Were Watching God Flaws

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

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

     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.

Tea Cake is Janie’s prince in shining armor. He is her fairytale ending, at least for now. Tea Cake is the embodiment of true love. True love is expressed through respect, trust, and honesty. Tea Cake not only does these things, but he also bases his happiness off of Janie’s happiness, believes that Janie’s age is just a number, and eventually envelops Janie into his world. Tea Cake loves Janie so much that whenever she is happy, he is happy. This normally only occurs in cases of true love, because you need to be practically selfless in order to base your happiness solely on someone else's. When Tea Cake comes back to the store a second time to see Janie, he started humming and mimicking playing a guitar. He did not enter the building, but

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.

Over the years they fall out of love and Janie begins to despise Joe for humiliating and degrading her. After Joe dies because of a sick liver Janie doesn’t remarry, till she meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake is a couple years younger than her, which is why she questions his motives at first. They end up marrying and moving to the Everglades where they both take the job as agricultural workers. During a hurricane Tea Cake gets bitten by a mad dog, yet doesn’t go see a doctor after the hurricane. After the rabies spread throughout his body Tea Cake tries shooting Janie which is why she shoots him to defend herself. She is acquitted by the court for killing Tea Cake and returns to Eatonville where she tells her friend Pheoby her life story. The main character, Janie, in Their Eyes Were Watching God serves as an effective looking glass through which the reader experiences the lives of both the average and remarkable black woman, the role of men in their achievements, and their effects on society during the early

He had the good qualities of Jody, but did not view her as a trophy, instead treating her with respect and pure admiration. Although Tea Cake is much better than her last two husbands, he still has a flaw that appears to be a common issue in this book: he is abusive. Tea Cake even admits that he doesn’t abuse Janie because she did something wrong, but he did it to “show them Turners who is boss.” (Hurston 148). Janie has experienced all kinds of abuse by the time she married Tea Cake, and we see a difference in her demeanor and in the handling of his abuse.

He wins her heart with his energy, and willingness to make Janie his equal. Tea Cake is the only husband that actually takes a genuine interest in Janie. He takes her hunting, fishing, and plays checkers with her. She especially enjoys playing chess, the fact that he considers her intelligent enough to learn such a game shows that he thinks more of Janie than Logan or Joe ever did. The town disapproves of Janie and Tea Cake because he is poor and younger than her. They have the impression that he is just after her money. Janie and Tea Cake leave the town of Eatonville and travel to a town called Jacksonville where Tea Cake has work. The sense of gender equality is very important to Janie in a relationship. Tea Cake asks Janie to work alongside him in the Everglades fields. Logan and Joe both wanted her to work, but she resented it. The difference is that Logan wanted Janie to do hard labor because he thought of her as an object like a workhorse. Joe wanted Janie to work in the store, which she also disliked because Joe just wanted to publicly display her as his trophy wife. Tea Cake’s attitude about Janie working is completely different. He gives her the choice of working and doesn’t command her. Janie goes to work the next day, “So the very next morning Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake. There was a suppressed murmur when she picked up a basket and went to work. She was already getting to be a special case on the muck. It was generally assumed that she thought herself too good to work like the rest of the women and that Tea Cake "pomped her up tuh dat." But all day long the romping and playing they carried on behind the boss’s back made her popular right away.”(133) This is the first relationship that Janie doesn’t care to work. She actually likes working alongside Tea Cake. As time passes the town gets word of a hurricane coming. All the people start fleeing to different places, but the boss

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

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

She then marries a man named Tea Cake and that love proceeds long after his death, which is how Hurston expresses and implies “true love”. Hurston uses the motif of light and the horizon to explore how the “true love” Janie feels for Tea Cake differs from the “real love” with Joe. Hurston first uses the visual imagery of the horizon to convey how much Janie is in love with Joe. Janie

Janie’s love life was not always the (Perfect Love Story) in all three of her marriages something was always missing. Zora Neale Hurston,Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie,Tea Cake,Killicks,Jody Starks In this novel Janie marries 3 different men and she faced many difficulties in each of her marriages she married Logan Killicks first then Janie’s first love Jody starks and her second love Tea Cake.In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston uses symbolism to illustrate difficulties through Janie’s marriages.

One reason Janie is better off with Tea Cake is the fact that Tea Cake repeatedly teaches her to appreciate herself. “Tea Cake and Mrs. Mayor Starks! All the men that she could get, and fooling with somebody like Tea Cake (Hurston 110) !” This is a classic example of peer pressure; Janie handles it herself and avoids the larger crowd. She trusted her gut and went with Tea Cake anyway, thus showing appreciation to her wants and not others. Another example is how Tea Cake provides Janie with the sense that age doesn’t matter. “...He done showed me where it’s de thought dat makes de difference in ages. If people thinks de same they can make it all right (Hurston 115) .” “Ah betcha you don’t ever go tuh de lookin’ glass and enjoy yo’ eyes yo’self.... Before she went to bed she took a good look at her mouth, eyes and