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Janie Character Analysis

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A woman with a man is a lot like a bird who can’t fly: She is unable to soar free, chained to being responsible for her significant other’s happiness, and she was stilted in the pursuit of her own joy. Janie easily relates to this because her own lovers caused her this pain. They all held her back from reaching her true potential. This is because Janie is an independent woman who doesn’t need a man to be happy. Logan easily took away her freedom, and he left her without any love. Joe was different than Logan. He treated her as something to be viewed like an animal at the zoo. Tea Cake may have been good for a while, but in the end she didn’t really need him at all. For these reasons alone, it’s easy to see that Janie would be better on her …show more content…

He’s perfect for Janie, except for the fact that’s he’s not. After going through two other relationships, one would think Janie would take a break from men, but of course not. Following her former husband’s death, Janie meets Tea Cake, “He frowned and struggled with the pegs of the imaginary instrument watching out of the corner of his eye with that secret joke playing over his face” (100). Janie sees Tea Cake’s antics, and interprets them the way that she wants. It almost seems to me that Janie sees Tea Cake as a fantasy. Fast forward a few chapters, and Tea Cake dies just as Joe did, despite being taken by a different disease. Leaving Janie, she’s left with these thoughts, “It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap” (184). Tea Cake wasn’t well at all, and yet Janie stayed with him until she had to shoot him. All of this heartache would have been avoided if Janie had just turned Tea Cake away. Back up a bit now, and Tea Cake is most certainly causing trouble with the infamous Mrs. Turner and her husband, “Mrs. Turner saw with dismay that Tea Cake’s taking them back out was worse than letting them stay in… So Mrs. Turner struggled into the mass and caught Tea Cake by the arm” (151). She ends up falling, and starts making a scene towards Tea Cake. This eventually creates backlash for Janie, and she gets a stern conversation from Mrs. Turner. It’s rocking the boat like this that makes Tea Cake a hard person to have a relationship with. Why Janie put up with him so long really baffles

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1. Unlike Janie’s previous husbands, Tea Cake treats Janie with compassion and respect. In addition, he loves Janie for her personality instead of her looks and her role as a woman (housewife). 2. The speech characteristic that Tea Cake encourages Janie with is truth.

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For example, just like Jody, Tea Cake also physically abuses Janie to display his authority over her. What makes Janie 's relationship with Tea Cake different from her other relationships is that it is based on a love that runs much deeper than her motivation in staying in her other relationships. Janie married Logan in search of love. She married Jody in search of wealth and his ambition. When both of these relationships failed, she entered into her relationship with Tea Cake with low expectations.

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After Joe’s death, Janie meets Tea Cake. Tea Cake is younger, but he is kind to Janie, unlike Joe. At first, Janie thinks he may be using her for her money, but this is proven false when he promises to be the sole wage earner and never touch her savings. Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship are drastically different from Janie’s past relationships. She is treated as an equal, rather than as a lesser human being.

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Tea Cake is only concerned with himself; he considers himself to be superior to everyone else and refuses to assist the sick and dying. Joe, another of her husbands, married Janie for show rather than for love. Another one of her husbands, Joe, did not marry Janie for love; he married her for show. power— control of people, position, property, and money. While convincing Janie to leave with him, he states, "Leave the s’posin’ and everything else to me.

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This is most likely because she was so quick to run off and fall in love with Joe Sparks, which turned bitter quickly. Despite her efforts, Tea Cake definitely makes her gleeful, which is clear when the narrator describes, “...she decided to treat him so cold if he ever did foot the place that he’d be sure not to come hanging around there again… ‘Crazy thing!’ Janie commented, beaming out with light” (Hurston 121). This shows the adoration that Janie has for Tea Cake, even though she does not seem to trust herself around him. Furthermore, Tea Cake appears to care deeply about Janie, and not her age or money, which he proclaims as, “ ‘Ah done thought all about dat and tried tuh struggle aginst it, but it don’t do me no good.

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He continues to show his dominance over her in indirect ways such as taking her to the muck and compelling her to work outside, something she would not have done in any of her other relationships. As the marriage continued, Tea Cake became more obvious about how he controlled Janie, even going as far as whipping Janie because “being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). Janie simply accepts the beating and doesn’t defend herself. This dynamic proves that even though Janie does have more freedom initially with Tea Cake, she is still held under someone else’s

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Janie had two previous marriages with the likes of Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, and neither one of them panned out well. She was forced to leave both of them due to the fact of neither one of them treating the way she was supposed to be leading to her not having love for them. However, Janie would finally find the love of her life in the form of Tea Cake. As soon as Janie locked eyes with Tea Cake, she was instantly attracted to tea Cake and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with

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Tea Cake also listens to what Janie has to say. Janie’s past husbands belittled her and did not take her opinions seriously. Janie’s most dynamic display of power in Their Eyes Were Watching God occurs after Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog. Tea Cake loses his mind and attempts to kill Janie. Janie shoots her husband out of self defense.

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(133) Tea Cake’s control over Janie is not intentional. He does not set out with the goal to force her into doing something that she doesn't want to do. I don't believe that he knows the effect that he has on Janie's actions, and how willing she is to sacrifice her day in order to make him happy. While Tea Cake isn't forcing her to go and work in the fields with him, he is controlling her because he is using Janie’s infatuation with him as a tool to spend time with her. Which, is not really a bad thing, because not all forms of control are negative.

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Even after this abuse, Janie stays with Tea Cake, believing she will find personal fulfillment in her marriage. Janie chases this innocent fantasy of love, thinking this will bring the peace she yearns

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With Tea Cake, she could be herself. He allowed her to be herself because he loved her the way she was and didn’t want to make her change to be something she wasn’t. Tea Cake encouraged Janie to be what she wanted and to follow her dreams and aspirations. Janie finally was able to find the bee to pollinate her pear blossom. She loved him with all her heart.

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As we see in the storm, Janie tells Tea Cake, “Once upon uh time, ah never ‘spected nothin’, Tea Cake, but bein’ dead from the standin’ still and tryin’ tuh laugh. But you come ‘long and made somethin’ outa me. So Ah’m thankful fuh anything we come through together” (158). Despite having gone through a deadly situation that nearly killed her due to Tea Cake’s ignorance to the warnings of the storm, she still loves him. He endangers her life, yet, rather than expressing anger or disappointment, she expresses appreciation toward him for being in her life and giving her a life to live—a life of joy.

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Thus it is still possible to see Tea Cake as having a degree of control over Janie until the moment of his death. In each of her relationships, we watch Janie lose parts of herself under the forces of male domination. The men are not the only characters who see the traditional take on gender relations, where the men are dominant, and the women are obedient, as necessary and

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When tea cake shows up janie 's feels something she has never felt before, she is set free but the townspeople don 't think so. “‘Ain’t you skeered he’s jes after yo’ money him bein’ younger than you?’” (Hurston pg.133)Janie is in love with Tea Cake because he loves her for her youthful young side that was forced into hiding for so long because of her previous husbands. However the rest of the community is discouraging her and trying to keep her in the image as a mayor 's wife. They told Janie that Tea Cake was after her money

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Tea Cake gambles Janie’s money away but never gambles it back. The audience will pick up on that he uses her. Tea Cake never hits Janie because Oprah left the Turners out of the movie. She makes their relationship a love story. Tea Cake and Janie never argue.

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