Tea Cake And Janie example essay topic
Hurston begins the story with Janie telling it, but then it becomes a third person narrative throughout most of the story. Theme Many times the love that a person is looking for is the one that a person doesn't realize. Characters Lee Coker - Lee Coker lives in Eatonville. He was one of the first people to meet Jody and Janie.
Coodemay and Dick Sterrett - Coodemay and Sterrett were friends of Tea Cake and Janie in the Everglades. One night they went to Mrs. Turner's restaurant while they were drunk. When they started causing trouble, Tea Cake made a big show of throwing them out. The crowd began to take sides, so a great deal of property damage took place in the process. Coodemay survives the hurricane; Sterrett does not. Janie Crawford - Janie Crawford is the protagonist of the novel.
She was raised by her grandmother, Nanny. She wanted to define her identity on her own terms, but Nanny coerced her into marrying Logan Killicks. She valued financial security over love. However, Janie was miserable in her first marriage. She left Logan to marry Jody Starks. Jody refused to allow Janie to make her own decisions, so their marriage turns out unhappily as well.
After Jody's death, Janie married Tea Cake. Through Tea Cake, Janie enjoyed her first real love. She grew beyond what other people wanted her to be and experienced her first taste of real freedom. Leafy Crawford - Leafy Crawford was Janie's mother. She was born shortly before the end of the Civil War. Master Roberts, the white slave owner who owned Nanny, was her father.
When Master Roberts' wife threatened to sell Leafy and punish Nanny for her relationship with Master Roberts, Nanny fled to the swamps. She hid there with her child until the slaves were declared free. Nanny dreamed that her child would have respectability and financial security. That dream ended when Leafy was raped by her schoolteacher at age seventeen. She became pregnant with Janie and ran away. Nanny Crawford - Nanny Crawford was Janie's grandmother.
She raised Janie from infancy. Because she was a former slave, Nanny believed in the value of financial security and. Therefore, she coerced Janie into marrying Logan Killicks when she was still in her teens. Captain Eaton - Captain Eaton was one of the donors of Eatonville's original fifty acres of land.
When Jody first arrived in Eatonville, he made a big show paying cash to him for an additional two hundred acres. Amos Hicks - Amos Hicks lives in Eatonville, Florida. He was one of the first people to meet Janie and Jody. He tried to lure Janie away from Jody with no success. Logan Killicks - Logan Killicks was Janie's first husband. Nanny coerced Janie into marrying him because she valued financial security and respectability over love.
Logan pampered Janie for a year before he tried to make her help him with the farming work. Janie left him for Jody Starks. Lias - Lias was one of Tea Cake and Janie's friends in the Everglades. When he fled an on-coming hurricane, he offered to drive Janie and Tea Cake to Palm Beach, but Tea Cake turned him down. He survived the hurricane. Master Roberts - Master Roberts owned Nanny before slavery was abolished.
He was Leafy's father. Motor Boat - Motor Boat was one of Tea Cake and Janie's friends in the Everglades. He fled the Everglades with them during a terrible hurricane. They took refuge in an abandoned house. Motor Boat stayed in the house while Janie and Tea Cake fled east to escape the rising waters. The house was ripped from its foundations and carried for several miles by the water, but Motor Boat slept through the entire thing.
Doctor Simmons - Doctor Simmons diagnosed Tea Cake with rabies. He testified on Janie's behalf during her murder trial for killing Tea Cake. Jody Starks - Jody Starks was Janie's second husband. He traveled to Eatonville because he wanted to have a 'big voice. ' Jody was a consummate politician, so he grew wealthy and powerful over the years. He was the Post Master, Mayor, storekeeper, and biggest landlord in Eatonville.
He regarded Janie as a reflection of his wealth and status, so he dictated her every move. Johnny Taylor - When Janie was sixteen, she embarked on a sexual awakening. Johnny Taylor was a poor young man who lived in the area. Janie allowed him to kiss her over the fence. Unfortunately, Nanny saw everything.
She coerced Janie into marrying Logan Killicks for fear that some shiftless man would ruin Janie's chances at wealth and respectability. Tea Cake - Tea Cake was Janie's third husband, and her first real love. His real name was Vergible Woods and he was twelve years younger than her. He did not try to make her be anything other than herself, and took a romantic approach to courting her. People congregated at their home in the everglades for music and company. Two years after they were married, Tea Cake was bitten by a rabid dog during their flight from a terrible hurricane.
