Their Eyes Were Watching God: Comprehension and Analysis Blog

   hurston

November 29, 2005 @ 1:56 pm

I agree with Monica in that Janie’s true growth is shown at the end of the novel. She is finally content with herself and the way her life has gone. I think by the end Janie has gained the knowledge and wisdom that she had been searching for throughout the novel. She says, “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons” (Hurston 182). I believe that this insight was what Janie had been trying to gain within herself for such a long time. Earlier in the novel, she had kept searching for more people and more love, but because of Tea Cake she has finally found what she was looking for. One of her final comments to Phoeby at the end of her story was: “Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh themselves. They got tuh find God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh themselves” (Hurston 183). I think through Tea Cake’s death she accomplishes both of those things for herself. David M. Sheppard agrees with this idea, saying, “Each person…must dream their own dream–fulfill their own wishes, and make manifest their own latent desires” (Sheppard 5). This is the wisdom that Janie gains after Tea Cake dies. She knows that a man cannot fulfill her dreams, she is the only person who can. Janie can finally be content without being married to a man, because she has been fulfilled through Tea Cake. When she says that Tea Cake will never be dead to her it truly shows that she already has the love that she needs to get by, which she had not had when with previous husbands. Through this, Janie shows great strength and her final thoughts definitely protray the great development of her character.
-Lauren

   hurston

November 29, 2005 @ 4:20 pm

In response to Monica’s first question, I do believe that this is something that Janie could say after Jody passed away. I believe this is so because she says herself “it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore” (Hurston 182). Jody was just a different shore for Janie, be it a rockier shore than Tea Cake. With her new knowledge of herself and the world I believe Janie is mature enough to realize that you learn not only from the good experiences but the bad ones as well.
Furthermore, I believe the horizon is a projection of her happiness. In the beginning of the book she is just waiting on the gate for something marvelous to happen to her: “She…leaned over to gaze up and down the road. Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made” (Hurston 11). Now, having not just been with Tea Cake but all three husbands, she has seen so many sides of the world. She has come full circle.

Kara

   hurston

November 30, 2005 @ 2:19 am

I believe that Janie’s husbands lead her to her self-discovery, rather than her love for Tea Cake end her search for true love. I agree her love for Tea Cake continues although he is dead. He led her to self-realization that no one else could have in Janie’s life. A literary critic states, “Tea Cake is not the means to self-understanding, only the partner of Janie’s liberation from an empty way of living” (Hemenway 38).  No one could give Janie self-understanding except herself.  Janie’s grandmother wanted Janie to marry well to a good man.  Her grandmother believed a good, well-supported life was the road to happiness but Janie learns she was wrong: ”Ah got up on de high stool lak she told me, but Phoeby, Ah done nearly languished tuh death up there” (Hurston).  Janie thought “that freedom is symbolized by achieving the position on high” but she soon realizes with her deep love for Tea Cake that “there was no air to breathe up there” (Hemenway).  Meaning, although Janie was supported by her rich husbands, there was no happiness and substance to life.  The love Janie and Tea Cake acquire for one another shows Janie the need for love, more than money. 

-Nicole