Janie's Return To Eatonville: Summary

Similarly, Janie makes another great sacrifice when she decides to leave her life of ease and luxury in Eatonville, so she can start a new life with Tea Cake. In Eatonville, she had authority as the store owner and as the former mayor’s wife, but she decides to follow her heart which ultimately leads to her fulfillment of self-actualization with the help of Tea Cake. Without Tea Cake, Janie could not have found herself, and his impact on her remains even after his death. Janie recounts her life lesson to Phoeby saying, “Love is lak da sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore...Two things everybody’s got tuh do for theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (191-92). Through Janie’s words, the effect of Tea Cake on her is eminent through how Janie learn about life and herself and leads her to becoming independent. Because Janie sacrifices her luxurious life in Eatonville, through Tea Cake, she fulfills her need of self-actualization, a recurring idea in the book. Janie’s values concerning her life and of Tea Cake are also illuminated in her conversation with Phoeby before she leaves Eatonville. She and Tea Cake “‘...[had] done made up [their] minds tuh

After Tea Cake ignores all the preemptive warnings of the approaching Hurricane Okeechobee, Janie gets trapped in a flood in the Everglades with a rabid dog. Witnessing this event, Tea Cake risks his life and jumps into the water to save Janie from this beast. Afterwards, Janie tells Tea Cake, “Once upon uh time, Ah never 'spected nothin', Tea Cake, but bein' dead from 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.” (Hurston 167). Janie’s quote demonstrates her gratitude to Tea Cake, who was the only person to truly treat Janie as an equal. By following Nanny’s ideals, Janie lived most of her life neglected in various ways by both Logan and Joe. However, when she finally abandoned Nanny’s dream and met her own needs by marrying Tea Cake, she experienced happiness for the first time. The life of security with little emotional fulfillment deeply contrasts with Janie’s new life with Tea Cake. Finally, she is able to experience true love instead of living as a mule under Joe and Logan, both of whom tried to shape Janie to fit their own personal needs instead of treating her as an equal . Although Nanny wanted to secure Janie’s life by marrying her off to a respected, landowning man, this resulted in unintended consequences that restricted her freedom and harmed her well being. Unlike

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

Janie’s horizon epitomized her land of the possibility, to bring change and to open her eyes to the world around her. Although her relationships with Logan and Joe obstructed her for half of her life, her time with Tea Cake illuminated her to a world where she could explore and enjoy herself. Moreover, her delight in the thoughts of the pear tree expressed her desire to find pleasure in life and to pursue that in the marriages she had experienced. Although, spending her life with Logan and Joe had impeded her from earning the love she deserved, Tea Cake’s presence blessed her with the bliss that life brings in one’s journey. Consequently, her bee and blossom dream being undermined many times due to dismal relationships and neglected feelings finally brought her to Tea Cake, her true love. He cherished every moment with her and motivated her to carry on her life with the same happiness, joy and affection she once received from him. Janie’s life-long experiences and sufferings have brought her to a place where she can connect her memories, her future ambitions and be herself. Despite her past, she will continue to cherish it as her life has ripened from the spirited yet restricted teenager she once was, into a woman who has fulfilled her own destiny and one who will not

The final stage in Janie’s development as a woman is her marriage with the twelve years younger Tea Cake. Both are totally in love with each other and Janie lives a live she has never lived before. She experienced a big change when she moves from her formal live as “Mrs. Major” (43) in Eatonville to the Everglades where Tea Cakes teaches her how to farm, fish and hunt and introduces a totally new rural life to her. Janie described her lifestyle in these days with "...we ain't got nothin' tuh do but do our work and come home and love" (127).

With all the differences in mind, Eatonville and the Everglades each represent something as it pertains to Janie. Eatonville represents oppression and stability. Joe stifles Janie’s sense of self and doesn’t allow her to express who she really is. He doesn’t let her speak to others and makes her take care of the general store even though she doesn’t want to. Although Janie doesn’t really enjoy being in Eatonville, it is a stable point in her life. She has plenty of money, a job, and a lovely house. This place is so stable that even after Tea Cake dies, Janie returns to Eatonville to her old house. On the other hand, the Everglades represent discovery and love. It’s in the ‘Glades that Janie discovers her true self, working on the muck wearing overalls. She’s happy there and enjoys what she does. Love is also important. Janie finally finds true love with Tea Cake and they enjoy their like together while it lasts. The mutual love relationship and still being able to be herself was what Janie was looking for.

