Read Chapters 19-20 and find one passage that is confusing or interesting. Note the page number and write a question or observation about the passage on our class discussion page.
For example:
Hurston writes that Janie views "her life like great tree in leaf with things suffered, things, enjoyed, things done and undone" (8). The simile comparing Janie's life and a tree with all its leaves suggests that Janie feels she has a vibrant life and connects Janie to the natural world.
The conversation between the men at the bottom of page 214 to page 215 is really interesting because they try to argue that black women such as Jamie and get away and are as free as white men in society. I disagree because black women are seen throughout the book as the least free people in society, as they are dominated by both gender and race restrictions. It also interesting to hear this conversation after we, the reader, have followed Jamie, a black woman, through her struggles in life and seen that is isn't true.
ReplyDelete“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding”(ch. 19). This quote is powerful because it shows that she cares about what people think of her in her community and how she is viewed.
ReplyDelete“Janie saw the look on his face and leaped forward as he crashed forward in her arms. She was trying to hover him as he closed his teeth in the flesh of her forearm. They came down heavily like that. Janie struggled to a sitting position and pried the dead Tea Cake’s teeth from her arm (209-10). It is really interesting that at the end of all of this, Janie has to kill Tea Cake. She does not necessarily want to, as she sees Tea Cake as a good man, but must in order to ensure her safety.
ReplyDelete- Mary-Clare
“Janie saw the look on his face and leaped forward as he crashed forward in her arms. She was trying to hover him as he closed his teeth in the flesh of her forearm. They came down heavily like that. Janie struggled to a sitting position and pried the dead Tea Cake’s teeth from her arm (209-10). It is really interesting that at the end of all of this, Janie has to kill Tea Cake. She does not necessarily want to, as she sees Tea Cake as a good man, but must in order to ensure her safety.
ReplyDelete- Mary-Clare
“She had to go way back to let them know how she and Tea Cake had been with one another so they could see she could never shoot Tea Cake out of malice. She tried to make them see how terrible it was that things were fixed so that Tea Cake couldn’t come back to himself until he had got rid of that mad dog that was in him and he couldn’t get rid of the dog and live. He had to die to get rid of the dog. But she hadn’t wanted to kill him. A man is up against a hard game when he must die to beat it. She made them see how she couldn’t ever want to be rid of him”(213). Janie was afraid the jury would misunderstand the situation. She loved Tea Cake and had to kill him to save herself, as she had no other choice. He also had no other choice, but to die after he caught rabies from the dog. Janie didn’t want them to think she killed him out of hatred, it was out of love and put an end to his suffering.
ReplyDelete“Janie, Ah dome went through everything tuh be good tuh you and it hurt me tuh mah heart tuh be ill treated lak Ah is.” 208 This is what Tea Cake is saying before he pulls the gun on Janie. I know he has rabies, but what if this is his honest thoughts instead of the madness as Janie brings herself to believe after his death? We saw a more manipulative side to him when he whipped Janie and subtle things like him blaming her for not cleaning the drinking water when that wasn’t the case. Perhaps he wasn’t completely mad when he said this.
ReplyDeleteDylan
Delete"She looked hard for something up there to move for a sign. A star in the daytime, maybe, or the sun to shout, or even a mutter of thunder. Her arms went up in a desperate supplication for a minute. It wasn’t exactly pleading, it was asking questions. The sky stayed hard looking and quiet so she went inside the house. God would do less than He had in His heart". I think that this passage is interesting because Janie still turns towards nature and God for answers just like she did in the beginning. Is she giving up on nature when it says that she had no response so she "went back inside the house" and that "God would do less than He had in His heart"
ReplyDeletep 203
DeleteI was confused by the part where Janie “felt the pistol underneath the pillow”, and was surprised since Tea Cake didn’t usually sleep with a pistol under his pillow. Was he planning on using it to kill himself or Janie? It seems like a strange part of his sickness to plan violence.
ReplyDelete"They had begged Janie to stay on with them and she had stayed a few weeks to keep them from feeling bad. But the muck meant Tea Cake and Tea Cake wasn’t there. So it was just a great expanse of black mud." Chapter 20. This passage is interesting to me because of her decision to stay a little bit longer in the place she shared with Tea Cake. Why wouldn't she just go and heal herself faster?
