4) How does Janie feel about Jody’s death? Right after Jody’s death, Janie tears her kerchief off her head to let her hair down, symbolizing the freedom she feels to be herself again.

Their Eyes Were Watching God possesses a unique structure. The story is told in the context of a “frame.” The novel both begins and ends with two people, Janie and Pheoby, sitting on the porch of Janie’s house. Janie tells the stories contained within the novel to Pheoby during the course of an evening.

Love and Relationships versus Independence Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of how Janie achieves a strong sense of self and comes to appreciate her independence. But her journey toward enlightenment is not undertaken alone.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Themes

• Gender Roles and Relations.
• Voice, Language and Storytelling.
• Desire, Love, and Independence.
• Power, Judgment, and Jealousy.
• Race and Racism.

Janie’s hair is a symbol of her power and unconventional identity; it represents her strength and individuality in three ways. First, it represents her independence and defiance of petty community standards. Turner worships Janie because of her straight hair and other Caucasian characteristics.

She realizes, somewhat to our surprise, that she hates her grandmother for raising her according to a flawed belief system that values materialism and social status. Janie understands that while people are what matter to her, she had been raised to value things.

Ah’m colored!” Janie is often called Alphabet in the Washburn household, a nickname she gained because so many people call her different things. Even as a child, Janie’s beauty is apparent and envied.

Consequently, Janie refers to her husband as “Mist’ Killicks” while he refers to her as “LilBit.” The author uses these nicknames to emphasize the lack of respect they have for one another. Logan continuously acts as if he is superior to his spouse, causing Janie to become angered.

Janie kills Tea Cake to save her own life. Tea Cake gets sicker and more violent and starts imagining that Janie is cheating on him, so he sleeps with a pistol. Janie loads a rifle to protect herself in case Tea Cake becomes violent. Finally, out of his mind, Tea Cake shoots at Janie, and she kills him in self-defense.

Janie’s aim in life is to find true love and find freedom for herself. Through her marriages with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake Janie learns many valuable life lessons and eventually learns what she believes to be important in life. Janie finds her desired love with Tea Cake.

She learned from her marriage to Logan Killicks that she could not learn to love someone. After her marriage to Jody Starks, Janie realized that equality is important within a marriage. Janie learned through her three marriages even though she had bad experiences with love; there was a thing as true love.

Janie spends most of the book searching for true love as a sense of fulfillment. She marries her first husband, Logan, out of respect for her grandmother with the hopes that love will develop between them; unfortunately, her quest is not fulfilled in this marriage.

Vergible Woods

Janie killed Jody mentally. He couldn’t handle the truth that she was telling him about himself. Jody tried to make Janie stop but she kept going. He was overwhelmed what was being said but he was already struggling with death.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake is called Tea Cake because people couldn’t easily say his real name, which is Vergible Woods. The nickname also reflects how sweet Janie finds him.

Vergible Wood aka Tea Cake is one of the most endearing Black male characters in African-American literature.

Hurston depicts Tea Cake as not simply a good or bad person, but instead as a real person who is complicated and not easily understood. However, in the middle of the storm, Tea Cake saves Janie from a rabid dog, ultimately sacrificing his own life in this act of love-driven heroism.

Tea Cake loves Janie as much as she loves him. Tea Cake shows Janie affection which is something that is missing in her marriage with Joe and Logan. Making Janie happy shows that he loves her because he is not happy unless she is.

Janie leaves Eatonville and meets Tea Cake in Jacksonville, where they marry.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Joe Starks dies from kidney failure and old age. Essentially, his elderliness probably caused his kidneys to stop working properly. Joe dies while continuing to harangue Janie for her alleged faults.

Do you think Janie is foolish to trust Tea Cake? Explain. Yes, but no, because he seems to be a very good guy, but everyone in the town basically tells her that he has no money, therefore, it seems as if he would be going after her for her money.

Tea Cake came home complaining of a headache. He had rabies, and that he had almost no chance to recover. Janie held Tea Cake in her arms and wept and silently thanked him for the time they had together. Tea Cake bit her on the arm just before he died.

The all-white, all-male jury finds her innocent. After the trial, the white women of the muck gather around Janie to comfort her, while her former friends stand in judgment against her. Janie buries Tea Cake in Palm Beach on a white silk couch surrounded by roses “like a Pharaoh in his tomb.”

Hover for more information. Tea Cake contracted rabies when he was bitten by a rabid dog. This happened during the hurricane that destroyed Tea Cake and Janie’s home in the Everglades. In chapter 18, Tea Cake and Janie are fighting the storm.

He has a total of $322, and he tells Janie to take her $200 back. He vows that they’ll live off his earnings and not depend on her cash or the money she’s saved up in her bank account. Tea Cake assures his wife that they’ll go try their luck farming in the Everglades once he recovers.

The secret money that Janie keeps from Tea Cake is representative of her fears that what people think is true. That she is too old for Tea Cake and he will leave her for another woman. Although, her true fear is that she is making a mistake. Before being with Tea Cake, Janie was only living her life for other people.

They argue for a little while about their age difference. Tea Cake is around 25 and Janie is around 40. She thinks that she is too old for him, but he doesn’t care.

If Janie leaves with Tea Cake, she has to let go of her friend, Pheoby.

When Tea Cake visits, he is always welcome. He helps Janie in the store by frying fish, making corn bread, and entertaining customers by playing the guitar. One evening while Janie is relaxing, he begins combing her hair.

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