The Handsome Woman

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the narrator explains that "She thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of a man. Then she thought about herself." This literally means that Janie thought about how her husband, Jody, had changed after he became the voice of Eatonville.  He started as a kind, young gentlemen and slowly transformed into a bitter old man. Then she begins to think about herself and what she wants to do now that she doesn't have him bossing her around. The narrator goes further to explain that "Years ago, she had told herself to wait for her in the looking glass." This is a form of figurative language used to explain that Janie had been waiting to grow old. "She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features.  The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place." The tone is almost lonesome but at the same time it has some hope and confidence.  The narrator uses these sentences to show that Janie has aged, and although the young girl in her is gone, she has turned into a woman. The word "handsome" almost brings out a manly feature in her that shows her growth in power since her husband had left her. The motif  "She tore off her kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair," was used to represent beauty and the power that was once lost when she got married and how it had returned to her again. In a metaphorical language, letting down her hair represents change. "Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see, and opened up the window and cried, "Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah husband is gone from me." The main idea of this quote is to explain to the reader that Janie covered her happiness of Jody's death with an act. This is important because throughout the book their has been a recurring idea of acting and covering up true feelings from "the people." These events come together to create an extremely important moment in the book about Janie.