Their Eyes Were Watching God Study Guide

Hurston wrote Their Eyes in 1937 in only seven weeks while doing anthropological research
in Haiti. When Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God  was
first published in 1937, it did not receive the accolades and recognition that it receives today.
White readers were much less critical of the novel than black readers, who felt that Hurston
had not been harsh enough in her critique of the white treatment of blacks in the South. They
felt that she painted too rosy a picture of black life in the South, betraying blacks by not
portraying the ill-treatment and demoralization that they had suffered. In fact, one of the most
prominent black writers and intellectuals of the late thirties, Richard Wright, said that Their
Eyes was themeless and meaningless; he thought that by portraying her people as quaint,
Hurston had exploited them.
In the early 1970s, professors of African-American and women's literature rediscovered
Hurston's novel and began teaching it to students. The book had been out of print for many
years, but newfound zeal for Hurston's work caused the book to be brought back into print
first in 1971 and then permanently in 1975. Alice Walker (the author of The Color
Purple) was instrumental in bringing Their Eyes Were Watching God into the modern
literary canon. She became Hurston's champion, searching the South for Hurston's unmarked
grave, and inscribing on it: "Zora Neale Hurston, A Genius of the South."
Walker's characterization of Hurston as a southern writer was well-founded. Although she
was born in Alabama, Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was the first all-black
city in America. The town was founded by a man named Joe Clarke (which has a similar ring
to her novel's Joe Starks), who was eventually elected mayor. Just as the townsfolk sit on
Joe Starks's store porch in Their Eyes were Watching God, people would sit outside of Joe
Clarke's store porch and tell stories about their lives and jokes about their neighbors.

Summary
Janie Crawford, the protagonist of the novel, returns home after being away for a very long
time. The townsfolk, particularly the women, are unfriendly towards her. They gossip about
Janie and how Tea Cake was too young for her. Janie's best friend, Pheoby, is angry at the
women and leaves their company to take some supper to Janie. Janie tells Pheoby that she is
wealthy, with nine hundred dollars in the bank. Tea Cake was a wonderful husband who
never took a cent of her money. He recently died, and that is the only reason that she is back
from the Everglades. Janie tells Pheoby the story of her life to so that Pheoby can explain her
actions to the nosy community on her behalf.

She never met her mother or her father, and is raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother
works as a nanny for white children in the Washburn family, and Janie grows up playing with
the Washburn children.

Janie loves to spend the afternoons lying under a pear tree, staring into the branches. One
afternoon, she is mesmerized by the beauty of bees pollinating the pear blossoms. Intoxicated
by her new sexuality, she kisses Johnny Taylor. Nanny sees the kiss and proclaims that
Janie is a woman now. She slaps Janie for her indiscretion, and tells her that she must get
married.
Janie marries Logan Killicks and moves in to his ugly house. Three months pass and she
still feels no love for Logan, so she goes to visit Nanny. Janie starts crying and Nanny sternly
tells her not to worry because Janie's mind will change as time passes. Later that evening,
Nanny prays to God saying that she feels sorry for Janie's unhappiness but that she did the
best she could. Heavy-hearted, Nanny dies a month later.
Long before the first year of their marriage is complete, Logan's stops being sweet to Janie.
One afternoon, Janie meets Joe Starks, a citified, stylishly-dressed man. Joe tells Janie that
he wants to buy land in Eatonville, a new town that is run entirely by black people. Joe asks
Janie to leave Logan and marry him. One afternoon, when Janie and Logan are fighting,
Logan threatens to kill Janie with an axe. Janie runs out of the gate, gets in a carriage with
Joe Starks. They run away and get married before sundown.
When Janie and Joe arrive in Eatonville, both are disappointed with the town. Joe buys land
to increase the size of it. He calls a meeting on his porch to discuss his desire to build a post
office and a general store. Very quickly, Joe earns back all the money he invested in building
the store by selling land to people who want to move to the town. Joe becomes hugely
influential in the town and is elected mayor. As time passes, Janie tells Joe that his interest in
the new town is putting a strain on their relationship. But Joe states that he has always wanted
a big voice and finally, as town mayor, he has it.

Janie and Joe's relationship continues to deteriorate. One day, he slaps her face for preparing
a bad meal. Eleven years pass. Janie learns to stop fighting and rarely contradicts her
husband. Joe constantly criticizes Janie for being old and ugly. He hopes that by pointing out
her flaws, he can distract others from noticing his own advancing age.

One afternoon, Joe begins to insult Janie after she makes a small mistake. For the first time,
Janie retaliates in front of a store full of people. She tells Joe that he is nothing but a loud
voice; she tells everyone in the store that when he pulls his pants down, there is nothing there.
Joe is irrecoverably crushed. His health deteriorates quickly. He becomes very ill and takes to
a sick bed permanently, but refuses to allow Janie to enter his room.

Janie wants to talk to Joe before it is "too late." Janie tells Joe that "not listening" has been
the main problem in his life. He has been too busy listening to himself to listen to her. She
tells Joe that she did not leave Logan and "come down the road" with him to lead a life of
"bowing down" and obedience. Joe breathes his last painful breath and dies of kidney failure.

Janie mourns on the outside, but on the inside, she rejoices. She is finally free of the heavily
restricted life that Joe had forced her into.

One evening, a man named Tea Cake walks into the store. He and Janie play chess, flirt and
chat all day while the rest of the town is at a ball game. He helps her close the store at the end
of the evening, and Janie appreciates his help. About a week after their first meeting, Tea
Cake comes to the store and pretends to play an invisible guitar. He suggests that they go
fishing in the middle of the night. They catch a few fish and have to smuggle Tea Cake out of
the back gate of Janie's house so that the people in town won't gossip.

Their relationship progresses slowly and playfully. The town criticizes Janie: how can she
stop mourning the death of her dead husband so soon? Why is she with a man that has no
money and no power? Pheoby asks Janie why she allows Tea Cake to take her to places she
used to never go to: baseball games, fishing ponds, forests for hunting. Janie explains that she
never wanted to be restricted from doing activities that Joe had considered lower-class, but
that Joe had forced her to. Furthermore, Janie confides to Pheoby that she intends to marry
Tea Cake, sell the store, and move out of town. She says, "Dis ain't no business proposition,
and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma's way, now
Ah means tuh live mine."

One morning, Janie takes a train to away from home and marries Tea Cake in her blue satin
wedding dress. She packs herself two hundred of the dollars that her husband left her, but
does not tell Tea Cake about the money. Janie is so happy, "that she scares herself." One
week after they are married, Tea Cake leaves before Janie wakes up and steals the money.
Immediately, Janie thinks of of poor Ms. Annie Tyler, a rich widow whose money was
stolen by a younger man who pretended to love her. Tea Cake reappears the next morning,
telling Janie that he spent all her money entertaining his friends. He promises to win it back
gambling. He does win it back one week later, but is almost killed by the angry men who lose
their money to him and want it back. Tea Cake promises Janie that from that moment on they
will live only using his money.
Tea Cake says that when he recovers from the cuts he wants to head to the Muck down in the
Everglades because "folks don't do nothin' down dere but make money and fun and
foolishness."

Once the season begins, Tea Cake spends his day picking beans while Janie tends the house.
At night the men have have discussions and arguments, just as they did on the porch in
Eatonville. But here, Janie can "listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wants to.
She [gets] so she can tell big stories herself from listening to the rest."

When Janie finds Tea Cake flirting with a young girl named Nunkie, she slaps him. Janie
asks if Tea Cake loves Nunkie. Tea Cake says he never did love Nunkie and that no woman
could compare to Janie. He says that his wife is "something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git
old and forgit tuh die."
In the autumn, Janie becomes acquainted with Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner is a mixed-race
woman who hates her own blackness. She is intent on re-marrying Janie to her white-looking
brother. Tea Cake tells Janie that if Mrs. Turner hates black people so much, she should stay
away from him and Janie.
The following season, many people return to live on the Muck; some of the people are
familiar from last year and some are brand new. Mrs. Turner brings her brother to town to
introduce him to Janie. Tea Cake slaps Janie to show Mrs. Turner's brother that Tea Cake had
full control over Janie. They make up the next morning, to the whole town's envy. Tea Cake
and his friends stage a bar brawl, destroying the Turners' restaurant.

One afternoon, Janie sees Seminole Indians passing through the Muck heading east. They
warn of a hurricane coming, but no one believes them. That night, the weather gets extremely
bad. The lights go out. Janie, Tea Cake, and some friends huddle in their basement. "They
seemed to be staring at the dark, but there eyes were watching God."

After the storm, Tea Cake and Janie decide to leave the ruined area on foot. As they escape,
the dam on the lake breaks and water rushes up fast behind them. Janie falls into the water
and starts to drown, but Tea Cake helps her swim. As the two walk to safety, a rabid dog tries
to attack Janie, and while Tea Cake protects her, it bites him on the face. Janie tells Tea Cake
that they should find a doctor for his dog bite, but Tea Cake says that he is fine.

Tea Cake becomes ill and Janie grows worried and calls Doctor Simmons. She tells him that
Tea Cake was bitten by a dog one month ago in the storm. Doctor Simmons tells her that Tea
Cake has rabies and will probably die. He advises Janie not to sleep with Tea Cake because
he may bite her and give her rabies.

Tea Cake becomes extremely moody, he is unable to drink water, and he starts behaving like
a wild dog. He falls into a jealous rage when he finds out that Mrs. Turner's husband is back
in the Everglades. He confronts Janie, shooting her with a pistol while Janie shoots with a
rifle. The rifle fires slightly faster, and Tea Cake falls to the ground dead, biting Janie's
forearm. Janie is put in jail and tried in court. Simmons explains her case to the jury and she
is acquitted of murder.
Janie arranges a beautiful funeral for Tea Cake in Palm Beach and then moves back to
Eatonville. The narration returns to the porch with Pheoby where it began in the first chapter.
Janie says she has been to the horizon and back; she knows now that, "you got tuh go there
tuh know there...Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God,
and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." Janie then tells Pheoby to explain her
story to the townspeople; perhaps they will learn a little about love from her experiences.

