Joe's Archetype

So far in Janie's "Hero Journey" she has met only a few major characters that can be fit into the Archetype roles. A significant character is Joe Starks, who we meet in chapter four. At first he seems like the perfect husband for Janie, compared to her first husband, Logan. On page 35 it says that he (Joe) "...didn't make many speeches with rhymes to her." This shows that he is not like Logan, who treated her like royalty for the first few months until the novelty of a pretty young wife wore off. Instead of trying to charm an impressionable Janie with sweet talk and compliments, Joe seems practical. He shows his affection when he "...bought her the best things the butcher had, like apples and a glass lantern full of candies." He is also educated and wealthy, unlike the farmer Logan, who had expected Janie to help him with the rough work on the farm (including the work with the manure).

However, I don't think Joe will end up being the perfect husband for Janie. After they arrived in Eatonville, he becomes more possessive and demanding. He constantly tells Janie what type of clothes to wear (such as the wine-colored dress on page 41 so that she can outrank the other women at the social gathering), or a certain way to act (like when he prohibits her from joining in on the "mule" stories taking place outside of the store).

His actions make him a shapeshifter in the Hero Journey archetypes. His presence definitely causes doubts in the hero's (Janie's) mind. Joe is challenging Janie's self-confidence by dictating her life. Instead of giving Janie the chance to assert herself by making decisions, Joe assumes that he knows what is best for her. By making the decisions for his wife, and by expecting her to follow his wishes, he is undermining Janie's ability to think for herself. An example of this is one page 43 when Joe becomes the mayor of Eatonville. The people of the town proposes a speech by Janie, but Joe quickly makes the decision for her by saying, "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home." He is assuming total responsibility over her by claiming that she does not want to make the speech without asking her first. Janie feels discomforted about her husband's actions since she "...went down the road behind him that night feeling cold." However, she is reluctant to go against his wishes. She is overcome by him and his demands, and so she is still confused about her identity.

This is how Joe the shapeshifter is misleading Janie the Hero. Janie's Hero Journey is a path where she gains self-realization and confidence. We know this from the first chapter, since she comes back to Eatonville with pride and self-confidence (which is very different from her younger days of obedience and passiveness). She must have overcome the shapeshifter, who wants to squash these very aspects of Janie, in order to gain this new personality. She can overcome Joe's demands however, with the last line in chapter five: "They [the town, and also Janie in this case] bowed down to him...because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down (50)".