Three weeks later, he fell ill with rabies. During one of his diseased fits, he became convinced Janie was cheating on him, and threatened to shoot her. She was forced to kill him to save her own life. Mrs. Tony - Mrs. Tony lives in Eatonville. For some reason, she had a grudge against her husband. She embarrassed him by begging for food from Jody, claiming that she and her children were starving.
The other men on the porch declared that they would kill any wife that embarrassed them like that. Mr. and Mrs. Turner - Mr. and Mrs. Turner lived in the Everglades where Mrs. Turner ran an eating place. She prided herself on her Caucasian features and disdained anyone who was darker than she. She became friends with Janie because Janie had light skin and long hair.
She couldn't understand why a woman like Janie would marry a man as dark as Tea Cake. She wanted to introduce Janie to her brother. Tea Cake was furious that she insulted him behind her back. He was afraid that Mrs. Turner would turn Janie against him and succeed in marrying Janie to her brother. He resolved to tell Mr. Turner to keep his wife away from Janie. However, when he saw how cowed and meek Mr. Turner was, he chose to remain silent.
When Dick Sterrett and Coodemay later came to Mrs. Turner's restaurant, they were drunk. They started to make trouble, so Tea Cake made a big show out of throwing them out. The crowd began to take sides, so Mrs. Turner's establishment was badly damaged. She chose to move where people were more 'civilized. ' Annie Tyler and Who Flung - Annie Tyler was a wealthy widow who lived in Eatonville.
She became engaged to Who Flung, a much younger man. Who Flung took her money and fled at the first opportunity. Early in her marriage to Tea Cake, Janie feared that he would turn out to be like Who Flung... Mr. and Mrs. Washburn - Mr. and Mrs. Washburn were Nanny's employers after she became a free woman. She lived in a house in their backyard. Pheoby Watson - Pheoby Watson is Janie's best friend in Eatonville.
When Janie returns alone from the Everglades, the crowd of people on her porch begin to speculate that Tea Cake left her and took her money the way Who Flung conned Annie Tyler. Pheoby admonishes them for their mean-spirited gossip. She takes a plate of food to Janie and listens as Janie narrates the story of her life. After Janie finishes her story, Pheoby wants her husband, Sam, to treat her like Tea Cake treated Janie. Sam Watson - Sam Watson is Pheoby's husband. He acknowledged that Jody was overbearing and commanding when some of the Eatonville residents began to express their resentment against him.
However, he pointed out that Jody had also instigated a lot of improvements in the town. Chapters 1-4 Summary These chapters begin with Janie Crawford returning to Eatonville, Florida after two years in the Everglades with her third husband, Tea Cake. The local residents gathered on Pheoby Watson's porch note her muddy overalls with satisfaction. They speculate that Tea Cake left her for a younger woman and took the money she inherited from Jody Starks, her deceased husband. Pheoby criticizes them for their malicious gossip and then visits Janie's home with a plate of food.
Janie laughs when Pheoby repeats their speculations to her. Janie explains that she has returned alone because Tea Cake is gone, but not for the reasons they mentioned. Pheoby doesn't understand what she means, so Janie begins to explain. When Janie was sixteen, she often sat under a blossoming pear tree, imagining that she was like the blossoming tree. Nancy saw her kissing Johnny Taylor over the fence that spring, prompting her to announce that she was going to marry Janie off to Logan Killicks, a wealthy middle-aged farmer.
She wanted to see Janie in a secure situation before she died, and Logan Killicks could provide that. She stated that black women were the mules of the world, but she didn't want Janie to be a mule. Nanny was born into slavery. She was impregnated by her master, Master Roberts. A week after her daughter Leafy was born, Master Roberts went to fight during the last days of the Civil War.
The master's wife was furious to see Leafy was obviously his daughter. She planned to have Nanny viciously whipped and to sell Leafy once she was a month old. Nanny hid in the swamps with Leafy until the war was over. Afterwards, she began working for the Washburn. Her dreams of a better life for Leafy ended when Leafy was raped by her schoolteacher and ran away. So Nanny transferred her hopes to Leafy's child, Janie.