Janie climbs the stairs to her bedroom with her nightlamp. Tea Cake is not dead; while Janie
is living, he will live on in her memory. Janie finally finds peace; she pulls in the horizon like
a great net and drapes it over her shoulders. "So much of life in its meshes! She called in her
soul to come and see."

Character List
Janie Crawford (Killicks, Starks, Woods)
Janie is a beautiful black woman with partially white ancestry. As a child, Janie is brought up
by her grandmother, Nanny. Janie listens to her grandmother and marries a man of Nanny's
choosing: Logan Killicks. Janie leaves Logan when she realizes that she doesn't love him.
She runs away with Joe Starks, a man with huge dreams for the future. Unfortunately, instead
of allowing Janie to develop her own voice, Joe squelches her individualism. After Joe dies,
Janie finally finds Tea Cake Woods, and she discovers real love. When Tea Cake dies
suddenly, Janie returns to Eatonville fulfilled and with memories to sustain her for the rest of
her life. Janie's primary characteristics are her ability to dream and her ability to act on her
instincts to find happiness. Through free indirect discourse, Janie shares the narration of the
story with Hurston. Often her voice is so tightly interwoven with Hurston's that it is difficult
to discern who is the narrator and who is the author.
Pheoby Watson
Pheoby is Janie's best and only lifelong friend. Due to the responsibilities of her marriage,
Pheoby is unable to adventure the way that Janie does. Pheoby represents the everyday
person, the audience; just as Janie tells her story to Pheoby, Hurston tells the story to her
reader. At the end of the novel, Pheoby tells us that Janie's story has made her grow ten feet
taller and has encouraged her to go fishing. Hurston, through Pheoby, asserts her desire for
the readers of her novel to be mobilized into action through Janie's story just as Pheoby has
been.
Nanny Crawford
Janie's grandmother is a former slave who represents the thoughts and fears of the men and
women of the slave era. Nanny values wealth and security over anything else and too strongly
encourages Janie to marry Logan Killicks because he possesses some land and a mule. Janie's
first major triumph is to escape her grandmother's vision of happiness and recognize that she
should seek her own type of freedom.
Logan Killicks
Logan is Janie's first husband. He is unloving and too old for Janie. He treats Janie as if she
were a possession like his mule. He cares for Janie and is upset when he realizes that Janie
will leave him for another man, Joe Starks, but is powerless to convince Janie that she should
stay with him.
Joe Starks
Joe is Janie's second husband. He is an appealing choice for Janie who admires his
youthfulness and ambition. Joe runs away with Janie to Eatonville, where he becomes mayor.
Hurston's criticism of Joe is that he seeks power through the same measures as slave-era
whites did. He attains power by taking power away from others. He treats Janie badly,
quieting her voice in order to make his voice heard more loudly. Between the Sears Roebuck
street lamp, his big house which is literally white, and the golden spittoons, Joe's imitation of
white people is farcical.
Tea Cake (Vergible Woods)
Tea Cake is Janie's third husband. He is twelve years younger than Janie. From Tea Cake,
Janie learns how to love, about her cultural roots, how to live life in a natural way, and to find
ways to have fun just living. Tea Cake is fun, adventurous, and spontaneous; he is a gambler
and a musician. Although he is not a rich man, he proves to Janie that he can always find
money if they need it, and they live off his income alone. Tea Cake is a natural leader like Joe
Starks, but acquires peoples' admiration and trust just by listening to them, by laughing at
their stories and jokes, and by playing guitar for them. Tea Cake dies from rabies as a result
of saving Janie's life in the flood.
Leafy
Leafy is Janie's mother. When Nanny was a slave, the master of the plantation repeatedly
raped her. As a result, Nanny had a baby with blonde hair and gray eyes. When the mistress
of the plantation saw the baby one night after the men left to fight in the Civil War, she told
Nanny that she was going to whip her to death in the morning for having sex with her
husband. Nanny ran away from the plantation and hid for months until the war ended. She
named the baby Leafy because she had hid the baby in the moss of the forest. Leafy grows up
with the Washburns just as Janie does. When Leafy is seventeen, her school teacher rapes
her, and Leafy has a baby soon after. She becomes an alcoholic and runs away. Leafy's
traumatic life convinces Nanny to force Janie to marry when she is very young.
The Washburns
Nanny is a nanny for the Washburns when Janie is a young girl. Hurston defied other black
writers of her era by describing the Washburns as "quality white folks." The Washburns treat
Janie like a member of their family. They dress her up and put bows in her hair.
Johnny Taylor
Johnny Taylor is the first boy that Janie kisses. Nanny sees the kiss and tells Janie that she "is
now a woman" and must get married to Logan Killicks rather than someone low-class like
Johnny.
Hezekiah
Hezekiah is a boy that helps Janie in the shop after Joe dies. He mimics Joe in a humorous
way.
Annie Tyler
Annie Tyler is a rich widow who leaves her stable home to run off with a younger man. The
younger man, named Who Flung, runs off with all her money soon after she marries him.
Images of Annie Tyler haunt Janie early in her marriage to Tea Cake as she worries if she's
made a mistake by entering into her risky new relationship.
Mrs. Turner
Mrs. Turner is a mixed-race woman who hates her blackness and yearns to be white. Through
Turner and the town's treatment of Turner, Hurston comments negatively on the people who
turn away from their culture and try to be something that they are not. Turner is a much
disliked character in the story; all of her "white" features are described as blunt and ugly. She
has a weak husband and a weak son.
Nunkie
A young girl that flirts with Tea Cake, and whom Janie is jealous of.
Motor Boat
A friend of Tea Cake's and Janie's on the Muck. In the struggle to escape the flood, Motor
Boat decides to stay home in bed and sleep rather than to try to run to safety outside, as Janie
and Tea Cake do. Ironically, Tea Cake and Janie almost die in the flood while trying to find
safety, whereas Motor Boat stays safe by staying home.
Dr. Simmons
Another noble white character in the novel, he tries to save Tea Cake from rabies. He also
testifies on Janie's behalf in her murder trial.

Themes
Sexuality
Their Eyes were Watching God is in many ways a novel about Janie's sexual awakening.
Because it was written in the conservative 1930s, much of this sexuality is masked in
metaphor. When Janie finally finds a "bee for her blossom," it is the man that she has been
most sexually attracted to in her life. Hurston takes a naturalist approach to sexuality. Unlike
her grandmother, Nanny, who sees sexuality as threatening and destabilizing and punishes
Janie for kissing a boy, Hurston sees it as an integral part of identity. Janie's sexuality is
linked to nature from the very beginning. She learns about it from bees, rather than from a
human mentor.
Power
Power, specifically black power, was an issue of great importance to the Harlem Renaissance
writers. Various characters in Their Eyes were Watching God have different notions about
the best way to gain power in a white-dominated world. Nanny's idea is that her
granddaughter should marry a wealthy man so that she doesn't have to worry about her
financial security. Joe gains power in the same way that whites traditionally did, by gaining a
position of leadership (the mayorship) and using it to dominate others. However, Janie finds
that the type of power that she prefers in a man is personal, rather than constructed. She
thinks that a person's power is derived not from their material possessions, but from their
personal experiences, and their manner of relating to others.
Black Autonomy
One of the most politically notable aspects of Their Eyes were Watching God, a decidedly
apolitical novel, is the concept of black autonomy. Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the
South during the 1930s, keeping blacks and whites in seperate schools, churches, and
bathrooms. Eatonville, the town in which Zora Neale Hurston grew up, was famous as
the first all-black incorporated municipality in the country. Hurston's novel is a ringing
affirmation of black autonomy, portraying a town with a black mayor, post office, and so on.
But she questions the methods of the leader of this town, concerned with whether he achieved
power through traditionally white avenues.
Consumerism
Hurston was by no means a capitalist, but this does not mean that she was unaware of some
of the evils of capitalism. The easiest way to divide the "good" and "bad" characters in this
novel is to ask which characters value material possessions. Nanny, Logan, and, to a certain
extent, Joe, all value goods because they see how hard it is for African-Americans to attain
them. However, their goods only make these characters look foolish. Joe's golden spittoons
are a pitiable attempt to approximate the fashions of his white former bosses. Hurston is
careful to draw the connection between characters like Janie and Tea Cake and nature, rather
than consumable goods.
Gender
The distinction between activities appropriate for men and those appropriate for women is
strongly drawn in the first half of this novel. Janie is prohibited from speaking her mind,
playing checkers, and attending mule funerals. Hurston suggests that these gender
constructions are absurd, however. One of Tea Cake's most appealing characteristics is that
he empowers Janie to break these rules. Tea Cake encourages her to work, play checkers,
speak out, fish, and shoot a gun.
Appearance of Race
There is a high incidence of African-Americans with mixed black and white descent in this
novel. Janie's mother, Leafy, was the product of a rape by a plantation master, and was
visibly white enough to garner punishment of Nanny by the plantation master's wife. Janie is
described as having coffee-colored skin, and Hurston is careful to describe the degree of
blackness of all of her characters. Caucasian characteristics can have a positive (Janie's shiny
hair) or negative (Mrs. Turner's pointed nose and thin lips) effect on the character's
attractiveness. Hurston is consistent on one point, however, and that is that people who try to
look like something that they are not (usually whiter than they are) always end up looking
terrible.
Work/Money
Janie differs from many of the other characters in Their Eyes were Watching God in that she
is financially stable throughout the book with a fair amount of money in the bank. Therefore,
for Janie, work is isolated from making money, and depends entirely on the nature of the
labor. Contrary to most people, she enjoys laboring in the field more than clerking in a shop
(despite the fact that the latter is "higher class") because it allows her to be near nature and
the man that she loves. Janie's naturalism extends beyond her sexuality to include which type
of labor she prefers.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary and

Analysis of Chapters 1-4
Chapter One Summary:

The novel begins with a statement about the differences between the dreams of men and
women. Men's dreams are like distant ships. For some men, the ship comes in and the dream
is realized very quickly. For other men, the ship sails for a long, long time on the horizon. By
the time these dreams finally can be realized, so much time has passed that the dreams are
worthless. Women don't wait and watch for their "ship to come in." Some women have
dreams and some do not. And for women, the mere possession of the dream is what matters:
"The dream is the truth."

