Janie and Marriage

Janie at the end of the novel is a second time widow. Her first marriage just ended abruptly and there is nothing more to say about it, but the reaction to Jody’s death versus Tea Cake’s death displays the power of love. The kind of love Janie discovers under the pear tree. I do take issue with some of the things that occurred between Janie and Tea Cake. There is no excuse to hit your partner, that is not love. I would just like to make it clear that I do not think Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship was a healthy one. However Janie’s emotions for Tea Cake make his death far more deep than Jody’s and that shows the difference between a relationship founded on pure emotion instead of lies.

A big indicator of just how bad the relationship between Janie and Jody was shows through in the scene where she tells him off while he lies on his deathbed. From page 85 to 87 the floodgates of Janie’s pent up feelings open into the room. Their toxic relationship is evident through Janie only feeling she was able to stick up for herself as her late husband was dying. She spent years being treated poorly and she spent all this time needing to stand up for herself. After his death she does not mourn, she only pretends to. The narrator writes “She sent her face to Joe's funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world” (88). She cannot even form an emotional connection with him in death. This is very different from the way she treats Tea Cake’s death. The description of Tea Cake’s burial on page 189 is a clear indicator of this difference. Janie wants to surround herself with Tea Cake’s memory. Even though he is not next to her she still has an emotional bond. This time it says “She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief” (189). Tea Cake’s death brings us back to the emotions Janie felt under the pear tree, emotional connection. 

Comments

  1. Andrea_TorelliDecember 17, 2021 at 2:15 PM

    This was a very good blog post! I like how you chose to write about Janie and the relationships that she has been in and how her feeling towards each of her partners have been different. I definitely think that Janie and Tea Cake did not have a healthy relationship, but I agree with you that her relationship with him was very impactful on her life. You make a great point that tea cake's death brings back the same emotions that Janie felt when she was young and naïve when it came to abstract concepts like love.

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  2. LiliDecember 17, 2021 at 6:04 PM

    I totally agree that Janie had much more of an emotional attachment to Tea Cake compared to Jody. I think you can especially see that in the way she acts when Jody hits her versus when Tea Cake hits her. With Jody that was her final straw and something in her broke, but with Tea Cake it doesn't really phase her. And I do agree although its toxic love, Janie does seem to finally get her idea of love under the pear tree. Nice post!

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  3. Charlie HechlerDecember 19, 2021 at 10:03 PM

    Great post! I completely agree with your points. Tea Cake and Janie's relationship was definitely not a healthy one. However, it was one where she finally had something close to her perfect picture of love: the bee and the blossoming pear tree. Janie definitely had an emotional connection to Tea Cake, but the little connection that she had with Jody was slowly ruined and turned into hatred because of how he treated her.

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  4. Amalia BolleroJanuary 4, 2022 at 7:06 PM

    Good post! I agree that Janie and Tea Cakes relationship was not healthy, yet the emotional relationship she had with him was much deeper than her past relationships. I really like how you connected that back to the image of the pear tree, and the emotions Janie felt under it. Great job!

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  5. IoannaJanuary 5, 2022 at 8:44 PM

    Hi Addie! Janie's relationship with Tea Cake was definitely unhealthy and she was even more blind to the toxic-ness in it than her previous relationships precisely because of the deeper connection they had. Despite the unhealthy aspects, she did, in the end, get closer to her ultimate goal of true love and happiness while with Tea Cake. The deaths of her last two husbands clearly showed the difference between her relationships and you did a great job of contrasting the two events!

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  6. Ethan RobertsJanuary 5, 2022 at 10:06 PM

    Great post! I'm glad you contrasted Janie's relationship with Tea Cake with Janie's previous relationships. In each of her relationships, she grows and has different connections with her partner, and with Tea Cake, this connection was the closest (regardless is that connection was good or bad).

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