Two months after her marriage to Logan, Janie visited Nanny to ask when she would start loving him. Nanny berated Janie for not appreciating Logan's wealth. Nanny died a month later. Logan pampered Janie for a year before he began complaining that she was spoiled.
He left to buy a second mule so that Janie could work in the fields. The same day, Janie met Jody Starks, a smooth-tongued, stylish man. Her dreams of love came alive again. He was travelling to Florida with his savings to live in Eatonville, an all-black town run by black people. They met secretly for two weeks, and Jody regaled Janie with his dreams of having a big voice.
He told her that he would wait for her the next day if she wanted to go with him, assuring her that he would make her the queen of all his accomplishments. That night, Logan criticized Janie for being spoiled and lazy. Janie voiced his deepest fears when she suggested that she might leave him. Logan reminded her of her family's reputation, hoping to hurt her feelings. The next morning, Logan ordered her to help with the farm work instead of staying in the kitchen all day. Janie replied that he was angry because she voiced what he already knew.
Logan cursed her and threatened to beat her, so Janie left to meet Jody Starks at the agreed time and place. They married at the first opportunity. Pheoby goes to visit Janie to hear what happened to Tea Cake. However, Janie begins her story with her childhood when she attempts to explain their love. This is the first clue that Janie's relationship with Tea Cake was a revolutionary experience for her. Janie describes the blossoming pear tree that fascinated her when she was sixteen years old.
Her words are full of sensuality, signaling that she is actually describing her sexual awakening. When Janie allowed Johnny Taylor to kiss her, she was full of excitement and pleasure. Nanny's negative reaction was Janie's first real confrontation with the restrictive social conventions regarding feminine sexuality. Nanny was determined that Janie would not suffer the same humiliation. She told Janie that black women were the mules of the world.
White men handed their burdens and their work to black men, who in turn gave them to black women. Nanny did not want Janie to be anyone's pack mule. Therefore, she valued financial security as a way to guard against it. Janie chose to leave Logan for Jody because he revived her dreams of love in marriage. Her first marriage had taught her that marriage and love do not go hand in hand. However, she still believed that love was the best motivation for marriage.
Jody promised that he would never turn Janie into a common pack mule. He promised her that she would reap all the benefits of his work. His words eerily echo Nanny's dream of respectability and financial security for Janie. However, Janie didn't marry Jody because of these promises. She married him because he inspired the feelings she had experienced while sitting under the blossoming pear tree when she was sixteen.
Chapters 5-6 SummaryEatonville was nothing more than a dozen shacks. Jody introduced himself to Lee Coker and Amos Hicks and asked to see the Mayor; they replied there was none. After hearing that Eatonville contained only fifty acres, Jody made a big show of paying cash for an additional two hundred acres from Captain Eaton, one of the donors of Eatonville's existing land. Hicks stayed behind to flirt with Janie, without success. Later, Coker teased him because all the other men knew they couldn't lure a woman like her away from a man like Jody. Jody announced his plans to build a store and a post office and called a town meeting.
Tony Taylor was chairman, but Jody did all the talking. Jody hired Cocker and Taylor to build his store while he recruited new residents. Jody soon recovered the cost of the new land by selling lots to newcomers. Before long, Jody was elected Mayor. Tony Taylor asked Janie to give a short speech, but Jody would not let her, saying that the wife's place is in the home. Janie was angry that he didn't let her decide.
Jody paid for a street lamp, and then called a town meeting to vote on getting a street lamp. A majority vote approved the motion. Jody put the lamp on display for a week, and organized a big gathering for the lighting, complete with guests from surrounding areas and a huge feast. Jody's elaborate new two-story house made the rest of the houses look like servants' quarters. He ran Henry Pitts out of town when he caught him stealing some of his ribbon cane.
His wealth and authority began to arouse the envy and animosity of some residents, but no one challenged him. Matt Bonner's over-worked, under-fed, bad-tempered mule was the inspiration for tall tales and jokes. When some of the men irritated the mule for fun, Janie muttered her disapproval of their cruelty. She didn't know that Jody heard her, but he bought the mule for five dollars in order to allow him to rest for once. Everyone thought it was a very noble thing yet the mule continued to inspire jokes until it died of old age. Jody held a mock funeral, but he refused to allow Janie to attend.
