Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

The complete segregated society did not have any effect on Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship. Indisputably, this is a fascinating tale, which clearly demonstrated that both parties really care for one another. Janie was under a lot of pressure as her relationship with Tea Cake’s was not approved by Mrs. Turner, who was at the time against interracial dating. Both Janie and Tea Cake’s had a delightful and loving relationship in which she experiences true love. As the store goes, she tragically shot Tea Cake’s, which ended their relationship. However, what we know is that she was gratified with their relationship, in which she experiences and understood the meaning of true love while married to Tea Cake. It is evident that Janie did not have

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

From the beginning, Janie’s happiness is abundantly clear in her relationship with Tea Cake. Although she is now a woman in her forties, Janie acts very youthful and unrestricted with him. She wears “new dresses and...comb[s] her hair a different way nearly every day (111)”. Tea Cake allows for Janie to be herself, in stark contrast to misogynistic Joe who constrained her individuality daily. Janie reports that “Tea Cake love[s] me in blue, so Ah wears it (113)”.

Tea Cake, whose real name is Vergible Woods, is Janie's soul mate, both of them being tree metaphors. He’s the only one of her husbands who haven’t been described as dead wood. Hurston writes, “looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom - a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.” His nickname too holds significance in referring to something sweet, just as she has hope dor "things swee wid mah marriage" (24). Because Tea Cake is unconcerned with her money, for instance, in that he asks her to keep her savings aside and live from his current earnings, Tea Cake is clearly contrary to the norm of suitors who preceded him following the death of Joe, who didn’t want her for her. He is a man truly in love with Janie, a man who understands her. In instructing “Everytime Ah see uh patch uh roses uh somethin’ over sportin’ they selves makin’ out they pretty, Ah tell ‘em “ah want yuh to see mah Janie sometime.’ You must let de flowers see yuh sometimes, heah Janie?” (181), he shows that he too sees her mirroring, even competing with nature. It is with him, that Janie is pollinated to realize the meaning of the pear tree’s mysteries and

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

This is not because she did anything wrong, but rather because a neighbor’s brother showed interest in her. Tea Cake was not, truly, free of the misogynistic stereotypes of women, and the event showed deep down the possessiveness he felt for her. “Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). Again, Janie is in a marriage where her husband thinks of her as a property. Tea Cake’s character brought much hope for a lifestyle in which Janie could be independent and powerful, participate in conversation and checkers, and be respected on an equal level. Ultimately, Tea Cake was still possessive, and in many ways was not in fact free of the suppressing beliefs of society as a whole. His character is evident of how deep rooted the beliefs were. Tea Cake passed away, but Janie carried on, returned to Eatonville, once again showcasing her

Janie was no longer letting anything control her any longer. She was making her own decisions now by talking to Jordan and not listening to her grandmother, who told her to respect her husband. With the results of this, Janie ran from Killicks to marry Joe for numerous years while waiting for her hunger for love to be filled. However it never was with Joe. After the death of Joe, Janie soon found Tea Cake, who gave her the love she starved for: “after a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind” (Hurston 107). Hurston gave Janie Tea Cake to show that she was no longer going to wait around and wait for love. She was now going to find it herself. Proving that she was no longer the naive girl who sat under a tree and dreamed all day.

Mrs. Turner believes Tea Cake’s complexion is too dark, and so she introduces her lighter-skinned brother to Janie. Tea Cake is threatened by this; his jealousy and insecurity manifest in hitting Janie. Hitting Janie “relieved that awful feeling inside of him” (Hurston, 147). Tea Cake attempted to garner Janie’s attention and re-affirm his status within the relationship. He believes Janie's bruises will show Janie, Mrs. Turner, and her brother that he holds control over his wife.

Every woman is looking for a good husband to make her feel special and loved in the marriage, but for many it may take a few tries. Zora Neale Hurston proves this point in her novel when Janie marries three different men before finding out what true love was. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Janie is forced into marriage, by her grandmother, at sixteen to an man she doesn't even love and who wants her to work. Meeting a man new to town, he promises to love her and keep her high on a pedestal so she won’t have to work, Janie thinks she would find true love with Joe runs away with him in search of true love. However Joe never let Janie do the things she wanted and never treated her as an equal. Then along came Tea Cake who

