Symbolism In Tea Cake By Zora Neale

September 6, 2016 The Human Experience I have a dream that before me stands one of the strongest strongholds on earth. The large, unfamiliar doors of the hold stand atop of a legion of white colored stairs. As I tenderly push open the glass doors and walk into the Library of Congress, the roar of the 100 million voices reverberates underneath the great golden dome. There is a smell, a smell that permeates all within the stronghold. It is a smell that reeks of knowledge and wisdom. As I take one baby step after another, the murmur of my shoes could not overcome the voices of knowledge that sing throughout the hold. Imagining the gems of literature, that are stored here brings overpowering sensations of bliss and pleasure. Yet it is the feeling

For Janie it seems as if her dream has come into fruition, until a rabid dog bites Tea Cake and kills him. The dog represents the unexpected event that has prevented so many from accomplishing their dreams. The feral animal destroys a dream that had become a reality for Janie. It is interesting how she reacts in the final lines of the novel“ He could never be dead so long as she herself had finished thinking and feeling”(Hurtson 193). As a result of Tea Cake’s death, Janie retreats from reality, into the world of dreams. Dreams are also prevalent in the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The setting is rather dark, due to the presence of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The darkness of the setting leads to a world where there are many different dreams, which often supersede each other. When the tractors begin to mow down the homes of the farmers and wreck their lives, it is a farmer that drives this machine of destruction. “You got no call to worry about anybody’s kid’s but your own.”(Steinbeck 34) he says. For 3 dollars a day the speaker was able to fulfill his dreams and feed his own kids. Yet he does this by starving other farmer’s

and the Okies, who suffer the most, they dream of the land that that was “Never Cold. An fruit ever’place an’ people just being in the nicest places, little white houses among the orange trees”(Steinback 93). As the yield from the crops diminished and dust filled the skies, thousands traveled upon Highway 66 with the flame of Prometheus lighting the way, against the foreshadowing of darkness in the form of the refugees fleeing California and the dog representing the Okies being run over. The word In an effort to achieve their dreams, the ordinary family structure is changed. Ma becomes the head of the family through her actions. Dreams drive us forward. As I gaze at the first floor from one of the upper balconies in the library, my eyes are drawn to a great chandelier composed of an innumerable amount of silvery beads. There are thousands, if not millions of