Janie is married to two men, before she finds Tea Cake, that both suppress her individuality in their own ways. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, suppresses her by keeping her in a marriage that she can't fully, or at all, love the man she's married to. "Cause you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it." Janie says she needs to be told how to feel about Logan in order for her to be able to love feel anything towards him at all. Janie is a mixture of the people around her because they're telling her to live and how to think. Janie can't bring herself to figure out how to do these things on her own so she ends up looking for the answers in the man she married, her grandmother, and her society. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, keeps her from showing who she really wants to be by

Later on, Janie marries a man Joe Starks (Jody), and they move to a Florida town named Eatonville. Jody hears the town is small and buys more land and orders a store and post office to be built. While the store is being built, Jody is elected Mayor, gives a speech and tells Janie not to give one because she is not allowed, following this, she is angered but keeps quiet Along with the store, Jody wants to put in a street lamp and gathers folks from other towns to gather for the lighting of the street lamp, then celebrates with a feast. Janie complains she misses Jody, since he is mayor and has other duties but Jody states that is just the beginning. Later on, Jody builds this two story house and buys two spittoons, where the residents believe

He wins her heart with his energy, and willingness to make Janie his equal. Tea Cake is the only husband that actually takes a genuine interest in Janie. He takes her hunting, fishing, and plays checkers with her. She especially enjoys playing chess, the fact that he considers her intelligent enough to learn such a game shows that he thinks more of Janie than Logan or Joe ever did. The town disapproves of Janie and Tea Cake because he is poor and younger than her. They have the impression that he is just after her money. Janie and Tea Cake leave the town of Eatonville and travel to a town called Jacksonville where Tea Cake has work. The sense of gender equality is very important to Janie in a relationship. Tea Cake asks Janie to work alongside him in the Everglades fields. Logan and Joe both wanted her to work, but she resented it. The difference is that Logan wanted Janie to do hard labor because he thought of her as an object like a workhorse. Joe wanted Janie to work in the store, which she also disliked because Joe just wanted to publicly display her as his trophy wife. Tea Cake’s attitude about Janie working is completely different. He gives her the choice of working and doesn’t command her. Janie goes to work the next day, “So the very next morning Janie got ready to pick beans along with Tea Cake. There was a suppressed murmur when she picked up a basket and went to work. She was already getting to be a special case on the muck. It was generally assumed that she thought herself too good to work like the rest of the women and that Tea Cake "pomped her up tuh dat." But all day long the romping and playing they carried on behind the boss’s back made her popular right away.”(133) This is the first relationship that Janie doesn’t care to work. She actually likes working alongside Tea Cake. As time passes the town gets word of a hurricane coming. All the people start fleeing to different places, but the boss

The book opens with Janie returning to Eatonville, after Tea Cake’s death. She walks down the street wearing the same overalls she wore while she was working with Tea Cake, causing many of the town’s residents to wonder about her. When confronted about this gossip, Janie proclaims, “if God don’t think no mo’ ‘bout ‘em then Ah do, they’s a lost ball in de high grass” (5). She means that if God cared about the townspeople as little as she did, they would get lost amongst all the other things God likely does not care about. This shows how little she minds what other people think of her, and how her quest for self determination has been

Joe was sweet at first, then his true feelings about women come out and Janie looses her love she thought she had for him. He soon dies after their separation. Janie then falls in love with a man named Tea Cake. He is the man with whom she has a wonderful, loving, happy marriage.

Joe Starks is a “quick-thinking, fast-talking, ambitious man, headed for a newly founded all black community, where he plans to make a fortune” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody offers up a new start to Janie and she leaps at the opportunity of marrying him, “committing bigamy” (Rosenblatt 30). Jody becomes the mayor of Eatonville and provides Janie with a middle-class furnished house that does not provide her “with the felicity and self-fulfillment that she needs” (Ha 33). Janie is treated no more or less than that of the mayor’s wife.

The story has numerous amounts of unexpected events that was in the novel. One unexpected event would be when Janie had to kill TeaCake before TeaCake killed her. A quote that captures the dramatic nature of this particular scene would be “Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap. She had wanted him to live so much and he was dead. No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep. 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

Janie falls in love with the Everglades, everything there is new and strange. Tea Cake finds them a room, and he decides that he will pick beans during the day and at night, he will play guitar and roll dice. Once the season begins they live a comfortable life picking beans. Tea Cake teaches Janie how to shoot a gun, and she eventually becomes a better shot than him. Once the season starts, poor workers start to move in to town, and soon all the houses are taken, those who could not get houses sleep in the fields at night. The bars soon come to life and all night there is loud music spilling out of them. Tea Cake and Janie’s house becomes the center of the Everglades; people hang out at their house and listen to Tea Cake play his music. In the beginning of the season, Janie mainly stays home and cooks meals for Tea Cake, but he soon starts to gets lonely working in the field alone all day. He begins to leave work early so he can see her, Janie decides that it would be best if she would join him in their field picking beans that they can be together all day everyday. Janie wonders what the people of Eatonville would say if they

He bought her gifts such as apples and a glass lantern. He does everything for a show and to get self-glory. He buys 200 acres of land and he gives it to the people of Eatonville. He celebrated with the town giving them cheese and crackers following a barbecue. Janie is tied down by him she couldn’t have a relationship with anyone in the town. He thought everywhere they went and men were in their presence that they were trying to take her away from him. She didn’t have any freedom during speeches she could only stand there and just look pretty according to his standards. Almost In a sense as if she was his slave. She began to tell him how she is always muted all the time. He told how he want her head to be covered at all times and how when they went in the store she had to wear a head rag so her long hair wouldn’t hang down. She eventually got tired of him and decided she had enough of his stuff which made her decide to run away.