When Janie joined Jody at the store, Mrs. Tony was begging him for a little meat for herself and her children. Jody gave her a small piece of meat and added the cost to Tony's account. The men on the porch muttered that they would never allow their wives to embarrass them like that, especially since her husband had spent all the money on her. Janie retorted that they didn't know as much about women as they thought. She pointed out that it was easy to act big and tough when women and chickens were the only things to subdue.
Jody told her to be quiet and ordered her to fetch him a checkerboard. During the trip to Eatonville, Janie noticed that Jody 'didn't make many speeches with rhymes to her. ' He expressed his love by buying her the best of everything. Unfortunately, Janie mistook his actions as an expression of the kind of love she had dreamed about. However, his spending is the first of many indications that Jody loved Janie only as a reflection of his wealth. Very early in the marriage, Jody refused to allow Janie to define the boundaries of her life.
He would not allow her to give a speech after his election as Mayor because he considered himself the 'big voice. ' He didn't regard Janie as an individual, but as an ornament to his prestige. He wanted her to work in the store so that she could serve as a symbol of his wealth. He didn't want her to sully her image as high-class woman because he didn't want to sully his as a high-class man. He made her cover her hair because he regarded her as one of his possessions.
He purchased the street lamp before he even asked the Eatonville residents to vote on whether they needed one. He was confident enough in his influence to do so. Moreover, he made sure to make the street lamp a public focus. Jody wanted the public to associate him with such improvements. Therefore, Jody's decision to buy the mule takes on new meaning. Many people in the town had begun to resent his hold on power and wealth.
He had a way of commanding their submission that seemed all too similar to that of a slave master. His large house made their homes look like servants' quarters, so Eatonville had begun to look like a plantation. His generosity to the mule allowed him to alleviate some resentment without actually releasing any of his power. Janie gave a speech comparing his gesture to Lincoln's decision to free all the slaves. She compared him to a king because he had the power to 'free things. ' Janie's speech has a bitter edge to it.
She knew that Jody's gesture was not motivated by real generosity, thus she used words like 'big man' and 'king' to subtly indicate his ambitions. Janie ceased to see Jody as the fulfill ment of her dreams of love. Janie closed her real self off while she conformed outwardly to Jody's demands. Therefore, Jody still didn't really know Janie even though they were married. When the men criticized Mrs. Tony, Janie warned them that Mrs. Tony might have had a good reason for what she did. Her speech was a coded jab at Jody as well.
Jody liked being a big man' even in his marriage. Janie made it clear that it was easy to be a big man when one's only opponents were woman and chickens. One of Jody's methods to strengthen his image was to publicly harangue Janie for every little mistake she made in his store. Chapters 7-12 SummaryJanie submitted to Jody and tended the store, but on the inside, she was sitting under a shady tree. Then she noticed that Jody was getting old. At that time, he became more critical of her body, especially in the store.
One day, she cut a plug of tobacco incorrectly, and Jody flew into a cantankerous temper. To add punch to his words, he criticized her sagging behind. Janie confronted him with his hypocrisy by insulting his manhood. The men in the store were shocked. Jody, ashamed and furious, hit Janie with all his might and chased her out of the store. Jody's health deteriorated rapidly.
Pheoby interrupts Janie to tell her that everyone believes that she laid a curse on Jody that day in the store. When Jody was bedridden, he refused to allow Janie into his sickroom, but he received numerous visits from others. Janie hired a doctor without telling Jody and learned that his kidneys were failing. Janie entered Jody's sickroom and demanded that he listen to her for once. She said that he was not the man for whom she left Logan. Instead, he tried to change her, quiet her, and rule her.
She didn't leave Logan to learn about his big voice. Jody shuddered and died, and Janie was able to pity him for the first time. After Jody's elaborate funeral, Janie began wearing her hair in a long braid. She realized that she had hated Nanny all these years for what she did. Janie hated the kind of love that choked people instead of pleasing them. A month after Jody's death, suitors came to court Janie, but she knew they were interested in her money.
Six months after Jody's death, Janie began wearing the white clothing of mourning to keep the suitors at bay. Pheoby warned her to be careful that people think she was sorry that Jody was gone. Janie replied that they could think what they wanted because she didn't believe mourning should outlast grief. One afternoon, most of Eatonville's residents went to see a ball game, so Janie began to close the store early. A handsome man arrived to buy some cigarettes, and the mutual attraction between them was immediately obvious. He introduced himself as Vergible Woods, but everyone knew him as Tea Cake.
