Their Eyes- Chapters 18-20
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).
