Janie Crawford Killicks Starks Woods is constantly being defined by other people. As a child she is not liked because others thought that she felt as if she were better than everyone else, based on her home life and physical appearance. She is light skinned with great hair, making her stand out. Nanny had always wanted her to stand out as well, she thought it was a good thing that people thought she was superior.
The second very significant person in Janies life is her husband Logan Killicks. Logan defines her as a spoiled young girl and constantly compares her to his previous wife, who was much better and willing to do farmwork. Upon searching for a definition of Killick, I found that a killick was a heavy stone used as an anchor for craft, such as small ships. I then compared Janie to this small ship, because her and Logans marriage was the first thing that held her down. She did not want this marriage, she aimed for a romance as beautiful as nature itself but instead must settle into this mans house as a wife for Nanny. Logan Killicks was Janies very first Anchor.
The third very significant person in Janies life was Joe (Jody) Starks, her second husband. Joe defines Janie as his trophy wife, never letting her do anything but look proper and pretty like an expensive collectors item that would be kept on a shelf. Again, I defined the work Stark. Definitions included physically strong or powerful, incapable of movement, unpleasantly sharp or clear. Joe Starks I believe, was all of these things. The big man of the town and the very controlling husband to Janie. She is constantly speaks of Joe as a man who makes a lot of changes in everyone else but cannot change himself. Many others in town saw this quality in Joe Starks as well, but but the fact that he had done so much positive things in the town they never spoke up to him personally.
Lastly (that I am aware of) there is Vergible Tea Cake Woods. The character who inspired my research on names. Tea Cake Woods is so far the last husband of Janies, who defines her an an equal person and respects her as a woman. She finds everything she was searching for in her past husbands in Vergible Woods, just as she did in nature with the trees, which I connected to his last name Woods.
