Janie Crawford

The first thing that struck me about Janie is her heritage, and how she actually seems somewhat proud of being mixed. I mean to each their own, but she's only mixed because the female members of her family where all raped by white men. Not exactly something to be really pleased about, but she seems to be more interested in her own duality that the connotations of it. She goes to great lengths to be proud of her straight, Caucasian hair, but also wears overalls to shun her own femininity. This makes me think she is less interested in actually being of some group, but prefers to freedom associated with being undecided. Anyways, at a young age she becomes anamoured with the idea of love, expressing this with her reflections on the fertility of pollinated peach blossoms, and other "ripe fruit" symbolism. Anyhow, the dudes of her town are pretty cool with this, as she is described as being very physically attractive. She has her first kiss and is looking for love, when her grandmother shuts her down, saying she needs a man to set her up with some comfort. Aside from harshing her vibe, grandma makes a good point, because she is super old and worn out, and Janie has no one else to take care of her. Janie sets herself up with the well-off farmer Logan, who is the simplest character in the entire book. Hes a super stoic, hard working farmer, and only way of expressing himself is by chewing tobacco. Anyhow, this doesn't work out very well, so she run off with the hot shot Jody, who is somewhat of an asshole. He isn't directly malicious in nature, he just is driven by the political template of success, and treat Janie as an object because of the standards set by the times. She isn't cool with this, but she seems to just suck up and deal with it, which is odd. Somewhat fortunately though, he is super old, and when she confronts of him about their relationship, she is the figurative and literal nail in the coffin. Jody's death means Janie is now a free woman, and she now struggles with concealing her joy. She moves on pretty quick with good old Tea Cake, and he seems like the perfect man for her, but thankfully is still human, and can be an absent jerk at times. Thank God, because if he was just the perfect prince charming, it would just feel like he was the concocted antithesis of Jody, instead of a legit human being. Anyhow  Janie is still pretty stoked over Tea Cake, and at this point in the story she seems to have made it pretty far in both sucesses and maturity.