Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Quote 1

"Dey gointuh make ‘miration ‘cause mah love didn’t work ... lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch.

Janie lectures Pheoby that love is not a fixed thing that is the same for everyone who experiences it. Instead it is as fluid and changing as the sea, only shaped by the shores (or men) it meets. Society has a normative and inflexible idea of what love is, when actual love is different for everyone.

Chapter 20 Quote 2

Janie mounted the stairs with her lamp. The light in ... her hand was likea spark of sun-stuff washing her face in fire.

Janie is so immersed in thoughts of Tea Cake, her son of Evening Sun, that she thinks of the lamp in her hand as a spark from her love, lighting her face and her path so that she can see.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19 Quote 1

When they were alone Tea Cake wanted to put his ... head in Janie’s lap and tell her how he feltand let her mama him in her sweet way.

Tea Cake, in times of distress, wants Janie to take on an ultra-feminine role and comfort him just as a mother would. While men often put down women’s "weakness," in times like these, they define the same softness as "sweet" and tender. But his disease begins to takes effect.

Chapter 19 Quote 2

Tea Cake began to cry and Janie hovered him in ... her arms like a child. She sat on the side of thebed and sort of rocked him back to peace.

Tea Cake is able to show his vulnerability to Janie, but not to other men. Interestingly, we only see him show his vulnerability when Janie takes on the role of mother, rather than that of a wife. This is probably because he feels the need to protect a wife, but feels comfortable being taken care of by a mother.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Quote 1

"We been tuhgether round two years. If you kind see ... de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door."
He dropped to the floor and put his head in her lap. "Well then, Janie, you meant whut you didn’t say, ‘cause Ah neverknowed you wuz so satisfied wid me lak dat."

Even in the face of death, Janie doesn’t regret anything she’s done with Tea Cake, even if doing things differently might’ve saved her life. For Janie, loving Tea Cake, even for only a short two years, has made her life worthwhile and satisfying. She characterizes Tea Cake as the sunlight in her life and Tea Cake is amazed by the intensity of her love and devotion.

Chapter 18 Quote 2

Janie achieved the tail of the cow and lifted her ... head up along the cow’s rump, as far as she could above water. The cow sunk a little with the added load and thrashed a moment in terror. Thought she was being pulled down by a gator. The dog stood up and growled like a lion, stiff-standing hackles, stiff muscles, teeth uncovered as he lashed up his fury for the charge. Tea Cake split the water like an otter, opening his knife as he dived. The dog raced down the backbone of the cow to the attack and Janie screamed and slipped far back on the tail of the cow, just out of reach of the dog’s angry jaws. He wanted to plunge in after her but dreaded the water, somehow. Tea Cake rose out of the water at the cow’s rump and seized the dog by the neck. But he was a powerful dog and Tea Cake was over-tired. So he didn’t kill the dog with one stroke a he had intended. But the dog couldn’t free himself either. They fought and somehow he managed to bite Tea Cake high up on his cheek-bone once. Then Tea Cake finished himand sent him to the bottom to stay there.

Tea Cake jumps in the water to defend Janie, his true love, from the mad dog. As a result, he is bitten and eventually dies from rabies. Thus, his gallant act of love for Janie results in death. Tea Cake dies for love of Janie.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Quote 1

Pretty soon the girl that was waiting table for Mrs. ... Turner brought in the order and Sterrett took his fish and coffee in his hands and stood there. Coodemay wouldn’t take his off the tray like he should have.
"Naw, you hold it fuh me, baby, and lemme eat," he told the waitress. He tookthe fork and started to eat off the tray.

Coodemay takes advantage of the waitress’s position as a woman and servant to her customers by assuming she will not complain about holding his plate for him while he eats. This thoughtlessness shows how deeply the stereotype of female inferiority was rooted in the society depicted in the novel.

Chapter 17 Quote 2

Mrs. Turner saw with dismay that Tea Cake’s taking them ... out was worse than letting them stay in. She ran out in the back somewhere and got her husband to put a stop to things. He came in, took a look and squinched down into a chairin an off corner and didn’t open his mouth.