Janie has been gone from Eatonville for a very long time, and it is dusk when she returns. As
she walks through the center of town to her old home, all the people of the village stare at her
and judge her. The townspeople are cruel and envious. They wonder why she is returning in
improper overalls instead of a proper dress and where her husband is.

Janie walks straight through the town and does not let anyone bother her. Janie is a beautiful
black woman; the men notice her tight bottom, her beautiful hair and her "pugnacious
breasts." The women are envious of her; they hope she might fall to their level some day.
The women are angry that she does not stop and explain herself. Only Pheoby Watson,
Janie's old best friend, defends Janie's silence saying that maybe her story is not for their ears,
or maybe she has nothing to tell. Pheoby leaves the women to take some supper to Janie.
Pheoby finds Janie sitting on the back porch of her home, soaking her tired feet. Janie and
Pheoby hear laughter from the women across the street; they talk about the terrible jealousy
and pettiness of the women. Pheoby remarks that "an envious heart makes a treacherous ear."

Janie and Pheoby share some laughter and Pheoby says that Janie should hurry up and inform
the community about her past to end all the negative gossip about her. But Janie remarks that
she doesn't want to waste the time; besides Pheoby can inform them later. Janie says, "Mah
tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Janie begins her tale, which makes up the body of the novel. Janie tells Pheoby that she has
nine hundred dollars in the bank. Tea Cake never touched her money, but he has recently
died. She lived with him in the Everglades and now she's come back.

Analysis:

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel about self-discovery. Janie Starks is a
black woman living in Florida sometime during 1920-1935. (The novel was published in
1937.) In this first chapter, she has just returned from a two year journey. This novel is told
"backwards" in a sense, because the first chapter begins with Janie's homecoming and only in
the following chapters does the reader learn about the events leading to Janie's return.
Hurston relies heavily upon dialect, typical Southern speech which she spells phonetically, in
writing this story. The speech of the characters is typical of blacks living in Eatonville,
Florida during 1920-1935.

This chapter introduces a number of motifs that recur throughout the novel including the
horizon, porches, and hair. In this chapter, ships on the horizon represent dreams that are
unattainable. Porches are the usual place for community assembly, and are also the only place
where people can truly feel human: all day the people feel like "mules and brutes have
occupied their skins." But only on the porches, at the end of the day, do their skins feel
"powerful and human." The porch is also the setting of Janie's revelations to Phoebe. Janie's
hair is a powerful symbol of her individuality and sexuality. It is thick, and healthy: "the great
rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume."

Chapter Two Summary:

Janie begins telling the story of her life. She never knew her mother or her father, and was
raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother worked as a nanny for white children in the
Washburn family, and Janie grows up playing with the Washburn children. She calls her
grandmother "Nanny" because that is what the other kids call her. Everyone calls Janie
"Alphabet" because she goes by so many names. Janie does not know that she is black until a
photograph of her is taken with the other children. Until the age of six, she thinks that she is
white, and "the same as everyone else." When she goes to school, the other black children are
jealous of Janie because she wears the Washburn children's hand-me-downs; these clothes are
much nicer than what the other black children wear. Nanny does not like the fact that Janie is
picked on by the other black children for living in the white family's backyard, so she asks
the Washburns to help her buy some land and create a home of her own.

Janie loves to spend the afternoons lying under a pear tree, staring into the branches. One
afternoon, she is mesmerized by the beauty of bees pollinating the pear blossoms. Janie feels
intoxicated by the pollen and her newly awakened sexuality. She now sees Johnny
Taylor, a boy she previously thought of as "shiftless" as a "glorious being." She walks to
the gate and kisses him over the gatepost.
Nanny sees Janie kissing a boy and calls her inside. Nanny is convinced that Janie's kiss has
brought her into womanhood. She slaps Janie for her indiscretion, and tells her that she must
get married to Logan Killicks. Janie objects, saying that Logan is ugly and old. But
Nanny repeats that Janie must get married to someone who will keep her safe and protected.
Nanny reiterates that she just wants to protect Janie from the burden of being a black woman.
Nanny narrates to Janie the terrible experiences that she has been through. She was a slave
when she was younger and remembers the day that the men on her plantation all left to fight
in the Civil War. As she lay with her newly born child, Leafy, the master of the plantation
came into the house, pulled off the covers, and forced her to have sex with him for the last
time before he left for war. After he left, the mistress of the plantation slapped Nanny many
times because the baby looked partially white with its blonde hair and gray eyes. The mistress
of the plantation knew that the master had been sleeping with Nanny and threatened to whip
her until she bled to death and sell the baby into slavery when it was a month old. Nanny ran
away from the plantation that night and named the baby Leafy because she hid her in the
leafy moss. Luckily the war ended within a few months, and Nanny never had to be a slave
again.
Nanny raised her baby (the woman who was to become Janie's mother) in the same place as
she raised Janie: at the Washburns' house. She wanted Leafy to grow up and become a school
teacher, but after Leafy was raped by her own school teacher at the age of seventeen she
became pregnant with Janie. After her daughter was born, Leafy became an alcoholic and
then ran away from home. Nanny's negative experiences make her determined to make life
easy for her granddaughter. Nanny says, "Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy
Janie, Ah'm a cracked plate."

Analysis:

This chapter presents the story of Janie's childhood and of her sexual awakening. An
important symbol that emerges in this chapter and continues to appear throughout the novel is
the pear tree, which is a metaphor for Janie. It blossoms when Janie blooms, just when Janie
has her sexual epiphany. The first sentence of the chapter is very important: "Janie saw her
life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things done and undone. Dawn and doom
was in the branches." Janie's sexuality is always regarded by the author as natural.

At this point in the novel, Hurston moves away from third person narrative to free indirect
discourse. Their Eyes began in third person, told through the voice of Hurston. From this
point on, particularly in the novel's more important moments, the voices of Hurston and Janie
merge. Although much of the novel is told in third-person omnicient, certain sentences like
"So this was marriage!" (discribing the pollination of the pear tree) allow the reader to hear
Janie's thoughts directly.

Another scene that has intense thematic importance is the love scene between Janie and
Johnny Taylor. First, it is important to note that Janie feels no affection or interest in Johnny
prior to her sexual epiphany under the pear tree. But after she witnesses the beauty of the bees
and the blossoms, Janie wonders, "Where are the bees singing for me?" She is able to project
her own desires (the desires to find a mate that is worthy of her) on to Johnny Walker. This
ability to create a fantasy demonstrates a large difference between Janie and the other women
in the story. Whereas the other women accept their condition, Janie has the power to see what
she wants to see. She projects her dream into the world, and then transcends reality.

Another important symbol in this chapter is the gate, and the fact that Janie kisses Johnny
over the gate post. Gates symbolize beginnings, openings into new worlds or new stages in
life. Here, notably, Janie does not open the gate, meaning that she does not actually leave her
childhood entirely. Instead, she kisses Johnny over the gatepost; symbolically speaking, she
has only left her childhood for a moment and then returned to it.

Chapter Three Summary:

Before marrying Logan, Janie tries to figure out whether marriage will "end the cosmic
loneliness of the unmarried." She spends a lot of time under the pear tree trying to understand
how marriage might make her feel love. She does not love Logan, but she hopes that love
will grow once she is married.

Janie moves into Logan's house and immediately does not like it. She thinks it looks like a
"stump in the middle of the woods that no one had ever seen." After three months pass and
she still feels no love for Logan, she visits Nanny. Nanny says she should love Logan merely
because he has sixty acres of land on the main road. Janie says that the land does not matter.
She wants sweet things in her marriage like the beauty of sitting under a pear tree. Janie starts
crying and Nanny sternly tells her that her mind will change as time passes. Later that
evening, Nanny prays to God saying that she feels sorry for Janie's unhappiness but that she
did the best she could. Heavy-hearted, Nanny dies a month later.

Janie waits nine months and when the summer comes again, she stands at the gate and begins
"expecting things." Since her decisions thus far have failed her, she looks out of the gate for a
new opportunity.

Analysis:

This chapter is the first illustration of how different Janie is from other black women. Janie is
miserable in her marriage and Nanny seems puzzled as to why. Logan, Janie's husband,
seems ideal because he has sixty acres of land. Nanny's perspective is based on her childhood
as a slave. In her experience, owning land is a privilege reserved for whites, so a black man
who owns it is immediately worthy of love. But Janie is a sensual women who grew up in
nature and learned about sex and love from sitting underneath a pear tree and watching the
bees spread pollen. Land is not enough to fulfill her desires and make Janie happy in her
marriage. The reader finds further evidence of how Janie is closely connected with nature in
the way that she measures time. Janie's consciousness is usually described in natural terms.
She waits a year before she decides that she is no longer happy in her marriage, but she
measures these months in terms of the seasons: "So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green
time and an orange time. But when a the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the
world she began to stand around the gate and expect things." Her closeness with nature helps
explain where Janie gained the values that she did not learn from Nanny.

The image of the gate reappears at the end of this chapter. Janie only begins to stand at the
gate when she knows that she is irreversibly unhappy in her marriage. The gate again
signifies a new beginning, a new experience, or a new adventure. The ending of this chapter
heavily foreshadows that Janie's life is about to change again.

