Janie Character Analysis

Thereafter, she meets and falls in love with Tea Cake. He is significantly younger than her; however, he is the first man to listen to her and treat her as an equal. For example, the day she met Tea Cake, he shocked her when he taught her to play checkers. The fact that someone thought it was natural for her to play pleased Janie. They both enjoyed caring for and helping each other feel relaxed and satisfied. Therefore, Janie, once again, leaves to start a new life despite warning from her friend, Phoebe, and the risk that Tea Cake could be using her for her money. Happily, she adjusts to a new life working alongside Tea Cake in the Everglades. Later, a hurricane tears through the Everglades, forcing them to leave. While they flee, Tea Cake rescues Janie from a wild dog and is only a scratch is left on his cheek. Until he becomes horribly ill, they think nothing of it. The doctor tells Janie she can’t sleep with him and she must stay away when he has ‘fits’. Due to this, Tea Cake believes she has grown tired of caring for him. The disease affects his behavior and in his crazed state he points a gun at Janie. He forces her to shoot him. While she weeps, Janie holds his head and thanks him for the opportunity to love him. Later that day, she is tried for his murder and acquitted. Afterwards, she cannot bear to live in the Everglades without Tea Cake; so, she moves back to

Later on in the novel, Tea Cake also took Janie to the local Sunday school picnic, which was a huge gesture that shows that he respected Janie. While at the Sunday school picnic, Tea Cake tells Janie, “Naw, it ain’t all right with you. If it was, you wouldn’t be saying dat. Have de nerve tuh say whut you mean”. This shows that Tea Cake valued Janie's thoughts and thoughts of her in such equalness that he wanted her to say what she wanted to say.

He thought the only thing she could do was work at home. Tea Cake has a very different idea about women. He thinks that Janie can do anything she wants to do, that she is just as smart as a man and has the capacity to learn and do many more things than what Joe would allow her to do. Throughout their marriage, Janie seems to have taken Joe’s ideas to heart and believes them herself. Tea Cake rejects these ideas and helps Janie begin to feel confident in herself and forget what Joe made her

Tea Cake’s actions in the story strongly indicate that he complicated Janie’s life. For instance, Tea Cake’s jealousy was demonstrated when Mrs. Turner was fascinated by Janie’s Caucasian features

Tea Cake performs the old courtship rituals, indulges in shooting and razor fighting, and plays the dozens and the blues. Compared with Killicks and Starks, former husbands of Janie, Tea Cake prefers interaction and people to ‘things’: “So us goin’ off somewhere and start all in Tea Cake’s way. Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game” (134). In this pastoral setting, Janie regains her voice to tell narratives. Janie feels free to join the notorious ‘lying’ and tale-telling sessions whenever she wants to: “She got so, she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest” (158). Yet, even with Tea Cake, she has to face intermittent crises and physical aggression. S. Jay Walker has

Tea Cake loved Janie so much that he would rather himself get hurt than her, which is something Janie had never experienced: true love. Without Tea Cake’s role in Janie’s life she would have never experienced true love and actual happiness. Tea Cake is a mysterious man from the

Her character development widened as she interacted with new love interests, understanding what ‘genuine love’ is. While the film attempted to emphasize that, it lacked the material to display that. While they maintained the love story between Tea Cake and Janie it outshined the character development, lessening screen time for Janie to even compare their relationship and her previous

all without Janie’s knowledge or consent. Another aspect in which Tea Cake helped was integrating Janie into society. Tea Cake and Janie eventually move down to a place called the “muck”. Here Tea Cake works in a field with the other residence of the town, while Janie stayed home. The town members mock Janie as if she is too good to work with them, until one day Tea Cake convinces her to join him, claiming, “Ah gits lonesome out dere all day ‘thout yuh.

In the beginning of Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship, Tea Cake appears almost too good to be true to both the reader and Janie. However as the book and relationship advances, Hurston has Tea Cake embody flaws that help to show the three dimensionality and authenticity of his and Janie’s relationship. Tea Cake’s flaws involve leaving Janie for long periods of time, a

Tea Cake has saved Janie’s life but not his. The bite from the dog gave Tea Cake rabies. Tea Cake later dies and Janie has now reached rock bottom again and cannot pick herself up anymore. Nature has once proved how it feeded Janie with her ambitions of love but crushed her dreams and ended her adventure in the most catastrophic way

He “[invites] Janie to be…herself” and he “does not limit her to a particular role” (Domina 315). As a result, there are no expectations for Janie to fulfill. She has no need to conform to a certain type of behavior or appearance, which allows her to finally reconcile the differences between internal and external versions of herself. Professor Deborah Clarke describes Janie’s time with Tea Cake as an opportunity for Janie to flourish and learn how to “formulate a self which is not predicated upon oppression” (Clarke 607). Because Tea Cake does not impose societal expectations upon Janie, she is able to navigate a relationship in which her innermost self that she has kept hidden can now rise to the surface.

Similarly, Janie makes another great sacrifice when she decides to leave her life of ease and luxury in Eatonville, so she can start a new life with Tea Cake. In Eatonville, she had authority as the store owner and as the former mayor’s wife, but she decides to follow her heart which ultimately leads to her fulfillment of self-actualization with the help of Tea Cake. Without Tea Cake, Janie could not have found herself, and his impact on her remains even after his death. Janie recounts her life lesson to Phoeby saying, “Love is lak da sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore...Two things everybody’s got tuh do for theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (191-92). Through Janie’s words, the effect of Tea Cake on her is eminent through how Janie learn about life and herself and leads her to becoming independent. Because Janie sacrifices her luxurious life in Eatonville, through Tea Cake, she fulfills her need of self-actualization, a recurring idea in the book. Janie’s values concerning her life and of Tea Cake are also illuminated in her conversation with Phoeby before she leaves Eatonville. She and Tea Cake “‘...[had] done made up [their] minds tuh

The final stage in Janie’s development as a woman is her marriage with the twelve years younger Tea Cake. Both are totally in love with each other and Janie lives a live she has never lived before. She experienced a big change when she moves from her formal live as “Mrs. Major” (43) in Eatonville to the Everglades where Tea Cakes teaches her how to farm, fish and hunt and introduces a totally new rural life to her. Janie described her lifestyle in these days with "...we ain't got nothin' tuh do but do our work and come home and love" (127).

Tea Cake returns home after Janie has a panic attack regarding the two hundred dollars she thought he stole. She assumed he had run off, but he returned with it. This sets up trust between the two parties. Additionally, there is understanding between the two of them, as Tea Cake accepts that she wishes to accompany him to future events. This also sets them up to spend time with each other instead of Janie being isolated like she was with Jody.

     Then Janie meets Tea Cake. Their courtship and marriage involve many different forms of equality which are not seen in Janie's past relationships. The equalities exhibited include Tea Cake and Janie's equality to one another as persons, and equality in "age," love, and money.