:Valerie’s Blog

Now, dat’s how everything wuz, Pheoby, jus’ lak Ah told yuh.  So Ah’m back home agin and Ah’m satisfied tuh be heah.  Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons (191).

Janie had more of an adventure than she could have expected. I believe that if she had to go home right after the good times in the Everglades, she still would have been happy at home.

“They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God” (160).

“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door…Once upon uh time, Ah never ’spected nothin’ but bein’ dead from the standin’ still and tryin’ tuh laugh. But you come ‘long and made somethin’ outa me (167).

“You was twice noble tuh save me from dat dawg. Tea Cake, Ah don’t speck you seen his eyes lak Ah did. He didn’t aim tuh jus’ bite me, Tea Cake. He aimed to kill me stone dead. Ah’m never tuh fuhgit dem eyes. He wusn’t nothin’ all over but pure hate. Wonder where he come from?” (167).

“don’t say you’se ole. You’se uh lil girl baby all de time. God made it so you spent yo’ ole age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo’ young girl days to spend wid me” (172).

“She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her” (178).

“Love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de 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” (182).

““It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding”

“Tea Cake was the son of Evening Sun, and nothing was too good” (189).

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There’s enough fights and action in these chapters for the whole book. Janie is jealous of Nunkie flirting with Tea Cake, Mrs. Turner is jealous of white people and how they get treated, Sterrett and Coodemay fight in Mrs. Turners restaurant. I skimmed over what was available of this book, The Everglades, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and saw that bean picking there wasn’t exactly as great as Tea Cake and Janie portrayed it as being. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the practice seems like a way just to get some extra money and to keep busy with breaks, not a harsh necessary means of survival. It wasn’t quite that, but Tea Cake makes Janie happy and their love, which is admired by everyone may be what makes them feel so good and free.

“Sometimes Janie would think of the old days in the big white house and the store and laugh to herself. What if Eatonville could see her now in her blue denim overalls and heavy shoes? The crowd of people around her and a dice game on her floor! She was sorry for her friends back there and scornful of the others”

Janie is living a completely different life here in the everglades than she did in Eatonville. She isn’t striving to sit on the porch and chill, but voluntarily works to keep occupied and spend more time with Tea Cake. This also has the added benifit of making her look like less of a snob to the town and they all take a liking to her. Now what does Janie have to aspire to? She has found love and a life that is happy in all respects. Why will Tea Cake leave her and lead everyone in Eatonville to think he stole her money?

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Janie is able to see some semblance of love with Tea Cake. He doesn’t have much, but she’s afraid he might just be using him, as are the others in her town. He doesn’t really care much about his possessions either and doesn’t even buy a car until he wants to take Janie to the town picnic. Janie is afraid Tea Cake doesn’t care about her either, and he has many other things going on.

“You’se got de world in uh jug and make out like you don’t know it” (104).

Janie is afraid of Tea Cake leaving her and leading her on.

“At the newel post Janie whirled around and for the space of a thought she was lit up like a transfiguration. Her next thought brought her crashing down. He’s just saying anything for the time being, feeling he’s got me so I’ll b’lieve him. . The next thought buried her under tons of cold futility. He’s trading on being younger than me. Getting ready to laugh at me for and old fool. But oh, what wouldn’t I give to be twelve years younger so I could b’lieve him!” (105).

Janie does believe Tea Cake and everything he does. He probably stole that money he brings back to her and didn’t win it gambling, that why he comes back hurt. He does seem to prove himself to her though, and she believes him.

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” You changes everything but nothin’ don’t change you- not even death” (86).

Janie says this to Jody when he’s on his deathbed. First she can’t even enter the room but forces herself to, and is just in time too. Jody ends up dying and she’s upset. We see at the funeral Janie is thinking about how Jody is really gone and the narration sentences even turn to one word to show how upset she actually is. She seems to feel free and even literally lets her hair down and burns the bandannas with great feeling, but shows the world that she is still mourning, even if she isn’t inside anymore. I’m not sure if Janie really is or isn’t upset, but I would say that her moving onshows that at least after more than 6 months she is completely over it.

Janie then decides it’s not worth pretending to be sad anymore and should be free so when a man comes into the store because he went to the wrong place for the game that everyone is at, she begins flirting with him. Tea Cake sticks around all day then even helps her close and walks Janie home.

I found an interesting blog with links to others about Their Eyes Were Watching God here.

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Just when Janie seems to be about to leave Jody and move on from her husband, yet again, Jody pulls a stunt to show he that he can show compassion. First Jody is so focused on his goal of dominating the town and being a respectable mayor, which to Janie seems to be laughing along but never saying anything bad about anyone. Except Matt Bonner and his mule, because that’s all that Jody’s little town talks about. Janie is upset with how the mule is treated and how cruel all the men are being, so Jody buys the mule for $5. Matt acts as though that mule is all he has and can’t wait to lose it so it looks like Jody got played paying that much for it because it’s going to die soon, so it seems. This website says the average age that a mule dies at is about 25-30 years old, and it was at least 23 anyway. Jody actually takes the mule and sets it free to relax and not be worked to its end because Matt is too cheap.

It is this act that lets Janie believe that maybe she can stay with Jody, but then he gets mean again as he gets old. He continues to believe that Janie is his to be watched, and her hair should be hidden so that no one else, but him can enjoy it. Jody makes another strong statement in these chapters,

“Dat’s ’cause you need tellin’. It would be pitiful if Ah didn’t. Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves” (71).

Today we see that Janie shouldn’t be treated like that, but back then it was the norm. I wonder now if all women felt rebellious inside. Of course all of the books we read are about women with fire in their hearts, but maybe all women felt this way and we just have the tendancy to view them as weak and passive when they’re really not.

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Janie left the submissive husband, Logan, for one with a spark and a dream. Logan already had what he needed and just did everything for Janie as she wanted. Logan treated her well and let her get away with everything, and although she claims he wants her to think he’s the man and worship him, he still cares for her. Janie can’t really deal with the fact that she doesn’t love him and that love isn’t coming to town

When Jody comes into town it’s a fresh new face on a person with goals and drive, and Janie sees this as a place to look for new love. When they arrive at the town Jody is taking control of, life seems to be good until Jody focuses more on his dream and completely cuts Janie out of it because she’s not crucial to his plans, and apparently she doesn’t need any respect either. The problem here is that Jody IS Janies dream and finding love with him is all she hopes for.

“Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’. I never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home” (43).

This article says the current issues about marrying for love. Janie is searching for only this love, but according to this article love isn’t really enough to keep the relationship going over time. Although the article focuses on things that I can only see as happening in this day and age, it’s possible Janie is setting herself up with a dream that can never be completely fulfilled.

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Janie does seem like a women who could really be one to take a stand and become an idol. She is so innocent, as we learn from the picture with all the people in the house and her discovery that she is not white.

“So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me” (9).

She’s not angered by this new piece of information but is able to see that this is a good thing, especially knowing that her grandmother came from the period of slavery and was even raped by her master. There are many harsh truths and pasts that Janie lives with, but she seems to move forward past all of them. Although she, as well as the others in the community are relatively uneducated, and we see this through their dialect, she knows what she wants. She is upset when set up to marry Logan Killicks after being caught kissing Johnny Taylor. Her grandmother accuses her of just wanting to go from guy to guy but Janie really has planned from the beginning to wait for someone she loves. She gets married off to Logan regardless.

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