Their Eyes Were Watching God: Comprehension and Analysis Blog

In the start of Chapter 8, Jody is dieing.  Janie and him have been growing apart recently.  Janie no longer thinks of Jody as the man she fell in love with.  She sees him as a different man, as is aparent when she says that “Jody, no Joe, gave her a ferocious look” (Hurston 80).  The name Jody represents the man that she fell in love with, a less formal man who let her use a nickname when refering to him.  The name Joe represents what he becomes, a man who is jealous of his wifes youth and opresses her becuase of it.  This change in Janie’s point of view about Jody also allows her to see more of his faults.  He used to be faultless in her eyes, but now “she noticed how baggy Joe was getting” (Hurston 77).  When Joe dies, Janie is less attached to him then she was when they first met.  There was “weeping and wailing outside.  Inside the expensive black folds were reserection and life” (Hurston 84).  This shows that Janie uses the veil to represent a sadness that truely she doesn’t feel.

Janie, while she grows away from Joe, has to grow towards Tea Cake.  While at their first meeting, there is already a connection between them that makes Janie feel that even though “she didn’t know her name, but he looked familiar” (Hurton 90).  She feels fearful about commiting to him and tries to push him away, but the connection is irrisistable and she eventually agrees, by going to the picnic, to commit to him.

Dan Melly

         “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