The Relationship Between Janie And Tea Cake's

Contrary to when Janie lived with Tea Cake, the neighborhood would “Hold big arguments here like they used to do on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to.” (Hurston 134) Tea Cake was able to offer the opportunity to be relaxed around each other and have fun. He allowed Janie to be herself completely as he had suggested beforehand.

Unlike her previous husbands, Tea Cake does not stifle Janie’s potential, but instead allows Janie to comfortably express herself due to the “possibilities opened up by [their] relationship,” as evidenced by Professor Tejumola Olaniyan’s criticism of the novel. (Olaniyan 34). Not only is Janie free to behave in whichever way she desires, she is also confronted by a man who genuinely loves her. Moreover, Janie feels a “self-crushing love” with Tea Cake, that makes her feel content enough that “her soul [crawls] out from its hiding place” (Hurston 128). By finally allowing her soul out into the open, Janie unlocks her inner strength,

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

Hurston harnesses juxtaposition to distinguish between the situations of white folk and black folk experiences, as the differences between the two display Janie’s personal growth even more. After the failures between Logan and Janie’s marriage, Janie was ready to embark on new adventures independently. Janie now realizes she wants to find true love instead a forced love that follows how her grandmother’s outdated beliefs. When Janie was free of her abuser, the transition in her life was expressed by, “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman,” indicating the mental development of maturity in Janie (25).

     Then Janie meets Tea Cake. Their courtship and marriage involve many different forms of equality which are not seen in Janie's past relationships. The equalities exhibited include Tea Cake and Janie's equality to one another as persons, and equality in "age," love, and money.

Janie was no longer letting anything control her any longer. She was making her own decisions now by talking to Jordan and not listening to her grandmother, who told her to respect her husband. With the results of this, Janie ran from Killicks to marry Joe for numerous years while waiting for her hunger for love to be filled. However it never was with Joe. After the death of Joe, Janie soon found Tea Cake, who gave her the love she starved for: “after a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind” (Hurston 107). Hurston gave Janie Tea Cake to show that she was no longer going to wait around and wait for love. She was now going to find it herself. Proving that she was no longer the naive girl who sat under a tree and dreamed all day.

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.

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).

A new hindrance called society skeptically watches Janie as she quickly changes from being a widow of a powerful man to the wife of a young, poor man named Tea Cake, since her quest for love was not nearly over. She had the option of either being submissive to society by staying as Joe’s widow or show tremendous self-reliance and confidence by marrying Tea Cake. Pheoby, Janie’s close friend, declares, “Dat’s de way it looks. Still and all, she’s [Janie’s] her own woman...she should know by now what she wants tuh do” (Hurston 111). This shows how Pheoby trusts in Janie’s self-reliance and genuinely believes that she can make her own decisions. Also, Janie explains that “Tea Cake ain’t no Jody [Joe] Starks… but de minute Ah marries ‘im everybody is gointuh be makin’ comparisons...dis is a love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, Ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 114). She wants to live her own independent life, and not have to rely or depend on anyone. This is rather ironic because Janie does end up depending on Tea Cake, but perhaps not for material goods or money, like with Logan and Joe, but for something called love. Because Janie loves Tea Cake so much, she is willing to become submissive to his will. He ends up finding pleasure by letting out his anger by beating her. For example, Sop-de-bottom, one of Tea Cake’s friends, states “Ah love tuh whip uh tender women lak Janie! Ah bet

Tea Cake performs the old courtship rituals, indulges in shooting and razor fighting, and plays the dozens and the blues. Compared with Killicks and Starks, former husbands of Janie, Tea Cake prefers interaction and people to ‘things’: “So us goin’ off somewhere and start all in Tea Cake’s way. Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game” (134). In this pastoral setting, Janie regains her voice to tell narratives. Janie feels free to join the notorious ‘lying’ and tale-telling sessions whenever she wants to: “She got so, she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest” (158). Yet, even with Tea Cake, she has to face intermittent crises and physical aggression. S. Jay Walker has

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

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

This is not because she did anything wrong, but rather because a neighbor’s brother showed interest in her. Tea Cake was not, truly, free of the misogynistic stereotypes of women, and the event showed deep down the possessiveness he felt for her. “Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). Again, Janie is in a marriage where her husband thinks of her as a property. Tea Cake’s character brought much hope for a lifestyle in which Janie could be independent and powerful, participate in conversation and checkers, and be respected on an equal level. Ultimately, Tea Cake was still possessive, and in many ways was not in fact free of the suppressing beliefs of society as a whole. His character is evident of how deep rooted the beliefs were. Tea Cake passed away, but Janie carried on, returned to Eatonville, once again showcasing her

Janie, the main character, marries three times throughout the novel. Her marriages do not contain unconditional love and because of this, do not last. Her first husband, Joe Starks, belittles Janie as a person including her intellect. "Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves." (119). Joe shows his dominance over Janie by being the breadwinner in the relationship. Janie’s next marriage is with a man named Joe Starks. He tries to show his dominance over Janie by controlling her. “Janie! "Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gits hot. You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place. ‘Tain’t no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long…" (42). Joe belittles the