After Tea Cake ignores all the preemptive warnings of the approaching Hurricane Okeechobee, Janie gets trapped in a flood in the Everglades with a rabid dog. Witnessing this event, Tea Cake risks his life and jumps into the water to save Janie from this beast. Afterwards, Janie tells Tea Cake, “Once upon uh time, Ah never 'spected nothin', Tea Cake, but bein' dead from standin' still and tryin' tuh laugh. But you come 'long and made somethin' outa me. So Ah'm thankful fuh anything we come through together.” (Hurston 167). Janie’s quote demonstrates her gratitude to Tea Cake, who was the only person to truly treat Janie as an equal. By following Nanny’s ideals, Janie lived most of her life neglected in various ways by both Logan and Joe. However, when she finally abandoned Nanny’s dream and met her own needs by marrying Tea Cake, she experienced happiness for the first time. The life of security with little emotional fulfillment deeply contrasts with Janie’s new life with Tea Cake. Finally, she is able to experience true love instead of living as a mule under Joe and Logan, both of whom tried to shape Janie to fit their own personal needs instead of treating her as an equal . Although Nanny wanted to secure Janie’s life by marrying her off to a respected, landowning man, this resulted in unintended consequences that restricted her freedom and harmed her well being. Unlike

The aspiration for love can take people in many directions, but if it's truly wanted, eventually it will be found. In the fiction novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie has a realization under a pear tree about what she wants in her life. Janie then has multiple relationships as she tries to get her desires. Since the revelation she experiences under the pear tree, Janie is aware of what she wants in a relationship, and as she grows as a woman through her three marriages, she finally attains her dream vision of love and happiness. Janie’s experience under the pear tree helps her understand the passion she wants in life.

Tea Cake is one of the most well-developed ones. He also appears to be the best out of the 3 love interests Janie has, although both Hurston’s novel and Native Son show the oppressive nature of many men including Tea Cake. According to Yvonne Mesa-El Ashmawi in his article titled “Janie's Tea Cake: Sinner, Saint, or Merely Mortal?”, while it could be argued that Tea Cake is irresponsible (such as when he gambled on Janie’s money and partied all night with the winnings) and he chose to live on the Muck which one scholar Ashmawi quoted called a “labor camp”, he is better for Janie than her other husbands were because he teaches her how to do things that are commonly regarded as men’s activities, including playing checkers, fishing, and shooting; he also embraces her femininity (204). Still, Ashmawi’s main argument is that Tea Cake is somebody with both good and bad qualities. I agree with this, as I think Tea Cake is the husband of Janie’s with the most likable personality. Yet, like Janie’s second husband, Joe Starks, Tea Cake also physically assaults Janie; both of them do this in order to assert their masculinity and power (80, 147). Meanwhile, her first husband, Logan Killicks, never lays a hand on Janie. Although Logan Killicks is not chosen by Janie, but by her grandmother, whom Janie refers to as Nanny. Nanny feels that since Janie is a Black woman, she is vulnerable and therefore, Janie needs a man to

Tea Cake is Janie’s third husband, and like her previous marriages, he demonstrates a supporting role. The difference between Tea Cake and her other husbands is that Logan and Joe never supported her personal desires, and did not bring her the love and protection she had always sought. While Janie thought Tea Cake took off with her money and just spent it, he told her not to worry about it. As he said deliberately, “Ah told yo’ before dat you got de keys tuh de kingdom. You can depend on dat” (121). The message that Tea Cake is giving, is that he supports Janie and that she is an equal in their marriage, this is the difference between Tea Cake and Janie’s previous husbands. Alongside Tea Cake being a nourishing and kind husband to Janie, he is also a protector, and further on in their marriage, Janie fell into powerful, flowing stream of water during a hurricane in the Everglades. She grabbed hold of a cow for support and there, standing ferociously, was a rabid dog on the cow’s back. The dog was about to attack Janie until Tea Cake, ”split the water like an otter, opening his knife as he dived” (166). This statement provides the proper textual evidence to prove Tea Cake’s sense of protection over Janie. Furthermore, his main goal in their marriage is to not only provide, but to protect. This thoroughly describes Tea Cakes personality and the qualities he has in marriage, and the difference

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

He was good for her and never hurt her. One day as they were working hard but there was a terrible storm that ruined it all for them. A dog was coming at Jamie, but Tea Cakes hit it away. The dog did bite him. He get rabies from the dog. It got so bad that Janie had to shoot him. “She tried to make them see how terrible it was that things were fix so that Tea Cake couldn't come back to himself until he had got rid of that mad dog that was in him and he couldn't get rid of the dog and live. He had to die to get rid of the dog”(Hurston 178). This helps symbols what happens when people can't have the freedom that they want. People will go far and wide to find any freedom that they can get out it. It's wrong and right at the same