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?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
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?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Janie and Othello handle their jealousy in extremely different ways. When Janie first gets a feeling that Tea Cake may be cheating on her when he catches Tea Cake and Nunkie rolling around, she gets angry but instead of not asking her and going to kill her she asks him if she loves him. Tea Cake denies it and rationally Janie trusts him and believes him. She follows logical thought when she does this. Othello on the other hand acts completely irrationally. He does not talk to Desdedoma, instead he just acts in response without finding out the truth. I think that Janie's role in society makes her act like she did. She responded normally and talked to Tea Cake about it like they were equals. She does this because socially they are equal as poor class people. Othello responds so crazily because of his social position and the time he lived. During his time, men were suppose to be completely dominant and if his wife went against him he could be able to kill him. He took this and saw it as her going against him so he just treated her like a possession and killed her. From looking at their jealousy, I believe that Janie has more reason to be jealous because she actually caught Tea Cake wrestling with Nunkie.
ReplyDeleteWhen Janie becomes jealous, she directly confronts Tea Cake about it and he manages to persuade her that she has no reason to envy Nunkie. They talk it out like two equals. However, when Othello suspects Desdemona may be cheating on him, he doesn't talk to her right away, and when he finally does and she denies it, he immediately assumes she's lying and plots to kill her. He's too stuck in his own headstrong ways to believe she could actually be right and he could be wrong, and in the end he kills her and then himself, instead of living a happy life with her after the conflict like Tea Cake and Janie continued to do. I think that even though Tea Cake is considered open-minded for his time period and society, his social setting influenced him to give much more credit to women and their opinions that Othello's did. Othello also had less of a reason to be jealous because he only heard rumors about Desdemona cheating, as opposed to Janie actually seeing Nunkie and Tea Cake flirting and wrestling in the field.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Janie had much more reason to be jealous. She saw with *her* eyes Tea Cake and Nunkie "wrestling." She knows that Nunkie is into Tea Cake. On the other hand, Othello never catches and only once sees Desdemona with Cassio. He relies quite heavily on instincts and mere hunches of Iago. It's almost as if he expected her to cheat. Janie knows that people are going to take an interest to Tea Cake, but she isn't appalled at the thought of others finding him attractive.
ReplyDelete