Mr. Turner acts in a decidedly non-masculine way, refusing to defend his wife’s honor and taking a passive role by sitting down silently to watch the fight rather than participate in it. Mrs. Turner, by default, is forced to take on a stereotypically masculine role and fight for her own honor.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16 Quote 1

"Naw, mah husband didn’t had nothin’ ... but hisself. He’s easy tuh love if you mess round ‘im. Ah loves ‘im."
"Why you, Mis’ Woods! Ah don’t b’lieve it. You’se jus’ sorter hypnotized, dat’s all."
"Naw, it’s real. Ah couldn’t stand it if he wuz tuh quit me. Don’t know whut Ah’d do. . He kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull. Then we lives offa dathappiness he made till some mo’ happiness come along."

Mrs. Turner wants to turn Janie’s eyes and affection away from Tea Cake and toward her brother. She thinks her love for Tea Cake is but a sort of hypnosis that is only effective because Janie has not met men of real quality yet. But Janie is staunch in her love and loyalty to Tea Cake.

Chapter 16 Quote 2

"Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and ... liver lips. Ah’m uh featured woman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t take us in wid dewhites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves."

To Mrs. Turner, conventional ugliness doesn’t apply. Her previously mentioned pointed nose, thin lips, and flat butt are a source of pride because she considers them to be evidence of her white bloodline. To Mrs. Turner, appearances are important because they denote social class.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Quote 1

"Whut would Ah do wid dat lil chunk of a ... woman wid you around? She ain’t good for nothin’ exceptin’ tuh set up in uh corner by de kitchen stove and break wood over her head. You’se something tuh make uhman forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die."

Tea Cake reassures Janie of his love for her and only her. He praises her beauty as mesmerizing enough to "make uh man forget to get old and forget to die." Her love makes Tea Cake ageless and immortal.

Chapter 15 Quote 2

It ... wasn’t long before Tea Cake found her…and tried to talk. She cut him short with a blow and they fought from one room to the other, Janie trying to beat him, and Tea Cake kept holding her wrists and wherever he could to keep her from going too far.

Even though Janie is justifiably angry with Tea Cake for flirting with Nunkie, she transgresses traditional gender boundaries by daring to hit Tea Cake. Because he loves her, Tea Cake does not retaliate but he still "keeps her from going too far;" in other words, he keeps Janie from engaging in too much of this all-too-masculine violence.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13 Quote 1

"Put dat two hundred back wid de rest, ... Janie. Mah dice. Ah no need no assistance tuh help me feed mah woman. From now on, you goin tuh eat whutever mah money can buy uh and wear de same. When Ah ain’t gotnothin’ you don’ t get nothin’."

He takes pride in being able to provide for a woman who has lived such a privileged life. Although Janie never seems conflicted about living a poor life with Tea Cake, she kind of has to agree to live by what he provides or severely damage his pride. This is a sacrifice she is willing to take.

Chapter 13 Quote 2

But it was always going to be dark to Janie if Tea Cake didn’t soon come back

The fact that everything would "always….be dark" if Tea Cake doesn’t return shows just how much Janie loves him. She considers him the light in her world, much like the sun which is about to set.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Quote 1

"Still and all, she’s her own woman. ... She oughta know by now what she wants tuh do."

Pheoby, being a woman, recognizes that women are intelligent and know what they want out of life and out of their men. She sees that independence in Janie and thus awards her friend with the title of being "her own woman." This sense of self-ownership and self confidence is usually reserved for a man. Thus, this can be seen as one instance of Janie crossing the traditional boundaries between men and women.

Chapter 12 Quote 2

Ah’m older than Tea Cake, yes. But ... he done showed me where its de thought dat makes de difference in ages. If people thinks de same they can make it all right.

Disregarding her and Tea Cake’s substantial age difference brings Janie back to something of a childhood phase, where everything feels new. This rebirthing stage requires "new thoughts tuh be thought and new words said." While her first two marriages stripped Janie of her innocence, when Janie’s with Tea Cake she feels like a child again, her innocence and maidenhood are restored, as evidenced in the "maiden language" she learns.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Quote 1

"Why, Tea Cake? What good do combin’ mah hair do ... you? It’s mah comfortable, not yourn."
“It’s mine too. Ah ain’t been sleepin’ so good for more’n uh week cause Ah been wishin’ so bad tuh get mah hands in yo’ hair. It’s so pretty. It feels jus’lak underneath uh dove’s wing next to mah face."

