Their Eyes Were Watching God: Main Characters

There are several characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God, but there are only a few main characters. I think the main characters are Janie Crawford, Tea Cake, and Jody Starks.

Janie Crawford is the number one main character of the story. The novel is all about Janie's journey to "the horizon". Janie is a strong woman. She puts up with a lot of harsh beatings and harsh words. At the beginning of the novel, Janie is kind of soft spoken. She does what others want her to do. When she meets Jody, she starts out as that same quiet Janie, but, towards the end of their relationship, Janie finds her voice. Towards the end of the novel, Janie finds Tea Cake who helps her expand her voice. He helps her to finally reach "the horizon".

Tea Cake is Janie's third husband. He is the man that Janie loved the most. Tea Cake is very carefree and fun. He is imaginative and funny. Tea Cake is also a good gambler, and he sometimes he is gone for long periods at a time. This scares Janie, but he soon stops disappearing a lot. Tea Cake does not treat Janie like an object. He treats her almost as his equal. Tea Cake and Janie sometimes had some fights, but they ended in a good way. Tea Cake helps Janie to harness and expand her voice.

Jody Starks is Janie's second husband. He is a businessman. Jody is all about money and material things. Janie is not in to material things. That is a big difference that they had. Jody treated Janie as an object, which, in turn, made Janie hate him. He made her wear her beautiful hair in rags, and he did not let her take part in talking to people on the porch. Jody tried to show how much he cared by buying Janie nice things, but she did not care about all the nice things. She just wanted to be treated as an equal. She wanted to be able to voice her opinion.