A week later, Janie could barely hide her delight when he visited the store again. He invited her to a game of checkers and took her fishing that night. While he continued to court her in his easy-going way, Janie wondered if he meant to take advantage of her. Chapters 13-17 SummaryJanie and Tea Cake were married in Jacksonville. She didn't tell him that she had twelve hundred dollars in her bank account and two hundred dollars pinned to the inside of her shirt.
A week after they married, Janie sent Tea Cake out to buy some fish while she dozed. When she awoke, he hadn't returned and she found that her two hundred dollars were gone. That night, Janie thought of Annie Tyler, an older woman from Eatonville. Who Flung took all of Annie's money and ran at the first opportunity. Janie awoke to the sound of Tea Cake playing the guitar outside her door.
After they ate breakfast, Tea Cake told her he had seen the money in her shirt the morning before. Tea Cake wanted to know what it was like to feel rich, so he went to a restaurant near the railroad stops and bought dinner for everyone. Soon, the affair turned into a party. Tea Cake bought a guitar and he still had twelve dollars left over. He didn't fetch Janie because he thought she wouldn't like such a rough crowd. He resolved never to allow her to see any commonness in him.
Janie replied that she wanted to share everything with him. Janie and Tea Cake traveled to the Everglades to wait for the harvest season to begin. Meanwhile, Tea Cake taught Janie how to hunt, and Janie became skilled with a rifle. Workers began to pour in until there was no space left in the boarding houses. Tea Cake became popular because of his humor and his music. Tea Cake confessed that he was lonely in the fields without Janie, so she began to work at picking beans too.
At night, their house and porch was full of people gambling, playing music, and telling stories. Janie began to feel jealous when another field laborer, Nunki e, flirted with Tea Cake. Tea Cake put her fears to rest quickly. When the bean harvest was over, Tea Cake and Janie stayed behind in the Everglades.
Janie and Mrs. Turner, the proprietor of an eating place, began to visit each other in the off-season. Mrs. Turner was proud of her Caucasian features, and she disdained darker black people. She couldn't understand why Janie would marry a man as dark as Tea Cake. To her, it seemed a sacrilege that such a light-skinned, straight-haired woman would bypass a chance to 'whiten' the race.
Tea Cake overheard the conversation and became furious with Mrs. Turner's jabs and insults at his expense. He planned to tell Mr. Turner to rein his wife in, but after seeing how cowed and meek Mr. Turner was, he chose to stay quiet. When Mrs. Turner introduced her brother to Janie, Tea Cake began hitting Janie periodically out of jealousy. When harvest season returned again, laborers poured into the Everglades. One busy night after payday, Mrs. Turner's eating place was full of carousing laborers.
Two men, Coodemay and Dick Sterrett, entered the establishment and started a fight, so Tea Cake made a show of throwing them out. The crowd began to take sides, resulting in a great deal of property damage. Coodemay 'apologized' and offered to buy everyone a drink at another establishment. Within seconds Mrs. Turner was sitting alone in her demolished establishment. She moved back to Miami where people were 'civilized.
' Even after Janie married Tea Cake, she did not tell him about her bank account or about the two hundred dollars in cash she took with her to Jacksonville. Her actions demonstrate that she did not completely trust Tea Cake. Likewise, Tea Cake decided that he would not allow her to see any 'commonness' in him. He feared that she would disdain his love of gambling and rowdy fun. Therefore, both Janie and Tea Cake maintained a division between their outside selves and their inside selves. Janie was relatively sheltered from racism in all-black Eatonville.
However, the Everglades were a different matter. Furthermore, she encountered racist attitudes from a black woman, Mrs. Turner. Many critics charged Hurston with avoiding the issue of race in her work. On the other hand, while many black writers during Hurston's heyday produced protest literature, Hurston simply wrote about race differently. Throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God she portrays the rich oral culture of black Americans. She celebrates the culture that many writers disdained as the debris of the ignorant and oppressed.
