Janie...

             "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston features a black woman by the name of Janie Crawford. Like everyone else on this world, Janie has dreams and aspirations for her life that she will fight to achieve, like true love. These dreams were Janie's, but they didn't just pop into her head all of a sudden, they were given to her by the people who surrounded her during her life. Dreams are described as more of an inheritance then original in this story. As the story progresses, something is revealed to Janie, something that people never want revealed to them. She stops believing in these dreams and starts to see the truth of the world described by Hurston. "...his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth.Then they act and do things accordingly." (Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston) Janie begins to see things for what they are, never hoping for more, never dreaming for something different, staying comfortable. These are Janie's beliefs. 

            These beliefs seem to disappear once a nice guy rolls in promising intimacy and equality. These events with the men in her life can either be seen as contradictions to her beliefs, or the cause of them. Either way, I disagree with her beliefs. Hopes and dreams are tricksters, always seeming to allow us to catch up with them and then taking off, leaving only the presence of what was, and yet this is enough to motivate us to keep chasing them. Some of us may catch up, some of us will never come close. This is the truth, and it's not bad. If we did not dream, if we had no hopes for something greater in life, then life would not be worth living. Aspirations are not a weakness, they are the most beautiful things humanity has ever given to this world. 

           Janie has lost this sense, and she has reason to. I haven't finished the book yet, but my opinion at this time about Janie, if it had to be one word, would be Hypocrite.