News Article

This opinion piece relates to the seminar we had last week about "Good Hair" and societal standards put on African American women. It's a really interesting read. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/why-black-women-are-fat.html?_r=1

Ch. 13

Teacake and Janie decide to move to Jacksonville, Florida. Once they get to the town, they get married. Then, we find out that Janie has taken two hundred dollars with her as emergency money, but she doesn’t tell Teacake. 

The next morning Teacake leaves to get fish for breakfast. However, Teacake doesn’t return, and Janie is missing her emergency money. When Teacake comes home the next morning, he tells Janie a story about how he spent her two hundred dollars on an extravagant dinner party with the whole town. After the story is over, Teacake swears that he will make more money than Janie brought because he is a very talented gambler. 

Janie accepts his apology, and for the next week Teacake practices his dice rolling and card dealing. Then, once the paychecks go out at the railroad yards, Teacake heads out to gamble with the men. Janie waits up all night again, and Teacake comes straggling in around midnight. Janie goes outside to get him, and she realizes he had been stabbed. Teacake tells another elaborate story. This time Teacake tells Janie how he escaped the fight less harmed than the other guy, but in the process he still won some money. He tells Janie to check his coat pocket and she pulls out three hundred and twenty two dollars. 

Lastly, Teacake tells Janie that they are going to take a trip to the Everglades to have fun and make some money. 

“He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.” Why has Janie's soul been forced into “hiding?” How Janie able to come out of her shell and “shine” when she is with Teacake? Why does Hurston  choose to use "self-crushing" to describe the love Janie felt for Teacake?

Ch. 18

In chapter 18 of Their Eyes Were Watching God, a hurricane is coming towards the Everglades. Before the storm hit the Everglades, they were all "staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Why is the quote above important?

When Janie and Tea Cake were on their way to Palm Beach, "they passed a dead man in a sitting position on a hummock, entirely surrounded by wild animals and snakes. Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other."

Explain the quote. Why does "common danger" make "common friends"?

Chapter 18

In chapter 18, water is clearly a big theme and is seen as a destructive force. Do you think the use of water coming for them is a metaphor for death? or for something else? Why does Hurston refer to water as "monster" and uses a lot of personification? Use an example from the text to support your thoughts.

Chapter 14

In Chapter 14, we see the transition Janie and Tea Cake make for living in the Everglades. They move into a house as soon as it becomes available. Tea Cake finds a job in planting seeds, but then has to wait for the picking season to start making money again. In the time between planting and picking seasons, Tea Cake teaches Janie to shoot, which she becomes very good at. As the workers pour in, and the picking season starts up, their house becomes the center of gambling. Also, when Tea Cake asks Janie to work in the field with, she agrees and shocks many people. She then quickly becomes popular because she is funny and knows how to have a good time. With Janie's acclimation to her new environment, she shows that she is much more capable than anyone had ever suspected. It is because of this capability that she is able to change the opinions of everyone, while adapting to a new style of life. How would Janie's marriage with Joe have panned out differently if he had let her express herself or do as she pleased? Would she feel like she had lived a more satisfying life? Would she have felt like she needed a new life with Tea Cake? Express your thoughts.

Chapter 17

Are humans naturally good, or naturally evil?


Put another way, are we defined as who we are at our best, or as who we are at our worst? An average? Both?

Relate this back to Tea Cake. Is it hard to redefine him after such a great first impression? How do you see him now?

Ch. 15

In chapter 15, Janie grows jealous of Nunkie, who keeps flirting with Tea Cake.  One day, Nunkie and Tea Cake go missing in the field.  Janie finds them wrestling in the sugar cane, they are wrestling.  nunkie runs off and Tea Cake uses the excuse of 'he was just trying to retrieve something she had playfully stolen from him'.  Janie fights with Tea Cake when they get home and tries to hit him.  Tea Cake convinces her it was nothing and they end up in bed.  Examine the difference in how Janie and Othello handle their jealousy.  How is this effected by their roles in society and the time periods? Do you think Othello or Janie had more reason to be jealous?

