Sacrfices
Sometimes people or characters choose to sacrifice something for something else, like in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The main character Janie gives up or sacrifices things in her life and by doing so it highlights her values. There are three main events that show Janie’s true values in life and what she sacrifices to highlight her values. Jaine first sacrifices her want to find true love to marry the man her grandmother wished her to marry. when Jaine does this, the way she values her grandmother get highlighted.
The reason this event highlights Jaines values and the way she respects her grandmother is because what she wanted to find in life so badly was true love but she decided to skip out on love for the time being and do what her grandmother wished of her. Nanny wanted Janie to have what she felt she deaded even when Janie didn’t want the same “If you don’t want him [Logan], you sho oughta” (Hurston. 21) but Janie agreed and married Logan. Janie however shows how much she wanted to find love and the happiness love brings and her value of that is highlighted again when she decides to leave Logan and run away with a man she just met. Janie’s value of love is shown because she sacrifices the marriage her grandmother wished for her so that she can find what she wanted to look for to start with and that was love.
She valued love because she never got to truly see it because of the role models she had to go by. Janie did however give Logan a chance to stop her from leaving when she said ” “S’posin’ Ah waz to run off and leave yuh sometime” ” (Hurston. 29). So the sacrifice was not just of hers but also Logan. But they did both give up something for something else they valued more even if Logan’s is not seen. Janie again sacrifices the love that she so badly wanted to find when she is put in a situation where she had to shoot Tea Cake.
This sacrifice however is unlike the rest because it highlights the love she had for Tea Cake and was a sacrifice for the both of them.She sacrificed his life to save herself but to save him because the rabies was taking over his mind and there was nothing anyone could do for him. In killing Tea Cake she not only sacrificed him even if it wasn’t of her own free will but she also sacrificed a part of her that only Tea Cake had and that was the love in their heart for him. This novel truly shows how a character might make a sacrifice that highlights the true values of that character. Janie shows what she values most in life by sacrificing what can be seen as both important and unimportant like true love, a marriage or the person you love the most. However the sacrifices people make in life show what means the most to them like with Janie she valued the love of others and findingher happiness in the world.
