iefs about money, happiness and love (372). Unfortunately Janie’s dream of escasty does not involve Killicks. Her first dream is dead. Janie utters, “Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think” (Hurston 23). Logan began to slap Janie for control over his marriage. He bought her a mule to plow with. Nanny’s idea of marriage comes crashing down. Hurston accedes that Janie notices her husband “has stopped talking in rhythms to her,” she sees the companionship of second husband Joe Starks, who promises her a life without the responsibility of plowing with a mule (25). The significance of this marriage for Janie’s progression toward self-awareness seems to crystallize when she decides to leave Logan for Joe Starks (Collins 146). Joe provides Janie with the “front porch” existence of Nanny’s dreams, but in doing so, he isolates her from direct participation in any life except his own (Williams 101). He gives Janie possessions and status, but assumes that her identity will come only from her role as his wife (Bush 1037). Her status is high above everyone else’s, but her identity is still not shown. Johnson remarks, “Janie soon finds that her pedestal to be a straitjacket, particularly when it involves her exclusion –both as a speaker and a listener-from the tale-telling sessions on the store porch and at the mock funeral of the mule” (168). Joe says, “[Janie] Ah aims to keep yuh in de dark all de time” (Hurston 60). Joe makes Janie wear her hair tied up while working in the store; he is very jealous of her. “Janie [feels] far away from things and lonely” (Hurston 44). Janie is a woman that cannot be herself, someone she doesn’t even fully know while married to Joe Starks. Jody took Killicks place, but Joe is a false dream too, “just something she had grabbed up to drap...