The fact that Tea Cake takes pleasure in giving pleasure to Janie endears him to her. Janie has only known selfish men who only took pleasure in pleasing themselves. Logan and Joe’s short-lived attempts to please Janie always fell short or turned out to be only pretense. That Tea Cake can find happiness in pleasing Janie helps him win her love; his actions bring them mutual happiness.

Chapter 11 Quote 2

Things like dat got uh whole lot ... tuh do wid convenience,but it ain’t got nothin’ tuh do wid love."

Tea Cake does not care about social prescriptions over such trifles as age differences when there is real love involved. And the fact that he has the courage to address such a touchy subject directly to Janie further endears him to her. And it shows true love.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Quote 1

He set it up and began ... to show her and she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from one of his good points. Those full, lazy eyes with the lashes curling sharply away like drawn scimitars. Then lean-over-padded shoulders and narrow waist. Even nice!

Because Tea Cake treats Janie like an equal and intelligent person, Janie finds herself more attracted to him. His classy treatment of her opens the door for love. Where Janie would have normally overlooked him as another suitor and continued happily in her widowhood, Tea Cake’s behavior sets him apart from the other self-absorbed men and presents Janie with a chance to finally experience the love she has pursued all her life.

Chapter 10 Quote 2

"Yuh can’t beat uh woman. Dey jes won’t stand fuh ... it. But Ah’ll come teach yuh agin. You goin to be uh good player too, after while."
"You reckon so? Jody useter tell me Ah never would learn. It was too heavy fuh mah brains."
"Folks is playin’ it wide sense and folks is playin’ it without. But you got good meat on yo’ head. You’ll learn.

Tea Cake differentiates himself from Joe by assuring Janie that women are just as smart as men and have just as much potential to better themselves. Tea Cake’s sense of gender equality is unprecedented and Janie basks in his praise."

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Quote 1

"Women folks is easy taken advantage of. You know what tuh ... let none uh dese stray niggers dat’s settin’ round heah get de inside track on yuh.

Ike Green tries to feed Janie the idea that women cannot function on their own, without a man. However, readers recognize that Ike is one of the "hawgs" that he is so quick to condemn. Janie also isn’t as dumb and easily duped as Ike thinks either. She recognizes Ike’s tactics and calls him a "pee-de-bed."

Chapter 9 Quote 2

This freedom ... feeling was fine. These men didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about. She had already experienced them through Logan and Joe. She felt like slapping some of them for sitting around grinning at her like a pack of chessycats, trying to make out they looked like love.

Having experienced horrible failed marriages with Logan and Joe, Janie enjoys her single status for the first time in a long time. Now she knows what she wants out of a man and she definitely knows what she doesn’t want – pretense of love. Now that Janie has learned what love is not, she will soon learn what it is.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 Quote 1

Why must Joe be so mad with her for making ... him look smallwhen he did it to her all the time?

Janie recognizes and laments an unfair double standard: men always put down women and expect them to take it while the reverse does not hold true; women cannot possibly insult their men without drastic and often public consequences. There is a sexual double meaning here, with "small" meaning both Joe’s reputation and his actual manhood.

Chapter 8 Quote 2

Years ago, she had told her ... girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered. Perhaps she’d better look. She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place.

Even after years of repression and insult from Joe, Janie’s womanly beauty and strength remain. This seems to be Hurston’s way of showing how much women can endure and still emerge with their sense of identity unscathed. It also shows that Janie had the ability to survive without Joe.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Quote 1

[Mixon teasing Janie about her lack of skills with a ... knife]: "Looka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo’ wife done took and done." It was cut comical, so everybody laughed at it. "Uh woman and uh knife – no kind of uh knife, don’t b’long together." There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women.

Chapter 7 Quote 2

"Naw, Ah ain’t ... no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s uh whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but ‘tain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life."

