I'll just start off by saying that the more I read in this novel, the easier it is for me to read the dialect fluently. When we first started reading Hurston's novel, each page took me approximately three times longer to read than a normal page of text. However, now when I read, I find that I'm sort of in the mindset of the southern, black dialect and I understand almost everything that the characters are saying.
Secondly, I'm experiencing VERY mixed feelings about the presence of Tea Cake in Janie's life. I think that I've become fairly attached to Janie, and this surprises me because she isn't necessarily the kind of character I connect to in novels -- sometimes when I don't agree with the decisions characters make, it is hard for me to empathize with them, but I feel a special bond with Janie. Anyway, as I read, I feel like I AM Phoeby, and that Janie is telling her story to me, which is why I have so much apprehension about her new marriage to Tea Cake. By the time Janie meets him, she is already in the process of defining herself as an individual, separate from the controlling natures of her last two husbands. Janie had progressed to the point where she could make decisions about when to close and open the store, and was regaining the sense of freedom and individuality that she possessed when she was younger. It really seemed like she didn't need another man in her life, but, naturally, the young, handsome Tea Cake comes along and charms his way into her life. I guess at this point in their relationship, I sort of have a pro/con list about Tea Cake, so that, if Janie asked me, I would be able to tell her my thoughts:
Pro
-Tea Cake is pretty open-minded and progressive...he believes that women should be able to do all the same activities as men. In fact, he goes so far as to teach Janie how to play checkers and says, "you gointuh be uh good player too, after a while" (96).
-Tea Cake encourages Janie to express her feminine side whenever she wants to. Jody made her tie up her beautiful, long hair, but Tea Cake does not appear to be intimidated by her beauty.
-Generally, Tea Cake seems to have a true love for Janie, proclaiming that her age doesn't matter and that he would never cheat.
Con
-He DOES cheat, sort of. I'm not exactly sure what happened with Nunkie out in the fields in chapter 15 -- it wasn't really cheating, but it definitely was suspicious.
-Tea Cake steals from Janie! He justified stealing with a big story, and Janie didn't seem upset. This really surprised me and made me wonder if, in a way, Tea Cake is breaking her down without Janie realizing it.
-I'm still curious about his true intentions with Janie -- even if Tea Cake says he doesn't care about her age, I think he might still be after her money.
Of course, Janie isn't going to ask ME for advice about this, but I wish that Phoeby had stepped in and tried to be more convincing than she was in the novel. I just get a bad feeling about Tea Cake because Janie seems to have a life pattern of unhealthy, viral relationships. We will see as we read on...
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3 comments:
I love your approach to this week’s blog, the list of pros and cons helped put things into perspective. At first I wasn’t thrilled about Tea Cake and believed he was just after her money as well, but my feelings changed as I continued to read. Janie seemed truly happy with him (minus the few incidents when her money was missing and she accused Tea Cake of having an affair). I think that after everything Janie had been through in her life and having gone through two previous marriages, if her relationship with Tea Cake was anything short of love, she would have left him.
I love how you broke this down into pro’s and con’s. You are so right Phoeby is supposed to be Janie’s best friend why wouldn’t she look Janie in the eye and say hey slow down and look at the big picture. I thought to that after Janie’s two prior husbands that she would be a little stronger and wiser. They say love works in mysterious ways…. but it seems that Hurston is trying to put out there that after Jody dies Janie takes off her kerchief, lets her hair down and becomes the women that she has been longing to be for all these years, so why let another man get in the way of that? What is Hurston’s message supposed to be?
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