ReplyDelete"Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. Dis house ain't so absent of things lak it used tuh be befo' Tea Cake come along. It's full uh thoughts, 'specially dat bedroom." Despite the hardships Janie lived through with Tea, she still remembers him with good memories, and these memories now fill her empty house. As opposed to before, with both Jody, Logan and Nanny, whom she barely remembers anything good about them, she is able to live out her life alone with the memories she made. This shows a difference in the people she's been with, as Tea is the only one she finds worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteJanie says to Phoeby, "Love is lak de sea. It's uh moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore" (191, different version). This is an interesting quote to look at because it continues the nature motif. This motif can be traced throughout the novel, whether being used positively or negatively to match the events in Janie's life. As can be seen with this quote, the nature motif is once again being used positively, which shows that Janie is at peace despite the bad things that have happened to her. Furthermore, it shows that she has grown as a person to be content with being herself, whether she has a husband or not.
ReplyDelete“She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she didn’t shoot no white man…”(215). Would the outcome of the trial be the same if she had killed a white man? Why or why not? I think that the outcome would have been different. If she had killed a white man, even if they both loved each other, Janie would most likely have been convicted of murder because of the time period and especially with the all white jury she had. This racial discrimination is found in many cases (https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/racial-disparities-and-death-penalty/racist-jury-selection-heart-1977-murder for example) and still exists today.
ReplyDelete“... Janie sat like a lump and waited. It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding. If they made a verdict that she didn’t want Tea Cake and wanted him dead, then that was a real sin and a shame.”(214). Why does Janie fear people thinking she didn’t love Tea Cake? Why did she remain so in love with him even after he beat her and controlled her the way Joe did? Now that she’s free from Tea Cake, what will she choose to do with the rest of her life?
ReplyDelete“So Ah’m back home agin and Ah’m satisfied tuh be heah. Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons”(217). It’s interesting that Janie, after going through so many hardships, is finally content with her life. Although she did kill Tea Cake, Janie is happy because of the good times she had with Tea a Cake in the past.
ReplyDelete-Nare
“He had to die to get rid of the dog. But she hadn’t wanted to kill him. A man is up against a hard game when he must die to beat it. She made them see how she couldn’t ever want to be rid of him”(213). I think that this quote is interesting because Tea Cale is the one person and the one relationship that she didn’t want to lose. She unwillingly lost him. I think that she learned from all her past relationships, but this is the one that she actually had aspired to be in.
ReplyDelete"About the middle of the fourth week Tea Cake came home early one afternoon complaining of his head. Sick headache that made him lie down for a while. He woke up hungry. Janie had his supper ready but by the time he walked from the bedroom to the table, he said he didn’t b’lieve he wanted a thing" (ch.19) This quote shows the beginning of Tea Cake's deteriorating health. The dog that Tea Cake bravely saved Janie from, came back to literally "bite him", and we find out that he has rabies. Throughout the chapter we can see Janie trying to protect him and find him a doctor but his rabies eventually takes over and he becomes mad. He becomes the polar opposite of what he was before, destroys his character, which Janie had come to love.
ReplyDelete“‘Well, what didn’t slip off from de house ‘thought tellin’ me you wuz goin’. You ain’t never done that befo’... ‘Dat wuz cause Ah wuz tryin’ not tuh let yuh worry ‘bout yo’ condition. De doh tab sent after some mo’ medicine and Ah went tuh see if it come.’... Tea Cake began to cry and Janie hovered over him in her arms like a child. She sat on the side of the bed and sort of rocked him back to peace.”(205) It is interesting how when she gets jealous she is judged and disregarded but when he gets jealous it give him license to beat her as he previously did and now he is shown visibly crying like a young child. There is a double standard for jealously in their relationship and this the inequality regarding treatment in their relationship. She is made to feel bad for getting him medicine but he can flirt with other women and she is expected to keep quiet.
ReplyDelete“Well, you know Old Uncle Sam always do have de biggest and de best uh everything. So de white man figger dat anything less than de Uncle Sam’s consolidated water closet would be too easy. So Ah means tuh go where de white folks know me. Ah feels lak uh motherless chile round heah” (197) I found this really interesting for Tea Cake to explain what it’s like for him to be in a place where no white people know him. I especially liked his analogy to being “a motherless child”, I thought that was a really good comparison.