Both Joe and Janie try to get under each other’s skin by attacking each other’s sexuality. Joe, by suggesting Janie has become an old hag, implies that she has lost her characteristic beauty. Janie retorts by directly insulting Joe’s manhood and stripping him of his pride in front of his peers.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Quote 1

“But Ah’m uh man even if Ah is de ... Mayor. But de mayor’s wife is somethin’ different again. Anyhow they’s liable tuh need me tuh say uh few words over de carcass, dis bein’ uh special case. But you ain’t goin’ off in all dat mess uh commonness."

Joe hides his fear of losing Janie behind rhetoric of a woman having no place in the "mess uh commonness" that this mockery of a funeral will bring together. By dominating Janie, Joe doesn’t realize that he’s keeping her physically to himself, but losing her emotionally.

Chapter 6 Quote 2

"Somebody got to think for women and chillun and ... chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none their selves."
"Ah knows uh few things, and womenfolks thinks sometimes too!"
"Aw naw they don’t. They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understandsten. You see ten things and don’t understand one."

Joe considers women on the same intellectual level as children and domesticated animals. He imposes this view on Janie, never considering how it feels to be a woman. When she protests, he gets more adamant, attempting to maintain a position of authority by harping on women’s stupidity and lack of perception.

Chapter 5

Quote 1

Ah’m goin’ see de man. You cannot have no ... town without some land to build it on. Y’all ain’t got enough here to cuss a cat on without gittin’ yo’ mouf full of hair."

Joe’s sense of pride almost requires humbling others around him. His sense of pride demands that he go purchase more land, but he also insults the men of Eatonville with his "cuss a cat" comment.

Quote 2

"But now, Sam, you know dat all he do ... is big-belly round and tell other folks what tuh do. He loves obedience out of everybody under de sound of his voice.”

After Joe dismisses Pitts from service for stealing from him, the men of Eatonville begin to notice and chafe under Joe’s pride. They recognize him as primarily a voice always commanding others. Joe takes pleasure in having the town’s obedience, but his pride requires that others’ are humiliated.

Chapter 4

Quote 1

You behind a plow! You ain’t got ... no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday! You ain’t got no business cuttin’ up no seed p’taters neither. A pretty doll-baby lak you is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan yo’self and eatp’taters dat other folks plant just special for you."

Joe has a different conception of a woman’s proper role than Logan. What Janie does not realize is that Joe doesn’t think that pampering a woman is necessary because she’s a valuable human being, but because she’s a valuable object. This is not so different from Logan after all, who also considers Janie an object. For Joe, women are objects to look at, for Logan they’re objects to be utilized.

Quote 2

"S’posin’ Ah wuz to run off and leave yuh ... sometime."
The thought put a terrible ache in Logan’s body, but he thought it best to put on scorn
"Ah’m sleepy. Ah don’t aim to worry mah gut into a fiddlestring wid no s’posin’." He flopped over resentful in his agony and pretended sleep. He hoped thathe had hurt her as she had hurt him.

Even though Logan has trouble showing it in any way that Janie can understand, he does indeed love Janie and deeply fears losing her. That she would voice his deepest fear to him so casually hurts Logan so much that he wants to hurt her back out of spite. This harkens back to the idea of love as painful.

Chapter 3

Quote 1

Well, if he do all dat whut you come ... in heah wid uh face long as mah arm for?"
"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."
"You come head wid yo’ mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day. Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo’ bawn days, and big protection, and everybody got tuh tip dey hat tuh you and call you Mis’ Killicks, and you come worryin’ me ‘bout love

Janie still considers the idea of love essential to a marriage and she believes that because she still doesn’t love Logan. She earnestly wants to love the man and make the marriage work, but Nanny brushes her worries off as frivolous. In Nanny’s eyes, Janie should be happy simply with her property and status as a respectably married woman; love is irrelevant.

Quote 2

"He don’t even never mention nothin’ pretty."
She began to cry.
"Ah ... wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak whenyou sit under a pear tree and think. Ah…"

Janie’s innocent ideas about love and marriage being like her experience under the pear tree are being eroded away by her marriage to Logan. When Logan shows no tendencies to even try to achieve this type of immortal beauty, Janie feels cheated.