Mrs. Turner disdained the 'rowdy' dark-skinned black people that Janie loved. These are the same people that many of Hurston's critics defined as representatives of negative racial stereotypes. Janie's refusal to give into Mrs. Turner's hateful attitude echoes Hurston's own staunch defense of black culture. To read Their Eyes Were Watching God as a text marked by racist stereotypes would be to mistake Hurston's philosophy about folk culture. The battered, impoverished individuals who converged on the Everglades for the harvest season lived their lives to the fullest on payday because the rest of the year was so lean.
Hurston's portrayal of their lives in the Everglades attests to their will to survive and celebrate their lives despite harsh conditions. Her use of the vernacular of rural blacks is not a concession to racist stereotypes. Rather, she infuses this language with lyrical power. A variety of complex emotions and experiences are expressed in a language often characterized as the speech of the ignorant. Like her heroine, Hurston refused to conform. Although it is not directly stated, the ruckus caused by Dick Sterrett and Coodemay can be interpreted as a pre-arranged reaction to Mrs. Turner's attitude.
Tea Cake and his friends didn't like Mrs. Turner's idea of them as a crowd of rowdy, ugly, stupid obstacles to her project to 'whiten' the race. Their brawl could have been a mockery of her stereotypes. Chapters 18-20 SummaryJanie noticed that the Seminole Indians were leaving the Everglades with their belongings. One man told her that they were moving to higher ground because a hurricane was coming. Most the laborers refused to believe it. However, when the animals began to vacate the Everglades too, some of the laborers fled to Palm Beach.
Tea Cake's friend Lias offered to drive him and Janie out of the Everglades, but Tea Cake turned down the offer. People gathered in Tea Cake's house to dance and gamble, but they slipped away to their own shacks when the weather continued to darken. Finally, only Tea Cake, Janie, and their friend Motor Boat remained, listening to the wind scream. Tea Cake asked Janie if she wished she had stayed in Eatonville instead of marrying him.
Janie replied that she was satisfied with her choice, regardless of the outcome. In the morning, they fled to higher ground, taking refuge in an abandoned house, but the waters continued to rise. Tea Cake and Janie continued eastward, but Motor Boat chose to stay. Tea Cake and Janie returned to the Everglades because it was better to be around white people who knew them. They discovered that Dick Sterrett died in the storm, but their friends Coodemay, Lias, Stew Beef, Booty ny, and Dockery survived.
Moreover, Motor Boat slept through the entire storm even after the water ripped the house from its foundations and carried it several miles away. Three weeks later, Tea Cake fell ill. He lost his appetite and couldn't drink water without gagging. Doctor Simmons took Janie aside and told her that Tea Cake had rabies.
Simmons sent away for serum even though he didn't think Tea Cake would survive. Janie refused to put Tea Cake in a hospital. Tea Cake's friends, Dockery and Sop-de-Bottom came to visit him and reported that Mrs. Turner's brother was back in the Everglades. Seized with jealousy, Tea Cake began sleeping with a pistol under his pillow, where Janie eventually discovered it. When Tea Cake went to the outhouse, she rotated the cylinder, so that it would fire three empty chambers first.
Later, Tea Cake was seized with rage because Janie didn't sleep in the same bed with him. He drew the pistol, despite Janie's attempts to explain that she was only following Simmon's orders. When Tea Cake fired the three empty chambers, she was forced to kill him with a rifle. Janie went to jail. Her trial was held on the same day.
She struggled with the dilemma of explaining her case to the-all white jury. She could tell that the black community was against her as well. Simmons testified on her behalf. After Janie gave her version of events, the jury found her not guilty. Janie paid for an elaborate funeral for Tea Cake, so the black community soon forgot their harsh judgment. Janie stayed in the Everglade for a few weeks, but there was nothing there to make her happy without Tea Cake.
Pheoby states that she " ll set the gossips straight about Janie's relationship with Tea Cake. Janie replies that no amount of talking will really make them understand. Only personal experience will teach them about life. Pheoby returns home while Janie sings to herself. Images of Tea Cake fill her mind. The laborers' attitude toward the Seminoles' prediction of the hurricane again shows Hurston's grasp of racism and cultural biases.