In Chapter 15, Janie begins to become jealous of a “little chunky girl,” named Nunkie. Nunkie repeatedly attempts to flirt with Tea Cake. However, Janie and the towns people begin to notice it. One time, Tea Cake and Nunkie go missing simultaneously and Janie finds them “struggling” in the sugar cane field. Janie chases after Nunkie, but she later gives in. Later that day, Janie hits Tea Cake and they both get into a fight. Their clothes gets torn away and the heat of the argument turns into passionate love. Janie later asks if Tea Cake loved Nunkie and he denies it. He reassures her that she is something much better. She is, “something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die.” Sweet, isn’t it?

In the first sentence of the chapter, “Janie learned what it felt like to be jealous.” What does this tell us about her character? Is this the first time? Does this make her more like her other lovers?

On page 137, Janie goes after Tea Cake and Nunkie by “acting on feelings.” Does this change you perspective of Janie? Do you think she is beginning to become stronger and more expressive? Is she acting more like a man of the time period?

Although Tea Cake states that Janie is, “something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die.” Do you believe she thinks the same for Tea Cake? Why, or why not?

Chapter 16

This chapter was entirely about race and how it affected people’s perspectives about the people around them. When Janie and Mrs. Turner talk about race, we can clearly see how Mrs. Turner is biased towards white people and scorns black people. She claims that she hates black people because they are poor and they don’t attempt to change their lowly status. She also mentions that white and mixed race folk, like Janie, have beautiful hair and skin.

In this book, race is not just the grouping of people with similar physical characteristics; race is portrayed as the most defining characteristic that these people have. It rules their life, either becoming a stigma or a blessing. To people like Mrs. Turner, blackness is a stigma; it is something to be frowned upon. Blackness ruined your chances at becoming someone with huge amounts of power. This was the mentality of many people, black and white, during this time period. This is because people believed that blacks couldn’t accomplish as much as whites because they were dumber, because their color somehow displayed their work ethic and IQs. There were also people who believed in the beauty and power of whiteness. Being white “made” people beautiful, desirable, and powerful. It “made” them wealthier and more prosperous, which is why Mrs. Turner believed that worshipping them would bring her closer to the whiteness she desired.


“To like an individual because he's black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn't white.” -E. E. Cummings

Change this quote to better suit the Mrs. Turner’s view of whites/ the mixed race/ blacks. Also, what does E.E. Cummings mean when he uses the word “insulting?”  Do you agree with this quote? Why or why not?

Chapter 12

Since Jody's death, Janie is much more free than she has been in a long time. Her relationship with Tea Cake in this chapter highlights this. They go fishing and play games together, Tea Cake teaches Janie how to drive, and they have a lot more equality in their relationship than Janie has had in any of her previous ones.

However, there are still some restrictions forced upon Janie, including those of the townspeople and their view on how society should be. They disapprove of Janie and Tea Cake's relationship because of their age difference, because Tea Cake is from out of town, because Tea Cake is poor and Janie is relatively well-off, because they think she ought to still be mourning Jody, and because some of the men are jealous of Tea Cake, having wanted to court Janie themselves. In addition, twice it is mentioned that Janie is wearing blue because Tea Cake loves how she looks in it, showing that his opinion of her has a huge influence on her behavior and she is seeking his approval. Between the limitations of society and Janie's own desire to be reassured of her self-worth by Tea Cake, is Janie really as free as she first appears to be?

Chapter 16

In this chapter, Janie meets Mrs. Turner, a strange-looking woman of mixed heritage who associates herself primarily with her white half and despises black people. Mrs. Turner is extremely racist; she sees white people as gods and black people as worshippers. She "worships" Janie  because Janie has more white features than she does. She thinks of "whiteness" as a sort of salvation that she can achieve by worshiping people with white features.

"White people create the dominant images of the world, and don’t quite see that they thus construct the world in their image."

Richard Dyer

       Do you agree with this quote? Why or why not? Do you think this leads to Mrs. Turner’s worship of and desire to be like a white woman? Also how does this white image lead to “all other believers [building] an altar to the unattainable”? Who else in the book does this?