Their Eyes Were Watching God: Comprehension and Analysis Blog

Now that Jody has died, and has been dead for nine months, Janie has set her eyes on Tea Cake. At first all these two did was talk and laugh together, but then things seemed to become more involved. “Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie…” (Hurston 105). By Tea Cake doing all of these activities with Janie, it shows her that she is not just a possession of his, which is the way she felt when she was with Logan and Jody. And by doing all of these activities, Janie starts to see that even though she is a women she doesn’t just have to sit on the porch of a house and do the chores, but she can do things that are fun and enjoyable. This is an area where is seems like Janie might have realized something about herself. She realizes that she does not want to live her life the way her grandma had wanted her to live it, but instead she wants to live her life the way she wants to live it. “Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 108). With Janie’s new view of how she is going to live her life, it seems as though she is going to be willing to take more chances, and act differently then a women would be expected to act. By this I mean she is going to be taking on different activities then women of the time were doing, things other then tending to the house and kids.
So far throughout the novel it seems as if Janie has been on a journey to find the way she dreams of living and doing the things she wants to do. She was at first told who to marry, and then in her marriage told what chores to do. She escaped that marriage in hope to live a better life. Unfortunately, it did not turn out that way, and she was still stuck ordered to do things. Now it seems as if she might have caught a break with Tea Cake, because he his allowing her to do the things she wants. “Have de nerve tuh say whut you mean” (Hurston 104). So the question becomes do you think Tea Cake is going to turn out like the rest of the men Janie has married, or do you think he is going to be the man she has always been looking for?

- Hunter Woron

         “Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West” (Hurston 79). “He stands in his high house that overlooks the world” (Hurston 80).  Death is something that Janie encounters in chapters 8-11. However, it is not the death of her husband that she faces but the death of her old life. Through this death the old Janie is reborn. Death is an archetype that remakes Janie the person that she once was.

          Through the death of Joe (Jody) Janie becomes whole again. When they got married he forced Janie to live like the mayor’s wife. He opresses he spirtually, mentally, and physically. For example he isolates her from the society and people in the town and he makes her put he hair up in a scarf, and as it was discussed in early blogs Janie’s hair is an important part of her. It is the part that will forever keep her young and therefore keep her alive. He gets ride of all that is Janie, which is a free, strong-minded, independent woman. When Jody dies Janie is allowed to become herself once again and therefore she is reborn as a whole new woman. “The young girls was gone, but a handsome woman has taken her place….She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair” (Hurston 83).Also, because of Janie’s rebirth as a “new” woman Janie begins a new journey. She faces the challenge of being a new person in an old world, but she is determined and ready to face it, “she had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she find them and they find her” (Hurston 85). She indeed does find someone. She goes on to meets Tea Cake.

        I saw Tea Cake as a symbol of her new life. He is everything that Jody wasn’t, poor, loving, young, and he had an optimism for life in general. He is the person that is going to make Janie’s life complete because he promises to give her the world. My question to you guys is in what ways does Tea Cake symbolize Janie’s new life? Do you see Tea Cake as a new beginning to a better life in the journey that Janie’s is about to undergo or is he the beginning to Janie’s end?

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Leena John