Come and See

     This is the second time I have read Their Eyes Were Watching God this year, and I still can't decide whether or not I like Tea Cake.  I was wary of him toward the beginning of he and Janie's relationship.  He seemed too good to be true.  Then he left for long periods of time with no explanation--other than gambling--but he didn't seem to slip up anywhere else.  However, in chapter 17 he beat Janie, and with that event my respect for him dropped significantly.  I don't like the idea Tea Cake had of owning Janie, like she was an object.  "Being able to whip her reassured him in possession" (147).  It sounded all too familiar to the trophy wife Joe Starks wanted her to be, and nothing more.  The second Janie showed signs of rebellion, he would verbally abuse her and put her back in her place.  The way that Janie acted after he beat her also displeased me, because Tea Cake knew that he now had the power in the relationship.  All he had to do was suck up to her a little and "the helpless way she hung on him made men dream dreams" (147) and even made the women jealous--of an abusive relationship!!

     Tea Cake won a few brownie points back when he saved Janie from the dog, but not enough to win me over completely.  Especially because he then tries to kill her.  I know that he was mad out of his mind with rabies, but it still bothered me that he would try to shoot his wife.  However, Janie loved him deeply, and that made him somewhat lovable in my eyes.  The way she speaks of him makes it almost impossible not to like him, or at least see him from her eyes.  Here is one of my favorite quotes about Tea Cake:

          "He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love.  So her soul crawled out form its hiding spot" (128).

     It's obvious that Janie has never loved another man the way that she loves Tea Cake, with a "self-crushing" love.  She is willing to sacrifice for him because she loves him so much.  At the very end of the book, this love is shown again with the beautiful imagery and personification of the horizon.  I love these last lines, and I don't think any of my words could ever do them the justice they deserve, so I will just leave them here:

          "Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl.  Of course he wasn't dead.  He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking.  The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall.  Here was peace.  She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net.  Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder.  So much of life in its meshes!  She called in her soul to come and see" (193).