ercome this, and she is resentful toward anyone or anything that interferes with her quest for happiness. "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see," opines Janie's grandmother in an attempt to justify the marriage that she has arranged for her granddaughter (Their Eyes 14). This excerpt establishes the existence of the inferior status of women in this society, a status which Janie must somehow overcome in order to emerge a heroine. This societal constraint does not deter Janie from attaining her dream. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Their Eyes 24). Janie is not afraid to defy the expectations that her grandmother has for her life, because she realizes that her grandmother's antiquated views of women as weaklings in need of male protection even at the expense of a loving relationship, constitute limitations to her personal potential. "She hated her grandmother . . . .Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon " (Their Eyes 85-86). Nevertheless, Janie is not afraid to follow her instincts, even when this means leaving her first husband to marry her second - without a divorce. "Janie hurried out of the front gate and turned south. Even if Joe was not there waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good" (Their Eyes 31). The gossip that spreads throughout her small town when she leaves with a younger man - after the death of her second husband leaves her a widow - does not slow her down in the least. Finally, she finds happiness with Tea Cake, and it means so much more, because she has decided to go through with it on her own. Discovering the "two things everybody's got to do fuh theyselves," is Janie's personal victory (Their Eyes 183). "They got tuh go tuh God, and they...
