Describe how tea cake courted janie. what was the town’s reaction to their relationship? why?

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, There Eyes Were Watching God, a key theme in the story concentrates on Janie’s marriages and love. This essay focuses on chapter 13 which uncovers aspects of Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake. Chapter 13 is important as it shows readers that her final marriage with Tea Cake is something special and unique from her previous marriages because her marriage with Tea Cake involves love; consisting of happiness, jealousy, affection, communication, and understanding. It is with Tea Cake that Janie discovers true love.             Janie’s marriage to Tea Cake makes her feel like she has been given a second chance in life to live her youth; she feels reborn. With Tea Cake, she is actually having fun and is truly happy. She is experiencing things that she never would have thought she would do, such as they go “to a show and after that they [ride] around on the trolley cars” (117). In her previous marriage with Joe, he isolates her from participating in fun activities such as the mule funeral. Tea Cake even introduces her to his skill of gambling, which is “very exciting to Janie” (125) because this is the first time that she is “[touching] a dice in her life” (125). There is much enthusiasm, joy and spontaneity in this marriage that makes Janie and Tea Cake carry on like a young couple in love, whereas in her previous marriage she lacks happiness.

            This chapter also reveals that Janie honestly cares for Tea Cake. After she finds that Tea Cake has been gone for a long time she prays to God for his return. Janie says, “Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin’, Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time” (120). This quote is saying the obvious that she has been waiting for Tea Cake to return for two days, but it is also saying that she has been waiting a long time to find someone like Tea Cake who she genuinely loves. She is praying to God for him not to take Tea Cake away from her because he fills the loneliness that she feels in her past relationships and she does not want to lose that. Janie also prays to God for Tea Cake’s safety and says, “But oh God, don’t let Tea Cake be off somewhere hurt and Ah not know nothing about it. And God, please suh, don’t let him love nobody else but me” (120).  Even if she is hurt emotionally and angry that he has been gone for so long, her concern for Tea Cake’s well-being is evident. Jealousy and fear of losing him to another woman is also shown in this quote which are normal reactions that a women has when she loves a man. Jealousy by both Tea Cake and Janie in the novel indicates their attachment for each other; however their attachment may have been too strong as it eventually leads to be the death of Tea Cake.

            Janie’s feelings of love and marriage are a continuing theme in the novel. Chapter 13 contains good material that shows that Janie and Tea Cake’s love and marriage are real and strong. Before this chapter there is concern as to whether Tea Cake really loves Janie or if he is just after her money, but after reading this chapter, it is apparent that the love that they find together is one of a kind. This chapter also reveals Janie’s realization that she undoubtedly loves Tea Cake too. At the end of the chapter, the very last sentence is, “Janie look[s] down on [Tea Cake] and [feels] a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (128). This is the first time that Janie completely falls in love; she has never felt anything like how she is feeling now about Tea Cake. She finally uncovers what true love is.

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. He is honest when he declares his feelings to Janie, and he has no intentions of hurting her for his own benefit. Chapter Twelve: 1. The town does not approve of Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship. They believe that it is too sudden for Janie to be involved with another man when Joe just passed away. 2. Tea Cake is offering Janie the chance to follow her dream again, and to follow “her horizon” and obtain “her pear tree”.

3. She means how Tea Cake taught her how to talk all

Tea Cake asks Janie to work on the field. However, Tea Cake’s intentions differed from Janie’s previous husbands because he wanted Janie to work with him so that he can spend some more time with her. He always missed her when they were apart. 3. “Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to. She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest.” Chapter Fifteen:

1. Nunkie tried to interfere with Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship. As a response, for the first time in the novel, Janie becomes jealous.

1. Mrs. Turner is racist towards the black community. Surprisingly, she is a black woman herself. She believes that white people are superior to the black race. She is different from Janie because did not mind people. In fact, she loved them since her husband was black. Mrs. Turner would have been suited for Logan Killicks because he was a white, wealthy man.

2. Mrs. Turner hated Tea Cake because he was black, especially because of his darker

Tea Cake doesn’t come back for a week, and Janie, thinking that he is taking advantage of her wealth, decides to be rude to him when he shows up. But when he finally comes by, his fanciful joking—he pretends to play an imaginary guitar—immediately makes Janie smile. They flirt and play checkers again, and then Tea Cake walks Janie home. They sit on her porch and talk for hours, eating cake and drinking fresh lemonade. As late as it is, Tea Cake proposes that they go fishing. They stay out the rest of the night at the lake, and in the morning, Janie has to sneak Tea Cake out of town to avoid gossip. She loves the impetuous adventure of the whole evening.

