than Janie. She noticed how his belly had begun to sag, and how the spirit seemed to leave his step. He continued to treat her badly, and Janie listened to all his complaints in silence. She began to dissociate and would think that she is sitting out under a tree in the sun, while Jody yelled work at her inside the store. He also began to insult her looks, and Janie understood that he did so not because he truly felt those things but because he saw that his own looks had deteriorated significantly. Janie and Jody get into a huge argument in front of the townspeople when Jody makes a very tasteless remark about Janie’s body after she accidentally makes a small error in her duties. Janie retaliates for the first time and claims that Jody isn’t really a man, and needs to hide behind his big voice so that people don’t understand what he’s missing. The other townspeople laugh, and the destruction of his status in society causes Jody particular pain. He beats Janie out of the store, and they stop living in the same room. Janie at the age of 35 continues to look like a woman while Jody’s health continually worsens. He stops eating the food she makes him and implies that she has been poisoning him. Janie is extremely upset by this accusation and confides her suffering in her friend Phoeby. Phoeby explains that there is a rumor in town that Janie has had Jody castrated or rather ‘fixed’. A rumor that may have been started by a bush doctor who has been hanging around the store with Jody, and has a reputation of being a hack.

Jody continues to worsen and soon takes to bed. He forbids Janie from seeing him, while people who had once never set foot in the mayor’s house now run through it as he considers them to be his confidants. Janie brings in a doctor, who tells her that Jody is likely to die soon since his kidneys have stopped working well. Janie decides to have a conversation with Jody before it is too late, and goes into his sick room. He angrily tells her to leave, but Janie expresses herself. She tells him that she had run away with a different Jody and that although they had been married for so long, Jody had never truly tried to understand her. He had never let Janie express her love for him, as he had been determined to even control her thoughts. Jody dies while Janie is talking, and Janie goes up to her room and puts on the expected face of mourning as she tells the waiting people that Jody had died.

Analysis

Janie understands that Jody does not represent blooming flowers and bees, which are the symbols of her romantic aspirations. However, Janie wishes to see what lies beyond the horizon, which is another important symbol referenced in the book. Jody represents masculine ambition and power, as he seeks to buy or intimidate all things around him. Janie initially chooses to leave with Jody because she feels like his ambition and money are the means to learn what lies beyond the horizon. However, Janie quickly begins to realize that Jody is not quite what she had thought him to be. Jody's hubris makes itself plain during the first few weeks of his arrival in Eatonville, where he presents himself more like the old white slave owners than a rich black man. The lamp lighting ceremony is particularly interesting as it marks him out as trying to place himself on par with God. He compares the light of the lamp in the night to that of the sun in the morning and ends his prayer with an invocation reminiscent of the act of creation from the bible.

In her last conversation with Jody, Janie rightly accuses him of always attempting to control her, and shape her according to his own wishes. We see the first glimpse of this behavior when he prevents her from making a speech on the first night of the store. Allowing her to speak to the townspeople would allow her to express her own identity, one that isn't shaped by Jody. Later onwards, he makes Janie tie up her hair in a head rag since Janie's hair distinctly sets her apart from everyone else, and is a representation of her sexuality.