Chapter Four Summary:

One morning, Logan wakes up and tells Janie that he is going to Lake City to buy a mule, and
expresses his wish for her to do hard labor while he is gone. Janie is not happy about this and
says that all she will do is cut potatoes, and Logan calls her spoiled. As soon as her husband
leaves, Janie hears whistling outside of the barn. She sees a citified, stylishly dressed man. He
is black, but seems to Janie to be acting white. The man's name is Joe Starks. He is from
Georgia. He's worked for white people all his life, but heard that there is a new town called
Eatonville that is entirely populated by black people. Joe Starks is on his way to become one
of the town's leaders.
Joe Starks asks Janie where her parents are. Janie laughs and says that she's married but that
her husband is away buying a mule for her to plow. Joe Starks says that that is a terrible way
to treat Janie. For two weeks, Joe and Janie meet every day. Joe, nicknamed Jody, asks Janie
to leave Logan and marry him. Jody asks Janie to meet him on the road outside her house so
that next that they can run away together.

Janie considers the matter. She tells Logan that she has considering leaving him. Logan
insults her and they argue over who will move the mule's manure. Janie tells Logan that he
hasn't done her any favor by marrying her, and Logan threatens to kill Janie with an axe.
Janie considers this statement, then runs out of the gate to run away with Joe Starks. They
head to Green Cove Springs and get married before sundown.

Analysis:

There are two minor details in this chapter that mark the turning point of Janie's relationship
with Logan. It is significant to Janie that Logan stops talking to her in rhymes, because for
Janie, rhymes are linked with love. In addition, she notices that Logan stops looking at her
long black hair. Janie's hair is symbolic of who she is and her sexual identity, so the fact that
Logan has stopped looking at her hair indicates that he has stopped caring about her at all.

Joe Starks fulfills many of the things that are lacking in Janie's life. He reminds her that she is
young and beautiful and appeals to her need to have a friend that is the same age she is. The
first thing that they have in common is their love of sugar in water; sweet water is a treat for
young children. Furthermore, Joe thinks big. He talks about the horizon whereas Logan
Killicks' dreams extend no further than his sixty acres of land. Janie, too, has high hopes. Her
relationship with Logan is stifling because he inhibits her need for dreaming big dreams and
trying to fulfill them. She explains her dissatisfaction with Logan's shallow dreams when she
says, "You don't take nothin' to count but sow-belly and corn bread."

Summary and Analysis of Chapters 5-8

Chapter Five Summary:

Janie and Joe take the train from Maitland to Eatonville. When they arrive in Eatonville, both
are disappointed with the town. Joe demands to talk to the mayor, but one of the men tells
him that there is no mayor. Joe tells Coker that he thinks that the town is too small and that he
will buy land from Captain Eaton, the gentleman that owns the neighboring land. Joe calls a
meeting on his porch the next day to discuss his desire to build a post office and put up a
store. The townspeople agree that building a store is a good idea. Very quickly, Joe earns
back all the money he invested in building the store by selling land to people who want to
move to the town.

Joe holds another meeting where he announces that Eatonville must have a mayor. Tony
declares that Joe should be the mayor. The crowd shouts that they would like to hear Janie
speak after Joe is elected, but Joe takes the podium instead of her, saying that Janie should
not speak; she is a woman and her place is in the home. Janie is upset but makes herself smile
because it is proper to do so. The next day Joe asks the town to vote on a street lamp; a
majority votes for it and Joe buys the lamp from Sears. In order to make first lamplighting a
real event, Joe arranges a large barbecue and party which is attended by people from miles
around.
When the event is over and Janie and Joe are preparing to sleep, Janie tells Joe that his
service to the town is putting a strain on their relationship. Joe says that he has always wanted
a big voice in the world's affairs, and becoming mayor has helped him find it. He tells Janie
that she can become a big woman by relying on his good position. Joe intimidates most
people in the town. His house is built with banisters and porches and is painted a "gloaty"
sparkling white. He places spittoons near his desk, one for Janie and one for himself. Janie
feels isolated because her position as the mayor's wife distances her from the other women in
town.

One day, a fellow in the town named Henry Pitts steals a wagon of sugar cane from Jody;
Jody catches him and makes him leave town. Many of the townspeople are angry about the
severity of Joe's reaction, and they start gossiping about him on his own porch. Despite their
anger at Joe, all of the townspeople sympathize with Janie because they know that she must
take the brunt of Joe's stubbornness. Joe forces his wife to keep her beautiful hair tied up, and
does not allow Janie to talk much.

Analysis:

The beginning of chapter five is similar to chapter four. Both begin with the fact that
neither Joe Starks nor Logan Killicks speak in rhymes to Janie. This similarity
foreshadows Janie's dissatisfaction with her relationship with Joe. Janie's problems with her
first relationship are repeating themselves in her second.
This chapter is noteable for its commentary on white society through criticisms of Joe. Joe
attained his power by acting white, by taking power from others. Janie observes that he is
"kind of portly like rich white folks." In a later chapter, a townsperson comments that when
Joe talks "it's like he has a switch in his hand." Joe has attained the power he has always
desired, he has done so through the mistreatment of his fellow townspeople and of his wife.
Many readers have criticized Hurston because they argue that she believes that the only way
for blacks to achieve financial success is to behave like whites (as Joe does). But Hurston
shows that this method of self empowerment by subjugating others is destructive to Janie and
other members of the community.

Another symbol that reoccurs in this chapter is the porch, which stands for community and is
the forum for all large discussions. It is on the porch where Joe first calls a town meeting,
where he is elected mayor, and where he calls the vote for the land. Ironically, the community
meets on Joe's own porch when it wishes to discuss its dissatisfaction with Joe. Thus,
although the porch is associated with Joe, it belongs to the community.

Chapter Six Summary:

The people of Eatonville love to pass the time telling stories on the porch. One of their
favorite topics is Matt Bonner's yellow mule. Lige Moss, Sam Watson, and Walter love to
tease Matt for never feeding the mule and for working the mule too hard. Janie loves listening
to the stories about the mule; sometimes she has her own funny comments to make but Joe
forbids her from joining the conversation. Janie realizes that Joe loves to order her around.
She hates the fact that he forces her to work in the store all day, forces her to tie her hair up,
and becomes insanely jealous when other men look at her. One day, Matt Bonner's mule
disappears. When the mule finally shows up in the center of town, the men who sit on the
porch begin to torture it. First, Lum tackles the mule, then five or six other men begin to
torment it. Janie feels bad for the mule; she wants to help it but doesn't want to get in trouble
with Joe for speaking out. Joe hears her muttering words of sorrow under her breath and
decides to do a noble thing. He pays five dollars for the ownership of the mule so that he can
protect it from any further damage. Janie makes a little speech commending Joe for his noble
actions and comparing him to Lincoln. The men of the community say that Janie is a brilliant
orator. Joe, as usual, says nothing. He would rather that Janie had not spoken at all.

The mule becomes famous as the town's first freed animal, and it wanders about the town
getting fat until it dies. There is a funeral for the mule at the swamp outside of town. Janie
wants to attend, but Joe forbids her.

The funeral is a mocking-serious ceremony. In fact, Joe even stands on top of the body of the
mule as he gives a speech claiming how wonderful the mule was. After they leave the mule to
rot, buzzards swoop in and begin to devour it.

Back on the porch, Sam and Lige engage in "contests of hyberbole." They have a ridiculous
debate over what protects people from hurting themselves: caution or nature. In effect, Sam
wins the debate by arguing that nature creates caution. Nature creates everything. Thus,
nature protects people from hurting themselves.

As the debate is ending, some of the town's women including a beautiful girl, Daisy,
approach the porch. The men and the women talk to each other flirtatiously. Janie loves
listening to the conversation but Joe ruins tbe moment for her by forcing her to go back into
the store to sell something. Soon, another customer wants to buy a pickled pig's foot. Joe
looks for the pig's feet and does not find any. It appears that they have sold out. Janie is
certain that a new shipment of pigs' feet had come in the day before, but she cannot find the
receipt for yesterday's shipment. Joe chastises her for being careless, saying: "Somebody got
to think for women and children and chickens and cows."

Janie and Joe's relationship continues to deteriorate. One day, he slaps her face for preparing
a bad meal. Janie recovers from the slap by putting on a new dress and going back to the
store. Mrs. Robbins is there, begging for a little piece of meat for her children. She tells Joe
that her husband never feeds her. Neither Joe nor the men on the porch feel any sympathy for
the woman. They criticize her for making her husband look like a bad man. After Mrs.
Robbins begs for a long time, Joe gives her a tiny piece of meat.

After she has left, the men begin to rebuke her. Walter Thomas says that he would have killed
Mrs. Robbins had she been his wife. Janie finally enters the conversation saying that God
talks to women. He has told her that men will someday learn that they do not know as much
about women as they think they do.

Analysis:

This chapter is one of the most important chapters of the novel. The first half of the chapter is
about Matt Bonner's yellow mule. There is a strong parallel between the mule and Janie.
Recall that Nanny warns Janie in the first chapter that the "nigger woman is de mule uh de
world." Janie is the first person to be angered by the porchsitters' baiting of the mule; she
identifies with the mule's struggle. Although it seems as though Joe cares for the mule
because he pays five dollars to protect it, it becomes clear that he is only exploiting the mule
for further self-aggrandizement. He literally uses its carcass as a platform for the "great
eulogy" that he performs. Joe prevents Janie from attending the funeral, so no one is there to
speak out against the mule's desecration.

Nature, in the form of buzzards, is able to articulate Janie's rage, and speak for the mule. The
chief buzzard is seems like a religious figure; Hurston refers to him as the Parson. When the
Parson asks what killed the mule, the other buzzard's answer "fat." The reader could interpret
this reply as meaning that Joe killed the mule by freeing it because it was fed too much too
suddenly.
The connection between the formerly starved mule and women is repeated by the author
twice in the chapter. A few pages later, Joe baits Mrs. Robbins as if she were a mule who was
starving for food. She screams, "Tony don't fee-eed me." After Mrs. Robbins leaves, the men
speak about her disrespectully, as if she were an animal. Although Janie does not speak when
Matt Bonner's mule is mistreated, she finally "thrusts into the conversation" when she sees a
real woman being treated like a mule. She explains her faith that God and Nature will watch
over women and protect them from misogny.

