External and Internal Conflict

I think that although it can be argued that Janie's conflicts are all person versus person, the underlying conflict and the source of all the dissension in the novel is person versus society. Needless to say, the person is Janie, and the "society" piece refers to society's expectations of Janie as a woman. What were society's expectations for Janie? The same as they were for any other woman. Janie was expected to act submissively towards men, to be dependent on a man, to stay in her "woman's sphere" (cooking and cleaning), and to be less intelligent than men. Society had relegated women to a subservient position.

If I were to argue for person versus person conflict, I would cite Janie v. Logan, Janie v. Joe, and Janie v. Nanny (An admittedly weak citation for pvp - Nanny is dead so its more like Janie v. Nanny's expectations.) However, I think that as a group, all of those people represent the expectations of society.

The aspect of society's expectations represented by Nanny is the expectations of women for other women. Hurston constructs a beautiful metaphor to illustrate Nanny's viewpoint: "[Janie] often spoke to falling seeds and said, "Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed"(pg. 25). The seeds (women in the twenties) beleive they are helpless (need to marry a man because they are dependent on men) and that all they can do is hope to land on soft ground (find someone acceptable to marry). Nanny is one of those seeds, and she wants to see Janie land on soft ground before she dies. That ground ends up being Logan Killicks. Janie is neither enticed nor satisfied with her landing zone, but she gives in to her grandmother's wishes, which are really the expectations of society.

Logan and Joe embody men's expectations for women in society. They are both sexist, ignorant, and unappreciative of Janie. Logan expects Janie to take orders: he instructs Janie to do things like moving manure piles and hauling wood. He also expects her to be in love with him because they are married. Janie doesn't like either of these things, so she runs of with Joe Starks. He isn't much better. Although he doesn't ask her to do manual labor, he does expect her to stay in her "woman's sphere". She is not allowed to socialize with the men on the porch, and he subscribes to the belief that women are intellectually inferior to men. Janie eventually tires of his chauvenistic attitude, but fortunately Joe dies so she does not have to run away again. But had she felt the need to run away, she would not have been running from Joe. This is because janie's struggle with how she is treated by the men in her life is really her struggle with the expectations of society.

Random Thing: I think there is an important parallel between TEWWG and Gatsby. In both novels, the protagonist struggles to achieve a love related goal for a very long time, and although both protagonists do eventually achieve their goals, they only hold on to them for a short amount of time. Possibly because both Fitzgerald and Hurston believe that one cannot hold on to realized dreams? Is it possible that they knew each other? They did both go to parties in New York in the same era... But I think Fitzgerald was in France when Hurston was in NYC. Also, even if they were there at the same time, they would still have to somehow go to the same parties. But they were both well known writers so maybe...