Character Analysis: Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

Some of the most renowned novels include major characters who act on a whim, resulting in actions that contrast with their normal personality. This is character complexity. Zora Neale Hurston in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, employs this device to show how a character exhibits contrasting traits, creating conflict. Tea Cake is loving yet jealous, which causes him to whip Janie. Tea Cake’s ferocity at the end of the novel is measured by his kindness in the earlier stages of his marriage to Janie. Tea Cake’s loving personality is evident in his response to Janie during their time spent in Jacksonville. Upon Janie’s questioning on why Tea Cake left her for an entire day, Tea Cake responds, “You’se de onliest woman in the world Ah ever even mentioned getting married tuh… you bein’ older don’t make no difference” (Hurston 121). Tea Cake feels affectionate and devoted to Janie, and believes that he could not love any other woman like he loves Janie. Tea Cake is also unpretentious, as he feels that age does not play a factor in his love for Janie.

In response to the arrival of Mrs. Turner’s brother to the Everglades, the narrator exclaims that Tea Cake “had a brainstorm” and “had whipped Janie” (Hurston 147). The idiom describing Tea Cake’s reaction exemplifies Tea Cake’s jealousy of Janie’s heart belonging to another man. To guarantee sole control of Janie, the narrator writes that Tea Cake whips her because “it relieves the awful fear inside him” (Hurston 147). Since Tea Cake loves Janie so much and is appalled by the thought of another man loving Janie, he acts jealously by whipping Janie. Complexity is evident as his kind, loving traits conflict with his jealous, protective