The symbol of the porch becomes fully personified in this chapter. Hurston claims that "the
porch laughs", and that "the porch boils [in anger]." This literary device is used to point out
the fact that there are no independent thinkers among the men on the porch. They all act with
one consciousness, one set of beliefs, and no one is willing to act differently from the rest.

After the most shocking moment in the chapter, Hurston uses understatement to underline
Joe's violence. When her husband beats Janie after she cooks a bad meal, she expresses no
anger, hatred, or disgust. "Janie stood where he left her for [some] time and thought. She
stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her..." The fact that she feels so little rage
makes the reader feel for Janie even more. The passage where Joe slaps Janie ends on an
optimistic note: "She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen." This
foreshadows the fact that Janie will meet another, better man.

Chapter Seven Summary:

Eleven years pass and Janie learns to stop fighting. Some days she considers running away
from Joe just as she ran away from Logan years ago. But Janie fears that she is too old to run
away. Janie realizes that Joe has become very old, and that he has become more abusive to
her than ever before. He constantly criticizes her for being old and ugly, hoping that by
pointing out her flaws, he can distract others from noticing his own age and frailty.

One afternoon, a customer named Steve Mixon wants some chewing tobacco. Janie tries to
cut it, but makes a mistake. Joe recuts the tobacoo and then begins to insult Janie terribly. For
the first time, Janie retaliates. She tells Joe that he is nothing but a big voice; she tells the
people in the store that when he pulls his pants down that there is nothing there. Joe is
irrecoverably crushed, his manliness stripped away.

Analysis:

This chapter marks a turning point in Janie's character development. She learns how to stand
up to Joe and uses her voice to overpower his. There are several biblical references in the
chapter which indicate the importance of religion to black culture at this time. Janie is
described by Joe as "older than Methusalem." Janie's speaking out against Joe is like "the
thing that Saul's daughter had done to David." The characters are not strongly religious;
rather, the stories of the Christian tradition are firmly embedded in black folk culture, and
their narratives are more important than a belief in them.

Rather than organized religion, it is nature that fortifies and empowers Janie. She is able to
split her mind and see "the shadow of herself tending store and prostrating itself before Jody"
while her true self "sits under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and
clothes." When she is finally able to keep part of her mind centered on nature, she becomes
strong enough to stand up to Joe.

Chapter Eight Summary:

Joe's health deteriorates quickly. He begins to spend a lot of time with a root doctor, instead
of relying on a real doctor. Janie worries that Joe is not eating enough, but then she finds out
that Mrs. Davis is cooking for him. Janie recognizes that she is a better cook than Mrs. Davis
and tries to prepare a soup for Joe. He refuses the soup, indicating that he believes she may be
trying poison him or trying to hurt him with Voodoo magic.

Jody becomes very ill and takes to a sick bed permanently; he refuses to allow Janie to visit
him. Other people from the town parade into the house, claiming that Joe doesn't have anyone
to take care of him because Janie is so inconsiderate.

Finally, Joe Watson tells Janie that Joe is about to die. His kidneys have failed. Janie begins
to think about death: she pictures a square-toed man from the West who lives in a house with
no roof. She asks Sam if it would be all right to visit Joe, but Joe refuses.

Janie realizes that she must speak to Joe, no matter what. Janie walks into Joe's room and sees
him looking as though he's waiting for something. She begins with an apology for not being
the "perfect" wife. Joe still blames her for being unsympathetic, but Janie explains that she
was never allowed to be sympathetic because Joe controlled her too much. Nonetheless, Janie
wants to talk to Joe before it is "too late." Joe does not want to accept that he could die soon.
Janie tells Joe that "not listening" has been the main problem of Joe's life: he has been so
busy listening to himself that he has never listened to her. Joe tells her to get out, but Janie
gets in the last word. She tells Joe that she did not leave Logan and "come down the road"
with him to lead a life of "bowing down" and obedience. Joe breathes his last painful breath
and dies.

Janie puts his hands on his chest, then walks to the mirror to look for the young girl that she
had asked to wait for her in the mirror. She takes the handkerchief off her head and examines
her beautiful hair. She then gathers her strength, composes herself, and calls to the other
townspeople that her husband has died.

Analysis:

This chapter details how Janie is able to finally break free from the subjugation of her
marriage and gain her freedom. Food is a reoccuring issue in this chapter. At the beginning of
the chapter, Janie notices that Joe is not eating well, so she buys a beef bone and cooks him
some nurturing soup. Joe refuses the soup, saying that another woman, "old lady Davis," had
been cooking for him. He is afraid that Janie might poison him, so he stops eating what she
has cooked. Food is a literal, as well as symbolic type of nurturing. By refusing Janie's food,
Joe locks his wife's effort at nurturing him out of his soul.

Abstract, spiritual ideas like God and Death (which Hurston capitalizes and personifies) are
made literal in this chapter through vivid imagery. Death is described as "that strange being
with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight
house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover,
and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world."
This type of personification is the literary device that Hurston is most famous for.

The most vivid motif of the novel reappears in this chapter: Janie's hair. Throughout her
marriage with Joe, Janie's hair had been tied, symbolically indicating her captivity in the
marriage. When Joe dies, however, she immediately takes the rags off her head and lets her
hair free.

ummary and Analysis of Chapters 9-12

Chapter Nine Summary:
On the outside, Janie participates in the funeral and the requisite mourning period. But, on the
inside, she rejoices. She is finally free of the heavily restricted life that Joe forced her into.
She celebrates by burning the headrags that Joe forced her to wear.

Janie spends some time considering her future. She realizes that it is time for her to embark
on her journey to the "horizon," a journey where she hopes to meet people rather than just
gather "things" as she has been doing so far in her life. She considers tending her
grandmother's grave or searching for the mother that abandoned her, but she realizes that
neither woman encouraged her freedom and her quest for the horizon.

Men from Janie's community and beyond try to encourage Janie to think about remarrying;
specifically, the men want her to marry them and share Joe's wealth with them. But Janie
enjoys her freedom and tells her many beaus to give her some time. After all, Joe's dead body
has not even had time to "get cold yet;" he has only been dead for two months.

Hezekiah continues to help Janie in the store, and he adopts some of Joe's mannerisms like
smoking and treating people badly. But Janie appreciates his presence; it makes running the
store bearable and less lonely. Janie confesses to Pheoby that she is not worried by Joe's
death; she's enjoyed the freedom that comes with it. Pheoby tells her to keep that fact quiet
because "folks will say she's not sorry he's gone." Janie says that she does not care what
people think.
Analysis:

This chapter is the third major denouement in Janie's life and her period of adjustment to a
life without Joe. One of the most memorable images of the novel is the image of Janie
"starching and ironing" her face. It first occurred in the previous chapter, but it recurs in this
chapter:

"Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a
wall of stone and steel. The funeral was going on outside. All things concerning death and
burial were said and done. Finish. End. Nevermore. Darkness. Deep hole. Dissolution.
Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expensive black folds were resurrection
and life...She send her face to Joe's funeral and herself went rollicking with the springtime
across the world."

One of the interesting techniques that Hurston uses here is ambiguity. The first sentence says
that Janie "starched and ironed her face" and came to the funeral "behind her veil." Because
"face" and "veil" are both used in the sentence, the reader is led to believe that Janie is
wearing a veil over her face. But, the next sentence reads: "It was like a wall of stone and
steel." Here, the use of "it" is ambiguous. Does "it" refer to Janie's face, or the veil? In fact,
"it" seems to indicate that there is no veil at all, but rather just a face. The veil is simply a
metaphor. This metaphor continues through the paragraph, "Inside the expensive black folds
were resurrection and life." Again, a cursory glance might lead the reader to believe that Janie
is wearing an expensive veil. But this is probably not the case. The folds of Janie's veil are
"expensive" because they were developed over time; the folds are metaphors for the wrinkles
in Janie's skin caused by her stressful and oppressive relationship with Joe. The folds are
expensive because they have cost Janie her youth.

These metaphors are effective due to the style of narration. Had the story been told through a
first person point of view, or an omniscient point of view, the reader would demand more
specific details. But, here, the story is told as it is recollected to Pheoby; because the events
are memories, they take on a dreamlike quality. It is not strictly necessary to know whether
Janie is really wearing a veil, or if her face is like a veil.
Every feeling that Janie experiences is divided into binaries. For example, Janie mourns on
the outside, but rejoices on the inside. Her years of sadness are caused by on her forced
pursuit and acquisition of material things, rather than her desire of pursuing and meeting
people. Her pursuit of the horizon is juxtaposed against her grandmother's strangulation of
her freedom. Nanny belongs to the type of person who deals in scraps; whereas Janie can see
wonderful ships in mud-puddles. These oppositions are set up for a distinct reason: Hurston
wants to convince the reader that Janie's epiphany is the only correct answer in determining a
meaning for life. Hurston does not want the reader to sympathize with Joe's goal of becoming
wealthy and successful; Hurston is, in fact, opposed to people finding joy in such goals. She
wants the reader to come to the realization, along with Janie, that true joy in life is obtained
by "seeeing in mud-puddles an ocean with ships." These oppositions frame and countenance
the authority with which Hurston states her theme.

Chapter Ten Summary:

One evening, Hezekiah asks if he can leave work a bit early to head to a ball game. The entire
town is at the game except, of course, for Janie, who feels that it is important to mind the
store.

In the early evening, a man walks into the store; although Janie has never met him, he looks
familiar. Janie asks where he is from and he says that he is from Orlando, seven miles away.
Then he buys some Camel cigarettes. He asks Janie for a light.

Janie is concerned that because everyone is at the ball game, the gentleman will be unable to
go home. All the cars are gone. The gentleman says that he would love to play Janie at
checkers to pass the time. Janie is "glowing on the inside" because nobody has ever asked her
to play before. Janie notices how handsome the man is.

They play for a while and soon the man takes her king piece; Janie refuses to give up the
piece. They mock fight for a bit and in the commotion they tip the game over and laugh. The
gentleman comments that "you just can't beat a woman, they won't stand for it." The man
says, too, that Janie could become a great checkers player some day; "she has the brains for
it."

