Jeffrey Stayton Identity

After her works appeared in several major publications such as Opportunity, The New Negro, and Negro World between 1924 and 1925, Hurston moved to New York City. In New York, she met and partnered with prominent members of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Fannie Hurst, and Carl Van Vechten. With the assistance of Annie Nathan Meyer, Hurston enrolled in Barnard College in 1926 where she studied under legendary anthropologist Franz Boas. Under Boas, Hurston developed the skills and the voice to share the works of the rural folk culture where she had been born and raised, and “with Boas’s assistance, she obtained a research fellowship from the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) and

One could make the argument that both Joe and Tea Cake seem to be more sure of their identities and statuses than any other character in the novel—they are at least the most capable of convincing Janie to believe this—but I argue that Tea Cake is the most unsure of his identity and status, as is indicated in his constant and frequent wanderings throughout the time he spends in the narrative. Most of this can be attributed to Stayton’s notion that the uncanny occurs at twilight, which serves as obstacles that impede the stranger’s ability to develop new identities for themselves. Tea Cake’s propensity for gambling, juke joints, and other revelries, most of which lead to long periods of time spent away from Janie, prevent him from fully forming any set identity for himself. Helen Yitah likens these traits to the migrant’s inclination to “squander their money on gambling and prostitutes, abuse the people closest to them and commit crimes such as armed robbery, rape, and murder,” and although Tea Cake does not demonstrate any violent tendencies, he does share some of these qualities with John Pearson in Jonah’s Gourd Vine in that “John commits numerous crimes, including theft, adultery, and assault, all of which impel his flight” (20). Like John Pearson in Jonah’s Gourd Vine, much of Tea Cake’s wanderlust can be attributed to the need for employment, the leading factor that moves him and Janie to the Muck, which, according to Martyn Bone, makes him an “economic migrant” (760). Ultimately, he is a migrant stranger who can only find fulfillment in the South—not the