Many of the laborers chose to stay behind in the Everglades partly because 'Indians didn't really know anything. ' The real reason for staying behind was the fear that they would lose a few days' wages if they fled only to discover that the hurricane didn't actually come. However, they used negative stereotypes of Native Americans to bolster their confidence. Tea Cake's enforced servitude as a grave-digger in Palm Beach also is another treatment of race in her work. Whites insisted on maintaining racial distinctions even with dead bodies. Ironically, many of the bodies were in such bad condition that these distinctions were extremely difficult to make.
Although Hurston does not address racism from a political standpoint in this scene, she does address the essential absurdity that lies at the heart of racist logic. The scant information we have about Janie's testimony implies that she narrated the details of her entire relationship with Tea Cake. It is therefore difficult to determine whether she was acquitted because of her own testimony or that of Doctor Simmons, a white man. It is probably not coincidental that Doctor Simmons's testimony is rendered in far more detail than Janie's. Hurston's decision to leave this ambiguous is yet another example of her attention to issues of race in the novel. After hearing her story, Pheoby promises to correct the gossipmonger's.
Janie's reply that talking doesn't mean much is eerily reminiscent of her narrative silence during her trial. However, Janie's statement does not indicate cynicism. To the contrary, she is sure of herself and doesn't need to try in vain to assure others. The testimony that is absent from the trial is present in her narrative, which is delivered to the individual Pheoby, not to the gossip society. In addition, she feels that what she has learned from her relationship with Tea Cake cannot be conveyed through words.
Self-realization is a personal journey that can only be made through gaining life experience. Therefore, Janie acknowledges the flaws inherent in retelling her life, but she does not necessarily undercut the importance of having found her voice. Neither does she undercut the benefit of sharing her story with others. She doesn't believe that her story should be the single, authoritative guidebook to self-realization.
It can, however, inspire others to re-examine their lives. Pheoby resolves to make a few changes in her relationship with her own husband, Sam Watson. More importantly, Hurston's novel has since inspired many other black women authors to write their own books about black women's identity. Tea Cake invited Janie to a big church picnic, and she finally allowed herself to hope for the kind of love she had given up on. Disapproving gossip soon spread throughout Eatonville.
People whispered that it was a scandal that she wore bright clothing and paraded around with a man like Tea Cake when Jody had only been dead for nine months. Pheoby approached Janie to find out what she was getting herself into. Janie set Pheoby's fears to rest by explaining that Tea Cake never asked her for a dime. He had asked her to marry him, but not because he wanted her property. Rather, they were planning to sell the store before the wedding, so they could start with a clean slate. Janie wore colorful clothing because she was no longer grieving.
Even Jody didn't tell her to wear black and white, so hadn't been wearing them for his sake. Basically, she was wearing mourning colors for everyone else. Jody's continual criticism of Janie's appearance was motivated by the same desires as before. When he was younger, he criticized her in order to display his power and authority to Eatonville. In his old age, he did so because he didn't want the citizens of Eatonville to notice that his health was failing. Janie's insult in the store was the first time she had openly challenged Jody in years.
Janie's speech to Jody on his deathbed was another important event for her. She refused to allow Jody to die thinking that he knew her. He never regarded her as a partner in life. She had to give up all of her dreams so that he could build his. Ironically, Janie's marriage to Jody was the very embodiment of Nanny's dreams for her. Unlike Logan, he did not make her a pack mule.
He gave her financial security and respectability. However, the marriage was largely an unhappy union. Janie could not be herself around Jody. Moreover, Jody still used Janie as a 'spit cup' even though he gave her wealth and respectability. So it seems that Nanny's worst fears and her highest hopes were realized in Janie's second marriage. Tea Cake's courtship was different from that of Logan and Jody.
Janie's first marriage was more of a contract of sale between Nanny and Logan than anything else. Janie's second marriage was an escape from the first one. Moreover, it was based on disappointed dreams. Jody courted her by talking about himself and his dreams.
Tea Cake, on the other hand, pursued Janie with a more romantic flair. Also, he allowed her equal footing in negotiating the terms of their relationship. Her attendance at the picnic with Tea Cake was an act of faith, taking the relationship into the public arena. Social condemnation was fast in coming, especially because she discarded her mourning colors. She was free of Jody, so she also took steps to defy the restrictions that social convention placed on her behavior. Gaining personal freedom was a two-fold process.
First, she had to be free in her private life, but she also had to free herself from restricting social attitudes. Only then could she begin to heal the rift between her outside self and her inside self.