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.
In Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie’s hair is described ad nauseum; in fact, it is described so often that one cannot help but notice its importance to the text as a whole. The author uses Janie’s hair to demonstrate Janie as an independent woman. To Janie, her hair is one of her defining features, and it becomes a surrogate for her identity. While Janie works inside her and Jody’s store, Jody forces her to wrap up her hair in a head-rag. To Janie, the “business of the head-rag irked her endlessly”, even though she did not want it wrapped up, Jody did.
9. If you could offer Janie advice at this point, what would it be? Explain your rationale. I would advise her that she does not need to find love or “success” in her life to find happiness. Throughout the novel, Janie aspires for different goals that she feels that she can achieve through her relationships.
https://prezi.com/lskays0kapua/janie-crawfords-journey/ First Clue Location: Classroom Note card: Today you will be retracing the steps of the character Janie Crawford from the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Throughout the class period you will be traveling to all the places she lived during the book and get a glimpse into her journey of self-discovery. The first place to visit is where Janie grows up, West Florida. To get to West Florida, go out of the classroom, turn left out of the classroom and go through the doors. Once outside turn right and look for a tree that contains the directions to get to the next city.
Even though Tea Cake treats Janie as an equal, there still is a slight power struggle in her relationship with him as she increasingly realizes her needs as an individual. Therefore it is still possible to see Tea Cake as having some degree of control over Janie until his death. There is one instance in which Janie is proven to be a vital
Janie the protagonist of the book Their Eyes Were Watching God is introduced as a forty-year-old harlot by the woman on the porch. “They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs” (pg 2). From this porch Janie’s best friend Pheoby comes in to save her rep, Pheoby refutes, saying “You mad ‘cause she didn’t stop and tell us all her business” (pg 3). From this friendship we see that Janie is not a harlot she is just the talk of the neighborhood; she describes it as “Mouth-Almighty … got me up in they mouth now” (pg 5) . She then replies to the gossipers saying “They don’t know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings, and if love is a bed-quilt” (pg 6).
In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston traces Janie’s quest for independence and the search of her self-confidence through events that happened before and after her epiphany immediately following Joe’s death. Throughout the novel Janie’s view of life, her independence, and her view of love changed exceedingly depending on who she was married to. This story centers around an important epiphany that Janie has when Joe dies; that personal discoveries and life experiences help people find themselves. Before her revelation, when Janie is 16 years old, she experiences a moment of realization in she discovers new-found feelings about love, marriage, . Under the pear-tree, she has a perfect moment in nature, full of passion
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s happiness and self-fulfillment greatly depended on the man whom she was in a relationship with. From, the beginning of the novel, Janie never followed the path that had the utmost value to herself; She always settled for what other people thought was best for her. This made Janie never quite content with her situation and caused her happiness and self-fulfillment to be hindered by her circumstances. The horizon, a motif representing dreams, wishes, the possibility of change, and improvement of ones’ self, is the point in which Janie’s journey of self-discovery is illustrated by.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is a main character whose outward existence conforms, and her inward life questions. This tension helps to evolve the author’s theme of the importance of individuality and how individuality creates happiness. Janie experiences most of her life in trying to conform, and grows to despise it. Once free, she becomes herself and becomes happy. Early in the novel, Janie marries Logan Killicks.
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.
Janie is the symbol of feminism and independence for women in the novel and shows her heroism in many instances. Some of her heroic qualities include determination, empathy, and
This section is important to Janie, it shows how much Tea Cake loves her by risking his life for Janie and reinforces the idea that she has, that Tea Cake is her “bee.” Janie sees the effect that Tea Cake had on her life after she had to kill him. “ Janie held his head tightly to her breast and wept and thanked him wordlessly for giving her the chance for loving service. She had to hug him tight for soon he would be gone, and she had to tell him for the last time.” Tea Cake’s death was the final thing that Janie needed to experience to grow into her enlightened mindset.
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
With each marriage, Janie grows more self-aware and realizes what her true desires are. She wants to be with a man who makes her happy, but also treats her with the respect and dignity she deserves. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie’s independence grows as she yearns for true love through her three marriages. Janie’s willingness to do what others ask, leads to her being pressured into marriage at sixteen years old by her grandmother.
Although Tea Cake was not rich in monetary wealth, he was rich in opportunity for radical change in equality and individuality. In addition, Tea Cake helped Janie define her societal individuality, an entirely new concept to her, by openly inviting her to be equal in their relationship in private and in a public