ReplyDelete"No expensive veils and robes for Janie this time. She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief" (215). After Jody's death Janie dresses up in black with a veil over her face to attend the funeral and explains that she does so to please the town. This time around after Tea Cake's death, Janie is consumed by so much true grief that she doesn't need to where specific clothes to show it. I found this comparison interesting because something as little as Janie's choice of clothing shows so much about the differences in her relationship with Jody and her relationship with Tea Cake.
ReplyDelete"The gun came up unsteadily but quickly and leveled at Janie's breast. She noted that even in his delirium he took good aim... The pistol snapped once. Instinctively Janie's hand flew behind her on the rifle and brought it around" (208-209). I feel like so much just happened so fast and I'm confused about it. Not too long ago Tea Cake was professing his love for Janie, and now he's trying to kill her? Is this a side effect of rabies? She should've asked Tea Cake about the pistol when she first saw it so that this situation would never have occurred.
ReplyDeleteZora Neale Hurston personifies Tea Cake’s sickness multiple times. On page 200, Tea Cakes “found himself wanting it very much, so he threw back his head as he rushed the glass to his lips. But the demon was there before him. strangling, killing him quickly. It was a great relief to expel the water from his mouth. He sprawled on the bed again and lay there shivering until Janie and the doctor arrived.” As he drinks water, he is attacked by his sickness or in the text by “the demon”, which is trying to strangle and kill him.
ReplyDelete“But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her. She looked hard at the sky for a long time. Somewhere up there beyond blue ether’s bosom sat He. Was He noticing what was going on around here? He must be because He knew everything. Did he mean to do this thing to Tea Cake and her?” (203)
ReplyDeleteThis here is a little foreshadowing. Tea Cake does try to kill her in the end, but he misses and she is able to shoot him first.
Additionally, Hurston portrays Tea Cake as a non - Christian (demi)god, (son of the Evening Sun), but she then immediately switches to Christian line of thought. She combines a personification of the sky, and Janie asks for an explanation from the (the christian) God, as seen by the capital He. This confusion between several religious imageries (Evening Sun is likely Amut, the Egyptian creator god, and the personification of the sky could be Nut if Hurston is keeping with Egyptian mythology), shows Janie’s confusion and frustration at her fate.
Also, what do you think happened with the dropped capital he in the last sentence. I think it might mean that, while she tries to hold on to what she believes, she eventually loses faith and respect for God because he is making her suffer so much.
-Alicia
ReplyDelete"She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see" (219)
ReplyDeleteThis quote shows that Janie has felt that she has explored life like she wanted to, and no longer feels isolated from the horizon (the set of endless possibilities a person's life can be). Additionally, she drapes the horizon over her shoulders instead of having the horizon be shrunken and tied around her neck "tight enough to choke her" (110) because of Nanny.
In shielding Janie, tea cake sacrificed himself and was bitten by the dog. Animals in the novel seem to have a common theme (the mule and the dog) of representing death of one of Janie’s husband after they try to place themself above the animal. Jody dies soon after the mule and at its funeral he stands on top of it— making fun of it. And Tea cake contracts rabies after he fights the dog seeing its safety as beneath his and Janie’s. I also think it’s significant that “Some shots right after it happened would have fixed him right up”(202). Because like Jody, the illness could have been delayed or cured if medical action was sought out earlier. The circumstances of death and the animal symbolism are metaphors for the oppression enforced on the wife from the husband in both relationships, and the waste of time not spent identifying the problem leads to the ultimate end of the relationship (literally by death and figuratively by the abuse that makes it toxic)
ReplyDelete“Naw, you ain’t neither. You only sound ole when you tell folks when you wuz born, but wid de eye you’se young enough tuh suit most any man. Dat ain’t no lie. Ah knows plenty mo’ men would take yuh and work hard fuh de privilege. Ah done heard ’em talk” (205)
ReplyDeleteI thought this passage was interesting as it demonstrates parallels between Jody and Tea Cake. Both of the characters become very insecure after they get ill and the power dynamic between them and Janie’s shifts towards Janie. However, their differing concerns demonstrates the nature of the relationships. While Jody fusses about their reputation, Tea Cake is paranoid that Janie is cheating on him. Jody tries to take control by attempting to put Janie down and lower her self-esteem while Tea Cake chooses to arm himself with a gun. Jody is more concerned about the social aspect of their relationship, while Tea Cake values appearance, indicating the superficiality of their relationship.
