Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Love With Bounds In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Joe and Janie actually love each other, they just do not “speak” the same love language. Joe’s love language is gift giving. He constantly buys Janie gifts to show his love and hopes she will do the same for him; however, Janie’s love language is words of affirmation. People with this love language rely on words to compliment, advise, and comfort others. They feel hurt when others do not return these actions to them. Soon after Joe and Janie get married and are aboard the train to Eatonville, we learn “Joe didn’t make any speeches with rhymes to [Janie], but he bought her the best things the butcher had” (Hurston 34). Joe shows his love to Janie by buying her the most desirable merchandise, but does not realize she hopes he will win her heart through his kind, loving words instead. These differences lead to many …show more content…
. .] She put jus’ de right words tuh our thoughts” (Hurston 58). While those around them seem to notice Janie’s efforts to show love toward Joe, he doesn’t ever seem to notice her. Instead, Joe only speaks to Janie when he needs her to complete a task. She feels belittled by her husband and begins doing only what he asks of her, no longer trying to express her love to him. When sitting on the porch, “[Janie] didn’t say anything and neither did Joe. But after a while he looked down at his feet and said, ‘Janie, Ah reckon you better go fetch me dem old black garters [. . .]’ She got up without a word and went off for the shoes” (Hurston 57). Joe does not speak to Janie when they are sitting together and this causes Janie to feel ignored by her husband. She emotionally shrinks away from him and slowly stops giving him any of her loving affection. Because Janie and Joe express and feel love in different ways, they often disagree and fail to recognize they can re-establish the spark that has fled from their marriage simply by “speaking” and interpreting a
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