The man suggests that they take a break and drink some Coke. Janie says that there are plenty
of cold sodas left because everyone is at the game. The man tells her that she, too, should be
at the game. It isn't fair for everyone to have fun except her! He's worried about her. Janie
says that she's worried about him too. How is going to get home? The gentleman says not to
worry. At the worst, he could walk. Janie is shocked; how could anyone walk seven miles?
She would rather take the train, so long as she has money for the fare. The man laughs; he
would never pay for a train ride because he knows how to jump on the train and ride it
without paying.

Janie asks the man what his name is. He says that his name is Vergible Woods, but everyone
calls him Tea Cake for short. Janie flirts, "are you as sweet as all that?" Tea Cake extends the
flirtation, "You should try me and see."

The flirtation has become a little too sexual, and Janie grimaces in embarrassment. Tea Cake
acknowledges the embarrassment and makes a joke. He walks toward the door, saying that
he's "cut a hawg," and pretends to leave. He tells Janie that he deserves a pound of "knuckle
pudding," and Janie laughs and says that he deserves ten. Tea Cake sits back down with her
and they continue joking for the rest of the evening. He helps her close the store at the end of
the night, and Janie appreciates his help. Tea Cake walks Janie home. For a moment, Janie
questions Tea Cake's motives. But he quickly says goodnight and leaves.
Analysis:

This chapter is important because it introduces the third and final man in Janie's life: Tea
Cake. Hurston carefully draws contrasts between this new man and the departed Joe
Starks.
The first important difference between the men is Janie's degree of sexual attraction to each.
Janie loved Joe's ambition and his ability to dream, but she was never explicitly attracted to
him physically. However, Janie is physically attracted to Tea Cake and his archetypically
African-American features from the first moment that she sees him. She notices his "full
purple lips," she admires his "full lazy eyes," with his "lashes curling sharply like drawn
scimitars." She notices his "lean, over-padded shoulders" and his "narrow waist." Their
flirtatious banter is a different sort of discourse with men than Janie has ever enjoyed before.

Another important difference from Joe Starks is that Tea Cake wants Janie to be a part of her
community, to be like everyone else. Joe Starks always wanted Janie to stand out, to stand
above everyone else. Tea Cake tells Janie that she should be at the game enjoying the sports
with her neighbors. He tells Janie that she should learn to play checkers like the others,
something that Joe would never allow her to do. Tea Cake tells Janie that she should learn to
walk instead of relying on trains and cars.

There are many subtle allusions to their future relationship in this chapter. When Tea Cake
walks in and asks for a light for his cigarette, he asks Janie, "got a lil piece of fire over dere,
lady?" Literally, of course, this means that he needs to light his cigarette. Metaphorically, he
seems to recognize the "fire" that Janie has inside her. This symbol links back to chapter nine,
where the narrator compares the people of the world to mud balls with a spark inside them.
The narrator comments that Janie struggles to make her spark shine.

Chapter Eleven Summary:

Janie wants to ask Hezekiah about Tea Cake but decides not to. She rationalizes the reasons
that a relationship between them would not work. First, he is twenty-five and she is forty.
Plus, it's obvious that he does not have much money; she thinks that he is probably just being
nice to her so that he can have her cash. Janie prepares to snub Tea Cake the next time that
she sees him.

About a week after their first meeting, Tea Cake comes to the store pretending to play an
invisible guitar. Janie laughs at his playfulness. Tea Cake says it's time to drink some Cokes.
Janie tries to snub Tea Cake as she had planned; she tells Tea Cake that she has already had a
Coke. Tea Cake is unwilling to be snubbed; he replies that she will just have to drink another.

Janie asks how Tea Cake has been. Tea Cake tells her that he has been working hard and that
he has made some money. Janie sarcastically jokes that Tea Cake is now a "rich man." Tea
Cake is not about to be put down, so he plays along. He tells her that he can get Janie a
battleship or a passenger train; he'll get her whatever she wants because "it all depends on
her."

Tea Cake and Janie play checkers, and at the end of the evening Tea Cake comes over to
Janie's for a snack. Janie gets some pound cake and Tea Cake picks lemons from the tree and
makes lemonade. Tea Cake tells Janie that the moon is too beautiful not to enjoy it. He
suggests that they go fishing. Digging for worms by lamplight is so crazy that Janie feels like
a "child breaking the rules." They catch a few fish, and then they have to smuggle Tea Cake
out of the back gate so that Janie's neighbors won't gossip.
In the morning, Hezekiah tells Janie that she should not allow Tea Cake to walk her home;
people in the town will speculate that something is going on. Janie asks why Hezekiah is
concerned: is Tea Cake a thief? Is he married? Hezekiah responds no, but that Tea Cake does
not make money, or spend it. Janie is not concerned about that; she tells Hezekiah not to
worry.

At night, Tea Cake is waiting for Janie at her doorstep with a string of trout to eat. They have
dinner and then Tea Cake combs Janie's hair, scratching the dandruff from her scalp. Janie
asks why Tea Cake brought a comb. Tea Cake replies that he had been wanting to touch
Janie's hair for a long time; he has had trouble sleeping because he has been wanting to touch
her hair so badly. He tells Janie that she has beautiful hair, eyes, and lips. She lets others
enjoy her beauty but she should stare into the mirror sometimes and enjoy her own beauty.
Janie tells Tea Cake that he probably says that to all the women and Tea Cake says that that is
true: "I'm the apostle to the Gentiles; I tell them and then I show them."

Janie is upset; he seems to have confirmed her fear that he is a cold-hearted womanizer. She
tells Tea Cake that she is tired and ready to go to sleep. Tea Cake tells Janie that she's lying.
He realizes that he has upset her with what he has said and that she's making excuses to get
rid of him. Janie is cold; she says that he shouldn't care what she thinks, she is not his
girlfriend. Tea Cake tells Janie that he loves her; Janie is cold again, saying that those are his
"night" thoughts, and that in the morning he won't feel the same way.

Upset, Tea Cake hurriedly leaves. He cannot manage to convince her of his feelings. Janie
wakes up in the morning with someone knocking at her door and it is Tea Cake. He has come
to tell her that he loves her. These are not just "night" feelings. He loves her all the time,
morning and night. That night they have supper and sleep together. She asks Tea Cake about
the problem of their large age difference. He says that age is only a matter of convenience,
not love.

Tea Cake disappears for a few days and Janie begins to doubt his sincerity. But on the fourth
day, Tea Cake arrives in an old car. He has come to take her grocery shopping for the Sunday
picnic. He wants her to have all the best things to eat. Janie asks him if he is certain he wants
her to go to the picnic with him. He says that he has worked very hard for four days to make
enough money to buy good food for her. Janie says that she loves Tea Cake, too, but tells him
not to pretend to love her if he really doesn't. He says that God can kill him if he's lying; no
one can hold a candle to Janie.

Analysis:

This chapter is about love. It is the first chapter in the novel where the real issues surrounding
love are articulated: fear, doubt, sincerity, and sacrifice. Because this is the first time in the
novel that these issues emerge, the reader can conclude that her relationship with Tea Cake is
the first time that Janie has truly loved.

One of the most interesting images of the chapter is the battleship at the beginning. The
reader is reminded of the first image of the book: ships on the horizon. Somehow, Tea Cake
brings Janie closer to the horizon; he offers her battleships to sail to the horizon with. Tea
Cake is also the first man in Janie's life to love her hair. He caresses it, dreams about it, and
combs it. His feelings toward her hair are markedly different from Joe's feelings. Joe had tied
Janie's hair back in hair rags, prohibiting it from showing. The image of the gate reemerges as
well. Tea Cake comes through the gate to Janie. It is the first time that a man has come
through the gate to her, as opposed to her having to leave through a gate to find a man.
Another reoccurring image is the image of pear tree blossoms. Janie searches for the "bee for
her blossom" throughout the novel and is convinced that in Tea Cake she has found her
allusive bee.
Janie's identification with nature and the moon in the previous chapter is echoed by Tea Cake
in this chapter; it is he who suggests that the moon is too beautiful to waste and that they
spend the night fishing so as to be able to admire it. Tea Cake's affiliation with nature is an
indication of his compatibility with Janie. He has no possessions; when a prop is necessary
(like a guitar) he pretends to own it, showing independence from the material world. Tea
Cake woos Janie throughout the chapter by relying on nature for his gifts. He provides her,
for example, with fish that he catches and lemonade from lemons that he picks.

Importantly, too, the gifts that Tea Cake provides Janie with are all edible; literally, he feeds
her, and metaphorically, he nourishes her spirit. He provides her with Coke, lemonade, fish,
and, at the end of the chapter, a ride to a grocery story to buy food for the picnic. When Janie
decides to accept Tea Cake's love the evening that he is sleeping on her hammock on the
porch, her first words are, "I don't know about you, but I'm hongry." Food serves as a proxy
for the more difficult phrases of courtship and love.

In the chapter where Joe dies, Death is personified as a square-toed fiend. In this chapter, the
reader is introduced to a similarly personified monster: Doubt. "Doubt is the fiend from hell
especially provided for lovers." Hurston indicates that doubt and death are uncontrollable and
inevitable. We cannot blame Janie for the death of Joe, nor can we blame her for doubting
Tea Cake's love.

Chapter Twelve Summary:

After the town picnic, Janie's and Tea Cake's relationship becomes a public. The town
criticizes Janie for ceasing to mourn the death of her husband so soon and for taking up with
a man with no money or power.

One evening, Sam Watson asks Pheoby to talk to Janie about her relationship with Tea Cake
and warn her about making a mistake. Sam believes that Tea Cake is only spending money
on Janie now so that he can take all of her Janie's money later. Sam reminds Pheoby of poor
Ms. Tyler, a wealthy widow whose money was stolen by a man who pretended to love her.