The next day, Hezekiah tells Janie that Tea Cake is too low for a woman like her; Janie, however, doesn’t care. Tea Cake returns that night and they eat a dinner of fresh fish. Afterward, Janie falls asleep in Tea Cake’s lap and wakes up to find him brushing her hair. They talk for a while, and Tea Cake says that he fears that Janie thinks that he is a scoundrel. Janie tells him that she likes him, but as a good friend, not as a lover. Crushed, Tea Cake says that he feels more strongly about her than she apparently does about him. Janie doesn’t believe him, thinking that he can’t possibly be attracted to someone so much older than him. She tells him that he will feel different in the morning. Tea Cake leaves abruptly.

The next day, Janie anxiously frets about Tea Cake, who doesn’t return. The day after that, however, he wakes her up by knocking on her door. He says that he has to leave for work but that he wanted to let her know that his feelings for her are real. That night, Janie finds Tea Cake waiting for her in her hammock. They eat dinner and he spends the night. The next morning, he leaves. Janie is again filled with desperate fears that Tea Cake has simply taken advantage of her. But he returns after three days, driving a beat-up car, and says that he wants to make their relationship public; he bought the car because he wants to take her to the big town picnic.

Summary: Chapter 12

After the picnic, Tea Cake and Janie become the topic of scandalous gossip. The town doesn’t approve of the revered mayor’s widow dating a poor, younger man. Sam Watson convinces Pheoby to talk to Janie so that she doesn’t end up like Ms. Tyler, an old widow who was cheated by a younger man. Pheoby tells Janie that Tea Cake is too low for her, but Janie replies that while Jody wanted her to act pretentious and high-class, Tea Cake treats her as she wants to be treated. Pheoby warns that Tea Cake may be using her for her money and tells Janie that she has stopped mourning for Jody too soon.

Janie dismisses these admonitions, saying she shouldn’t mourn if she is not sad. Janie then reveals that she plans to sell the store, leave town, and marry Tea Cake. She explains that she doesn’t want the town to compare Tea Cake to Jody. She also says that she has lived her grandmother’s way and now wants to live her own way. She adds that augmented status seemed like the ultimate achievement to a former slave like Nanny but that she, Janie, is searching for something deeper. Pheoby cautions her once more to be careful with Tea Cake, but then the two women laugh and share in Janie’s newfound happiness.

Analysis: Chapters 11–12

Chapter 11 deepens our understanding of Janie’s attraction to Tea Cake. By the end of this chapter, Janie has begun to see him in mystical terms and has developed a conscious sense that he is the partner that she needs in order to travel to the horizon. Chapter 12 contrasts Janie’s attachment to Tea Cake with her relationship to the town as a whole and further explores Janie’s personal growth. Through her conversation with Pheoby Watson, we see that Janie has a clearer idea now than ever before of who she is and what she wants.

Read more about Janie and her path towards self-realization.

In Chapter 12, we see how Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake has superceded her desire to interact with the community around her. In Chapter 6, when Janie hungers to join the world of the porch-talkers, the community life of the town seems to offer the interaction missing from her isolated life with Jody. But Tea Cake now shows her an intimacy that she considers far more valuable. Whereas, earlier, the opinion of the town means a great deal to Janie, she has now gained such an amount of self-confidence and has been exposed to such a fulfilling relationship that she is able to dismiss the petty gossip of the town around her. The community, on the other hand, resents Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship precisely because it replaces the intimacy that the community offers; with Tea Cake, Janie has found a connection much deeper and truer than that which the porch offers.

Read more about the importance of the porch in the novel.

Throughout Chapter 12, we witness how much Janie has matured since her relationship with Jody. During her conversation with Pheoby, she is able to articulate complex, previously inexpressible ideas and emotions. In Chapter 9, Janie bluntly states that she hates her grandmother. In Chapter 12, she offers a more nuanced perspective—she understands that Nanny’s distorted priorities were a product of the harsh life that she experienced as a slave. Again we see that antagonism is not located in a particular person but rather is manifested in harmful systems of beliefs. In this case, Nanny was the victim of slavery and Janie, in turn, was the victim of the mindset that Nanny’s experience shaped in Nanny. Here, we see that large forces, such as cultural forces and environmental circumstances, not particular people, are the sources of pain. Janie’s newfound sympathy for her grandmother represents another step toward attaining her goal: she now sees from where she has come and why she was unhappy with Jody. She realizes that her quest is a spiritual one, searching for more than mere materialism.

Read more about what motivated Nanny Crawford’s decisions.

It is significant that all of these revelations come in the course of conversation; Hurston maintains her emphasis on speech interaction. Janie’s quest for self-discovery is literally a quest to find her own voice. Thus, it is important to note her description of Tea Cake’s meaning to her: “He done taught me the maiden language all over.” Janie’s love for Tea Cake is framed in terms of language: in helping her find her voice, he has given her the tools to understand her inner desires. Through her reciprocally rewarding relationship with Tea Cake, Janie has finally begun to take real steps toward the horizon.

Read more about the role of conversation in the novel.