Chapter 2

Quote 1

Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered

Janie was unmovable, yet her heart shivered like a leaf. In the mist of reality. Her reality love is in all ways what it’s cracked up to. Though routed she was fragile, and her pain was open for all to see. Her eyes were the window of her soul, and all who looked into them, could see a piece and broken heart.

Quote 2

The vision of Logan Kellicks was desecrating the pear tree ... but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that.She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor.

Janie’s ideal of love is set by her experience under the pear tree, an experience that was highly romanticized and glamorized in her sixteen-year-old eyes. Thus the idea of marrying an ugly old man for no other reason than to please Nanny is repugnant to Janie and "desecrates" her idealized vision of love.

Chapter 1

Quote 1

Now, women forget all the things they don’t want to remember, and remember all the things they don’t want to forget.

Women forget things that hurts them, things that’s expose their vulnerability. They put up a protective shield so that they won’t be destroyed by seen and unseen enemies. What women choose to remember, becomes object lessons. They also remember things that are pleasant to the heart and souls, and are passed on from generations to generations. And while remembering, their protective shields are down, and their souls are receptive to things they choose to remember.

Quote 2

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.

Love makes the heart grow fonder. And whether mental or physically distance, a man’s heart, a man’s crests, man’s intimately, is still wanted and needed. Even if hearts are broken, and the pain is unbearable, the wishes are still very deep routed.

My dream career

One of the most common dreams of young African American children is to make it to the National Basketball Association. I believe I have the potential of becoming a member of the NBA. I also believe it takes hard work and determination as well. It takes hard work because all of the practice you will have to put in to improve your game. Then it takes determination because you must be determined to stay committed to your practice schedule.

The main step I need to take to get into the NBA is making sure my grades are together. My grades are a major factor because I need to get into college for a least one year to get into the NBA, and I would not get into college without having good grades. All I have to do is stay focus, do all the work that is assigned to me, go to school, and study. If I follow these steps I can do pretty good in school, and that will put me one step closer into making it to the NBA.

Then there is the requirement of going to college. That is why I have to keep my grades together. There is also the alternate route of going to play overseas, but I believe you should have a backup plan, and without an education you cannot get a good paying job.

Another factor that people do not usually consider is to eat properly. The average height of a NBA player is 6’6, and the average weight of a NBA player is 221 pounds. I currently weigh 153 pounds and I’m 5’8. If I plan to go pro, I have to get my weight and height up, and I achieve that by eating the proper foods.

Then there is also the simple fact that I need to get better. I need to work on every attribute possible. I need to improve my jump shot, dribbling skills, defense, rebounding, and much more. The way I can accomplish this goal is to play in as many basketball leagues as possible. There is the AAU, The Family, church leagues, and of course high school. The more I play the better I get and I believe I can take this basketball very far.

I also feel having friends or connections is a great asset to getting into the pros. Friends will help me because they can be there for me and support me. They are also there to give advice on how to play or get into the NBA. Connections are good in any career choice, and if I have connections, that just puts me that much closer to make it. I already have plenty of friends that know basketball and that are there to help and support me. I do have a few connections with college coaches, and I currently have scouts showing interest in my game, but I need more.

In conclusion if I continue to work hard and put in 110% I believe I have a pretty good chance to make it into the pros and fulfill my dream. I also feel that if I follow the steps I presented to you in this paper that will just better my chances by so much.

Journal Entry

Dear Journal;



Today was just another day of slavery. With my brothers, my sisters, and my mother. Today was one of those really hot days, and once again when the family wanted water our mother had to look for water in a hole or puddle form by a falling tree. I usually had insects or small fihsies in it, but we eventually got used to it.
We were also hot and nervous because we did not know whether or not if it were our last day with the family. The owner often promised he would not sell us, but he always break his promise, we cant trust him no we cant. We hear our master call for our mother, and we were hoping it was was not for a sale, but sadly it was. My older brother was being sold. The family was once again scared from another lost yes we were. It even got to the point to where my mother panic and try to resist her son being taken, and it they beat her to the point of her fainting, it was too much for her. It was truly a very tragic moment.