What If Hurston Went Another Route?

In response to Jeff’s post, from a couple of weeks ago that is, I would like to further look at the following line from his post: “Although Janie can be viewed as a man-eater, her naivety and her constant renewal keeps the reader on her side and behind her throughout the novel's entirety.” More importantly I am concerned with the latter part of this line where Jeff talks about Hurston keeping her audience of the side of Janie throughout the novel’s entirety.
Janie’s romantic affairs always put her “in the right,” even in a society where spousal relationships were almost always dominated by the husband. Obviously, times have changed for the better in this regard, but what makes Janie so much different from any other wife during their time in this era? Her attractive features probably help with this and Hurston utilizes this consciously.
Her hard-working nature also helps the readers connect with Janie. Her strict routine in the town shop before Tea Cake, as well as the time that she takes on in the fields simply to spend more time with Tea Cake also evidence how she does not mind getting her elbows dirty.
Finally, when Janie has to “put Tea Cake down,” and the main reason why I chose to comment on Jeff’s post, we as readers are so connected with the protagonist at this point that when she blows Tea Cake away, we, and fortunately her jurors, both side with Janie. In all actuality, if we had not had the details of Janie’s final ordeal with Tea Cake, we probably would not have advocated for her as readers. She has however gone through much all on her own, which speaks volumes about the strength that novelists like Hurston and others can manifest. Hurston sets up her readers to side with Janie throughout the novel in comparatively small-scale matters until the end when she takes care of Tea Cake. If she would have set up those relatively small-scale situations with readers’ advocacy not for Janie, we would most certainly have a different ending and more than likely a different novel altogether. Critics over sixty years later would still agree that she made the right choices for her protagonist though I am sure.