Key Quotes and Analysis

“They wrestled on until they were doped with their own fumes and emanations; till their clothes had been torn away; till he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body, doing things with their bodies to express the inexpressible; kissed her until she arched her body to meet him and they fell asleep in sweet exhaustion.” (Chapter 15)

This quote is from the time when Tea Cake and Janie are living at the muck and she notices his playful and flirtatious ways with another young woman working in the fields. When she is furious with him after finding Tea Cake and the young worker playfully wrestling in the fields, she gives Tea Cake a piece of her mind. In response, Tea Cake makes love to Janie in order to reassure her. This quote captures the sexual passion between the two; it also shows that the “language of sex” is more reassuring for Janie than mere verbal affirmation.

“Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon – for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you – and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her.” (Chapter 9)

In this quote, Zora Neale Hurston beautifully captures Janie’s moment of realization. As Janie revisits her past, she realizes that Nanny’s advice might have stemmed from genuine concern, but it did nonetheless limit the way Janie lived her life. Janie realizes that the constraints on women’s independence often forces women into loveless relationships, making them vulnerable to exploitation and domestic violence. She also realizes that this devalues women’s intellectuality. In contrast, Janie believes that both men and women should be afforded equal opportunities. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.” (Chapter 2)

As she narrates her story to Phoeby, readers can discern that Janie sees her own life as a tree with different shades of emotional affect. The novel is structured such that readers read Janie’s story from her own perspective. The quote conveys that Janie is now able to distance herself from her past and pay attention to the good and the bad. She is able to see how the past shaped the woman she has finally become. Remarkably, she is also not bothered by the gossip and rumors about her.

“So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenched the thirst of the day.” (Chapter 10)

“The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” (Chapter 3)

“Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.” (Chapter 20)

“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.” (Chapter 2)

“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.” (Chapter 18)

“Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. Dis house ain’t so absent of things lak it used tuh be befo’ Tea Cake come along. It’s full uh thoughts, ‘specially dat bedroom.” (Chapter 20)

“She talked. . . . She just sat there and told and when she was through she hushed.” (Chapter 19)

“He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.” (Chapter 13)

“Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.” (Chapter 5)

“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see…De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.” (Chapter 17)