When reading the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, and following Janie on her adventure through three marriages there is one underlying theme that sticks out to me. The underlying theme is Janie's exploration of what role she occupies in all of her relationships. In my opinion I believe in each relationship she experiences, in chronological order, she loses more control over her significant other than the previous. I think it's very interesting to study the effects of how the amount of control/power one has in a relationship can effect them, in this case Janie.
Towards the beginning of the story Janie gets married off to a man named Logan Killicks. It is made very apparent that Janie does not love Logan but she continues to be with him with the intentions of developing strong feelings for him. With Janie going into a marriage with a man she knows she doesn't love, she has nothing to loose except wealth, so really, she controls all power in the relationship. With this power she begins talking to a man named Joe Stark, and continually gets more and more frustrated with Logan. Eventually she leaves Logan in the dust for him not feeling bad at all.
Janie's marriage with Jody is an interesting case, because in my opinion I believe they both hold equal power in the relationship. Jody is very wealthy, bold, powerful, political figure that is extremely determined, and Janie is desired by everyone because of her beauty. This situation makes it hard for either of them to leave each other, shown by the fact that they stayed together until well... death did them part. One interesting thing to note about their relationship is, it was very apparent that they were unhappy with one another but regardless of this, I believe, due to the complete balance in power in the relationship, it naturally kept them together.
Finally, after the death of Joe Stark, Janie waited some months only to run off from Eatonville and marry a man named Vergible Woods. In this marriage, it is extremely apparent, at least to me, that Janie is completely head over heels for this man, putting all the power in his hands. What does this imbalance in power create? It creates fear, jealousy, depression, and occasional moments of pure bliss within Janie. She is so constantly worried that he is going to leave her that whenever he leaves she gets jealous of other girls, depressed that she can't see him, and fears the departure of him from her life forever. I think that this is very interesting and really reflects what power in a relationship can do to people.