Pheoby talks to Janie the next morning, asking her why she allows Tea Cake to take her to
places she used to never go to like baseball games, fishing ponds, and forests. Janie explains
that she never wanted to do the things that Joe deemed classy, but her former husband had
forced her to remove herself from public society. Pheoby also tells Janie that she should stop
wearing bright colors in public; it seems to everyone that she has stopped mourning for Joe
Starks too soon.

Janie explains that she has stopped grieving so why should she continue to mourn? Also, she
wears bright colors, specifically blue, because Tea Cake likes to see her in blue. Joe Starks
never picked a color that he liked to see her in.

Furthermore, Janie intends to marry Tea Cake, sell the store, and move out of town. Janie is
done with living a life of property and wealth, her "Grandma's way of life." She says, "Dis
ain't no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah
done lived Grandma's way, now Ah means tuh live mine." Her grandmother saw property-
owning as restricted to whites, so she valued it highly. But Janie lived her grandmother's
dream and almost died doing it: "Ah done nearly languished tuh death tuh death up dere. Ah
felt like de world wuz cryin' extry and Ah ain't even read the common news yet."

Janie tells Pheoby not to tell anyone about her upcoming marriage, not because she is
embarrased, but because she doesn't want to have deal with gossip in town. Pheoby says: "Ah
jus lak uh chicken. Chicken drink water, but he don't pee-pee" meaning that information
won't leak out of her into the public arena.
Pheoby warns Janie that she is taking a big chance by running off with Tea Cake, but Janie
tells Pheoby that it isn't really a big risk. Tea Cake has "taught [her the] maiden language all
over." He's bought her a blue satin wedding dress, and someday soon she'll put on the dress
and leave town to be married and start a new life.

Analysis:

This chapter is crucial because Janie finally recognizes in concrete terms the differences
between her grandmother's dream and her own dream. She develops the courage to look for
her own dream life, a life of love, although she is haunted by stories of women who were
misled by the illusion of love.

Some interesting irony, ambiguity, and understatement are found at the beginning of the
chapter. Details of Tea Cake's and Janie's relationship are laid out through the events of their
courtship:

"Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie
gone to Orlando to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance. Tea Cake making flower
beds in Janie's yard and seeding the garden for her. Chopping down that tree she never did
like by the dining room window. All those signs of possession."

This passage is interesting because the position of narration is ambiguous. Who believes that
these events of courtship are signs of possession? Is this Pheoby's thought? Is it the voice of
the community as a whole? Is it Janie's thought? Passages like this one are good examples of
free indirect discourse. One possible explanation is that it is the opinion of the community
that these different events in the courtship are "signs of possession." Ironically, however,
Janie would never perceive the events of her courtship as signs of Tea Cake's possession of
her. Since her voice permeates the narration, it seems like she is commenting, ironically, on
the community's perception of her affairs. However, it also unclear whether Tea Cake
possesses Janie, or Janie possesses Tea Cake.

Summary and Analysis of Chapters 13-16

Chapter Thirteen Summary:

Tea Cake writes a letter to Janie telling her to meet him in Jacksonville, Florida. So, one
morning, before the town wakes up, Janie gets in a train and rides to Tea Cake in her blue
satin wedding dress. She packs herself two hundred dollars but tells Tea Cake nothing about
this money. Janie is so happy "that she scares herself."

One week after they are married, Tea Cake wakes up in the morning and leaves before Janie
wakes up. Janie has breakfast with the landlady in their apartment. Janie does not worry too
much about where Tea Cake could be, until she realizes that the silk purse where she had
hidden the money has vanished. Janie, frantic, looks everywhere in her room for the money;
she hopes that it is lost in the room rather than having been "stolen" by Tea Cake. However,
Janie realizes the truth: Tea Cake has left without telling her where he was going, and he has
taken her money without asking.

Immediately, Janie thinks of the example of poor Ms. Annie Tyler. Annie Tyler was a
woman who lived in Eatonville; her husband died when she was fifty-two and she was left
with a large sum of insurance money and a house. Annie spent all her time cavorting with
younger men; one day a younger man named Who Flung began to court her. He moved into
her house and then convinced her to sell the house and move with him to Tampa. On the
second day of their life together in Tampa, Who Flung ran off with Annie's money, leaving
her destitute. Annie returned home penniless and with a broken heart.
Thoughts of Annie Tyler haunt Janie all night. Finally, Janie bucks up her spirits: even if Tea
Cake does abandon her as Who Flung abandoned Annie Tyler, Janie would never return to
Eatonville as a failure. She has twelve hundred dollars in the bank and she could live from
that if she needed to.

At dawn the next morning, Tea Cake returns, playing a guitar. Tea Cake knows that Janie
thinks that he had left with her money, never to return. But he tells her that she should never
feel that way. He tells Janie how much he loves her and that he would never leave her for
another woman. If he did leave her for another woman, he would only leave her for a woman
exactly like Janie.

Over breakfast, Tea Cake explains where he has been all night. In the morning, while getting
dressed for breakfast, he saw Janie's money. He took it and realized on the way to the fish
market that he had to spend the money. He had never felt like a millionaire before. Tea Cake
decided to spend the money buying a macaroni and chicken dinner for all his friends. He
buys a guitar and pays the ugly women who show up not to come into his party. He and his
friends feast all night long. One man tries to eat all the gizzards and livers, the best parts of
the chicken. Tea Cake fights with the man, breaks his teeth and leaves.

Janie is angry that Tea Cake didn't invite her to the party. Tea Cake explains that his friends
are all very ordinary and very rough. He wouldn't want Janie to think less of him by
association. Janie says that that is nonsense, and requests to always be invited in future.

Tea Cake tells Janie not to worry about the two hundred dollars. He plans to win it all back
gambling on Saturday. He tells Janie that he is one of the best gamblers in the world. Tea
Cake spends the whole week practicing rolling dice and shuffling cards. On Saturday he buys
a knife and some cards and goes off to gamble.

Around daybreak, Tea Cake arrives home, but he is badly cut and injured. He tells Janie that
he has won her two hundred dollars back and was going to come home earlier, but the other
gamblers wanted a chance to win their money back from him. He continued playing for a few
more hours and won all of their money. As he was leaving, one of the gamblers named
Double Ugly stabbed him with his razor; Tea Cake pulled out his knife and beat the man until
Double Ugly was scared and Tea Cake came home. Janie listens to the story while applying
iodine to Tea Cake's wounds and crying.

Tea Cake tells her not to cry because he has won lots of money. Janie counts it: three hundred
and twenty-two dollars. He tells Janie to take back her two hundred dollars and also tells her
that he will provide for her from now on. He says that she must rely on him, and his money
only, which Janie readily agrees to do.

Tea Cake says that when he recovers from the cuts he wants to head to the Muck down in the
Everglades because "folks don't do nothin' down dere but make money and fun and
foolishness."

Analysis:

In this chapter, the love between Janie and Tea Cake is tested for the first time, and they
reveal their true selves to one another. At the beginning of the chapter, Janie hides money in
her dress in case the relationship with Tea Cake does not work out. Her withholding of the
money, as per Phoebe's advice, suggests that Janie is not yet prepared to be totally vulnerable
and honest with Tea Cake. Tea Cake, too, holds back part of himself. He does not reveal his
real friends to Janie, thinking that she would dislike him once she knew them. By the end of
the chapter, however, Tea Cake and Janie finally are able to be more honest with one another.

The guitar is an important recurring motif. Tea Cake played an invisible guitar in his first
meeting with Janie; in this chapter he buys a real guitar. This draws yet another contrast with
Joe. Joe used his loud and demeaning voice to dominate people; Tea Cake uses the more
subtle tool of music.

The story of Annie Tyler reiterates a moral of Their Eyes, which is that when people try to
make themselves into something that they are not, they end up unhappy. When Tyler runs
away with a younger man, the "improvements" to her appearance are an effort on her part to
look and behave like a white woman. For example, Annie "dyed her hair," "straightened it,"
and wore "blotchy powder." All the characters who are miserable in the novel have "white"
values: they are driven by money and power and make themselves look unnatural.

Chapter Fourteen Summary:

Janie and Tea Cake move to the Everglades, very near Lake Okechobee. They arrive in early
September to ensure that they can find a house, because when the bean-picking season
begins, the boarding houses will be too full to even find floor space to sleep on.

Once the season begins, Tea Cake spends his day picking beans while Janie tends the house.
Although Tea Cake spends a lot of free time entertaining Janie with his guitar, there still is
not much for her to do. So Tea Cake teaches Janie how to hunt and fish. Thanks to Tea
Cake's encouragement, Janie becomes an exceptional hunter, better even than her husband.

At night the pianos "clang and clamor." People sing the blues and "dance, fight, sing, cry,
laugh, win and lose love." Tea Cake's house becomes the center of social life. People come to
hear him play the guitar and laugh at his stories. Tea Cake starts visiting Janie during the day.
One day, Janie asks why. He tells her that he misses her too much to be away all day long. He
asks her to come out to the field to work with him and she does.

At night, the men have discussions and arguments, just as they used to on the porch in
Eatonville. Only here, Janie can "listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wants to.
She [gets] so she can tell big stories herself from listening to the rest." Some of the men
gamble: namely, Ed Dockery, Bootyny, and Sop-de-Bottom. One night, after a nerve-racking
game, Ed Dockery wins a pile of money. He tells the others that he is sending the money
straight to Sears and Roebuck to buy clothes. He says, "And when I turn over Christmas day,
it would take a doctor to tell me how near Ah is dressed tuh death."

Analysis:

When Janie comes to the Everglades, she learns to fully appreciate black culture. She sees
that impoverished men and women can manage to find true joy and love in the black, itchy
Muck of the Everglades. Hurston, in this chapter, reconciles two extreme contrasts. First, she
describes the depth of destitution of the blacks converging on the 'Glades: "Day by day now,
hordes of workers poured in. Some came limping with their shoes and sore feet from
walking... They came in wagons from up in Georgia and they come in truckloads from east,
west, north and south. Permanent transients with no attachments and tired looking men with
their families and dogs in flivvers. Skillets, beds, patched up spare inner tubes all hanging and
dangling from the ancient cars on the outside and hopeful humanity, herded and hovered on
the inside, chugging on to the muck. People ugly from ignorance and broken from being
poor."
Then, Hurston describes vividly their joie de vivre: she describes pianos playing all night
long; she describes people singing and dancing and gambling. These contrasting images
placed together articulate in picaresque form the great accomplishment of black culture at the
time: their transcendence above poverty and destitution through a reliance on music,
conversation, play, and love.