-Edward
DeleteWhen Tea Cake had been struck with an illness, Janie, “...thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in his eyes had killed her after all. She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her” (203). What caught my attention from this quote was when she refers to Tea Cake as the son of Evening Sun. Clearly there’s a connection with nature, however, I’m not sure what exactly it means. In addition, when she mentions Tea Cake had to “die for loving her”, it made me sympathize with Janie, because all of her life she has been searching for love and her voice. Tea Cake being the first one she’s ever been happy with, now seems to have been eliminated just like everyone else in Janie’s life. In regards to the other characters, Janie chooses to leave them behind, like Logan and Jody, but she looks up at the sky after this scene and wonders if God meant to take Tea Cake away from her.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 19 when Tea Cake is forced to work recovering bodies be is told to put white people in boxes and dump black people in holes. He reacts by saying, "look lak dey think god don't know nothing bout de Him Crow law"(195). Reminder they the south lagged behind in enforcing Jim Crow laws. Tea Cake also was forced to work managing bodies, and told to distinguish very disfigured corpses by their hair (after a long conference by the white men with guns to decide how to distinguish badly disfigured bodies). I wonder if the government resolved this years later somehow.
ReplyDeleteEvan
“Because they really loved Janie just a little less than they had loved Tea Cake... So they blamed it all on Mrs. Turner’s brother and ran him out of the muck again” (216). This shows a very human mob mentality that attaches blame onto a singular thing or person. So although it might be a good moment for Janie, it is not triumphant as the hate has been essentially transferred to another.
ReplyDelete- Seiyoung Jang
“She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called her soul to come and see” (219). The horizon has been a constant symbol throughout the book. We started by talking about it and now we are ending by talking about it. At one point in the novel Janie expressed how she felt as though the horizon was tied around her neck by her grandma. Now she is taking control of her own destiny. She is no longer held back by anyone and she is free to be herself again.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 19, Tea Cake drinks some water but notices that, "..the demon was there before him, strangling, killing him quickly. It was a great relief to expel the water from his mouth. He sprawled on the bed again and lay there shivering until Janie and the doctor arrived". Tea Cake refers to his disease as a "demon," giving it a supernatural aspect, as if God is punishing him for ignoring all the warnings of the coming hurricane earlier.
ReplyDelete"Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. Dis house ain't so absent of things lak it used tuh be befo' Tea Cake come along. It's full uh thoughts, 'specially dat bedroom." Janie not only tells Pheoby that she has reached "the horizon" but shows it, she is no longer a passive pawn in someone else's life, but someone with a voice and independent. I think this connects back with the first passage of the book which describes women as someone who can control their wills and chase their dreams. We can see that throughout the novel how Janie struggles to follow the direction of her dream.
ReplyDelete- Samiya
"Because they really loved Janie just a little less than they had loved Tea Cake, and because they wanted to think well of themselves, they wanted their hostile attitude forgotten. So they blamed it all on Mrs.Turner’s brother and ran him off the muck again. They’d show him about coming back there posing like he was good looking and putting himself where men’s wives could look at him. Even if they didn’t look it wasn’t his fault, he had put himself in the way" (216). Immediately after realizing that they were wrong for blaming Janie for Tea Cake's death, the men of the muck turned to Mrs. Turner's brother to blame, who had never done anything against Tea Cake. It's as if they need someone to blame.
ReplyDelete"She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see." (pg. 219)
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, the sun and the horizon have been a constant symbol of Janie's power over her own destiny. Ending the book with these lines bring about a peaceful conclusion to Janie's rocky journey to find herself. Janie pulling in the horizon herself strongly contrasts the passage about her grandmother choking her with it ("Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever
made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon
is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing
that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to
choke her" (pg. 130). The difference between these two passages demonstrate Janie's person growth throughout the tribulations of the novel.
"Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see."(219). These last words of the novel reflect the inner peace that Janie has found and they reflect the achievement of Janie's balance with nature. In chapter 9 Hurston writes: "for no matter how far a person can go the horizon
ReplyDeleteis still way beyond you." The horizon is characterized as something super powerful so now the fact that Janie is able to "pull in her horizon" shows that Janie has gained a sort of power. Perhaps her lack of power was derived from her naivete or idealism that she had when she was younger and now that she is out of those less-than-ideal situations she can retrospectively acknowledge that she was never going to be seen as an equal in her relationships. I heard some other English classes had to respond to the prompt "Is Janie a feminist hero?" in an essay. I think that she is on multiple levels because first of all it takes great strength of character to maintain idealism in the face of a society that tells you you're basically doomed to a life you don't want. Secondly, once Janie is outside of any relationship, free from manipulation, her pulling in of the horizon shows that she is capable of recognizing the reality of the world. While some may argue that Janie is mainly passive and 'just looking for a man' I would disagree. At multiple points she takes initiative toward trying to gain a better life. As for the second characterization, I don't think love is as trivial a pursuit as the words 'just looking for a man' make it sound.
-Jona
Delete"No expensive robes and veils for Janie this time. She was too busy feeling like grief to dress like grief"(215). This line is meant not only to show that her love for Tea Cake was genuine but that she has grown to a point where she no longer feels obligated to act in a way that pleases the society around her. When she's mourning for Jody, she says that she only wears mourning colors because the world expects her to, here she doesn't because she doesn't feel the need to convince the world that she misses him. She genuinely loved him and she doesn't need mourning clothes to help her lie about it. She also doesn't feel the need to present her grief to her fellow mourners because they didn't support her in her grief. She knows now after the trial that the town isn't entirely on her side despite what they may act like at the funeral, so she feels no need to perform for people who aren't sympathetic to her.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete“‘Love is lak de 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.’” To me, this was a callback to the beginning of the metaphor of men’s and women’s dreams of the ships at the beginning of the novel. Dreams are ships but love is the sea, it’s so important, and Janie was missing it for so long.
ReplyDelete“Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished the feeling and thinking. The kids of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace.” (219). I think this paragraph is significant because it shows that despite Tea Cakes abuse, she still feels a deep connection to him.
ReplyDelete"But the muck meant Tea Cake and Tea Cake wasn’t there. So it was just a great expanse of black mud. She had given away everything in their little house except a package of garden seed that Tea Cake had bought to plant. The planting never got done because he had been waiting for the right time of the moon when his sickness overtook him. The seeds reminded Janie of Tea Cake more than anything else because he was always planting things" (182). Another example of the tenuous grasp Hurston has on plot continuity, this sentimental view of Tea Cake carries no value, because the reader never saw him plant anything, or take on a creative or caring personality type the entire duration of his life. Her imagery is poignant, relating Tea Cake's death to new life, plants, and the natural cycle, but this particular segment lacks depth because of Tea Cake's missing characterization.
ReplyDelete“Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself finished feeling and thinking”(219). I think this is a nice message to end the book on, but I find it interesting that Janie chooses to think of Tea Cake in the final moments of the book. While he was a flawed person she still thinks of him fondly. It was certainly a complex love that I think Hurston intended to be seen as a very real one.
ReplyDelete"Anyway Tea Cake wouldn't hurt her. He was jealous and wanted to scare her. She'd just be in the kitchen as usual and never let on. They'd laugh over it when he got well."(207). It may just be Janie's ignorance about rabies, but it seems like Janie is reasoning with herself in a delusional way find a reason not to defend herself. I wonder if this is what she has been doing for the duration of the novel.
ReplyDelete“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net”
ReplyDeleteAs the novel closes, Janie finally is content. She has had the chance to live and love. She has achieved her dreams and has found herself in the process. The conclusion of the novel evokes the themes of love and independence.
"His pale white horse...lands" (192). Usually the word pale is used for humans to show that they look very white, and is sometimes used to say someone is tired or sleepless or having no emotions, I wonder which meaning of the word the author wanted to use when describing the horse.
ReplyDelete"Well, she thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in his
ReplyDeleteeyes had killed her after all. She wished she had slipped off that cowtail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her
through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening
Sun, had to die for loving her." (203). Here we see the irony in Janie's situation. Through the whole book she has been searching for a true love and when she finds it, it ends just as quickly as it came. Later in the passage, Janie asks for a "...a sign. A star in the daytime, maybe..." implying that there is nothing that Janie could have done to have a more successful life- there will be no sign that will save Tea Cake.