Afterword
Section “I” of the afterword presents us with information on Hurston’s background. Hurston had a specific style of writing. Her writings in the African American vernacular have been studied throughout the country as models for many other people. I found it interesting that Gates said Their Eyes Were Watching God were “more closely related to Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady and Jean Toomer’s Cane than to Langston Hughes’s and Richard Wright’s proletarian literature, so popular in the Depression” (187). We read an excerpt from Cane and in it was a certain part that we were told to interpret for ourselves. The final two lines “Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, / Beauty so sudden for that time of year” evoke powerful emotions from the author to the reader. This beauty that Toomer speaks about can relate to Janie’s beauty. The brown eyes, which are expressed in the poem, represent her inner intent through all of her marriages. Janie wanted a man to love her and to care for her, not just use her as a housewife or second-class citizen. Janie found that love within Tea Cake, and that is the beauty which is found so sudden in that time of year. Tea Cake’s love for Janie was not what Eatonville expected. Hezekiah tries to tell Janie that Tea Cake is not one of her kind and that she should watch out because he is poor as dirt. Janie doesn’t acknowledge this fact and instead almost goes out with Tea Cake to spite everybody else and show them what a great person he is. There would never be a really good time of year for their love to blossom, especially so close to Jody’s death, but Tea Cake and Janie’s lives changed for the better through this beautiful love.
*–Nicole G– *