This chapter contains heavy foreshadowing of the flood to come. Hurston describes
Okechobee as "Big" several times and then writes: "they rattled nine miles in a borrowed car
to the quarters and squatted so close that only the dyke separated them from the great,
sprawling Okechobee."

One difference between Janie's marriages is that Tea Cake is the leader of his community just
as Joe was the leader of his. However, Tea Cake's leadership is not oppressive. He leads the
other workers' laughter and encourages them to play in the fields. Instead of using a "big
voice" to oppress, he entertains with his guitar and his good humor.

Chapter Fifteen Summary:

A little, chunky girl named Nunkie begins to flirt with Tea Cake, tapping on his shoulder
and then running into the fields hoping that he will chase her. Sometimes he does. Janie is
worried that Nunkie is weakening Tea Cake's loyalty to her.
One day, Janie leaves Tea Cake's side to chat with another woman. When she looks back, Tea
Cake and Nunkie have disappeared. Janie runs into a row of sugar cane and finds them on the
floor struggling. Janie tries to grab Nunkie but she runs off. She asks Tea Cake what he is
doing, and Tea Cake says that Nunkie took his working tickets and he had to fight with her to
get them back. Janie goes home.

Tea Cake follows her home, and Janie slaps him. They fight for a while, shouting and
struggling, but they make up and have sex. When they wake up, Janie asks if Tea Cake loves
Nunkie. Tea Cake says he never loved Nunkie. He tells Janie that no one can compare to her.
He describes his wife as "something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die."

Analysis:

Rather than focusing on black culture as many of the other chapters do, this chapter deals
with the more universal theme of feminine jealousy. Janie's fear and anger regarding Tea
Cake's possible affair are feelings that every woman past and present can relate to. Janie's
loving relationship with Tea Cake is reinforced yet again by his unwillingness to look at other
women.

Chapter Sixteen Summary:

The season of bean-picking ends and Janie begins to notice parts of her community that she
had been too busy to notice before. She notices Bahaman drummers and she and Tea Cake
spend evenings together enjoying their music.

Janie also gets to know Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner is a mixed-race woman. Her skin is
"milky," her nose is "slightly pointed," her lips are thin, and her bottom is small. Mrs. Turner
does not understand why Janie associates with black people or why she married a man as
dark as Tea Cake. Mrs. Turner feels that women like herself and Janie that are partly white
should try to "lighten the race" by only associating and marrying people that have a light skin
color. Janie laughs at Mrs. Turner's ideas and tells her that Tea Cake is a wonderful man: "He
kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull."
Mrs. Turner continues to show her disdain for black people; she does not understand why
blacks laugh so much and so loudly. She tells Janie that she thinks that the black race is
dragging down people like herself. If the blacks were not there, white people would embrace
mixed race people and include them in their culture. She tells Janie that she never shops at
black shops; she thinks that blacks have no business sense. Then, Mrs. Turner tells Janie that
she would be better off married to another, lighter man, particularly Turner's brother.

Finally, after some time, Mrs. Turner leaves. Janie goes into the kitchen and finds Tea Cake
sitting with his head in his hands. Tea Cake overheard the entire conversation. He tells Janie
that if Mrs. Turner hates black people so much, she should stay away from him and Janie. He
tells Janie that he is going to tell Mrs. Turner's husband to keep Mrs. Turner away from their
house.

Then one day, Tea Cake runs into Mr. Turner and his son on the street. Tea Cake wanted to
instruct Turner to keep Mrs. Turner away from his home, but Mr. Turner was such a weak
man that Tea Cake realizes Turner would not be able to prevent Mrs. Turner from doing
anything. So Tea Cake tells Janie to snub Mrs. Turner every time she sees her.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Turner believed that Janie had the right to snub her because she had
lighter skin. Her continued presence didn't bother Tea Cake and Janie that much because it
gave them something to talk about during the dull summer months on the Muck. Sometimes
they would make day little trips to the beach to pass the time; but soon enough the summer
months were over and droves of people returned to the muck to do the picking.

Analysis:

Some critics rebuke Hurston for not infusing her literature with protests against racism and
hatred. This chapter tends to refute that type of argument. Instead of writing "angry" literature
to support black culture, Hurston's Their Eyes is a celebration of black culture, black music,
and the black oral tradition.

In this chapter, Janie must defend black culture, interestingly, to another black woman. Mrs.
Turner is a weak, ugly woman who takes pride only in her white characteristics and has
distaste for her black characteristics. Turner ridicules blacks for laughing too much, for
"whooping and hollering," for wearing bright colors, and for being poor. But Janie defends
her black culture through her lifestyle choice. She marries Tea Cake and comes to the Muck
to work and live and learn. Unlike her contemporaries who wrote about black rights in "white
prose," Hurston supports the language and life of her people by writing in their dialect.

One important contrast in this chapter is the difference between the "white" and "black"
perceptions of God. Mrs. Turner embraces the white perception of a cruel and uncaring God.
She thinks, "All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without
reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped." Later in the novel, the reader is shown a
clearer explanation of the traditional black perception of God. So far the reader has not seen
God characterized specifically. Death is separated from God by Janie, and thus the cruelty
that Mrs. Turner identifies with God would probably not be identified with Janie's God.

Summary and Analysis of Chapters 17-20

Chapter Seventeen Summary:

Many people return to live on the Muck after the summer. Some of the people are familiar
from the previous year and some people are brand new. Mrs. Turner brings her brother to
town to introduce him to Janie. Tea Cake whips Janie to show Mrs. Turner's brother that he
has full control over Janie. "Being able to whip her reassured him in posession. No brutal
beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss. Everybody talked about
it next day in the fields. It aroused a sort of envy in both men and women."
Other men are envious of Tea Cake's ability to hit Janie and leave marks on her skin. Because
her skin is fairer than other blacks, her bruises are much more obvious. Women are jealous of
the caring that her husband shows her afterward, worrying that he has killed her after a few
slaps.

Tea Cake tells Sop-de-Bottom that Mrs. Turner hates blacks. Sop-de-Bottom tells Tea Cake
that he thinks that they should throw rocks at her restaurant. Tea Cake agrees that they must
find a way to drive her out of the city. Saturday afternoon rolls around and everyone gets paid
and uses their money to get drunk. The men goes to Mrs. Turner's restaurant, telling her that
she has the best beef stew in town. When the waitress brings Coodemay's dinner to him,
Coodemay refuses to take it off the tray. Instead, he tells the waitress to stand there with the
food on the tray and allow him to eat off it. He says that this is fair because the restaurant has
run out of chairs and it would be very difficult to eat without having the waitress hold his
plate. Then, Coodemay tries to take Sop-de-Bottom's chair. They begin fighting. Tea Cake
steps into the fight ostensibly on Mrs. Turner's behalf saying that "she is too nice a woman"
to have people destroying her restaurant. Once the restaurant is thoroughly destroyed by the
brawl, the men cheerfully stop fighting, apologize to each other and go off to another bar.

Mrs. Turner yells at her cowardly husband for not standing up to the men. Mr. Turner sits
calmly in his chair, smoking a pipe. Mrs. Turner begins hitting him, exclaiming that had her
son and brother been in the restaurant during the fight, they would have stopped the ruckus.
What she does not know is that her brother and son had in fact been at the restaurant. When
they saw that there was trouble, they ran away to Palm Beach. Mrs. Turner decides to leave
the Everglades and go to Miami "where people are civilized."

Monday morning, Sterrett and Coodemay come to the restaurant to apologize to Mrs. Turner.
They give her five dollars each for the damage.

Analysis:

This chapter focuses on Tea Cake and the "black" perspective. In the previous chapter,
Hurston exalted the black spirit, culture and way of life. In this chapter she explores some of
the more questionable actions of her people.

The chapter begins with understatement. Hurston explains in a brief, emotionless fashion the
brutality with which Tea Cake beats Janie. He beats her in order to show another man his
power. Hurston's understatement of this poor logic is designed to make the reader angry and
upset at Janie's predicament as a woman in black society.

Although she has been liberated through Tea Cake by her introduction into real black society,
Janie is still oppressed as a woman in black society. Although she is not a mule (as she was
when she was Logan's wife) or a glittery showpiece (as she was with Joe Starks) she is
still oppressed.
Hurston successfully labels Mrs. Turner and her ilk as cowards. Mr. Turner does nothing
during the fight and her son and brother do not even enter the restaurant when there are signs
of trouble. Through the Turners, Hurston comments on all the "Turn...er's" of black society:
African-Americans who "turn" against their own when the going gets tough are cowardly,
infertile, ugly, miserable people.

Chapter Eighteen Summary:

Tea Cake's and Janie's friendship with the Bahaman musicians grows. Soon, every night there
is traditional African dancing around a fire behind Tea Cake's house.

One afternoon, Janie sees Seminole Indians passing through town heading east. They warn
her that a hurricane is coming. Nobody believes that there can possibly be anything wrong.
After all, the bean-picking season is going well, and everyone is making huge amounts of
money.

The weather becomes very still, and the animals leave. The snakes, possums and rabbits all
hurry east to Palm Beach. Some people get scared and leave, including the Bahamans leave.
One Bahaman boy, Lias, encourages Tea Cake to come with him, but Tea Cake is resolute
about staying in the Everglades. He responds that the "Indians don't know much uh nothin',
tuh tell de truth. Else dey'd own dis country still. De white folks ain't gone nowhere." Lias
tells Tea Cake that he will wish he had left when the hurricane comes.

That night, everyone collects at Tea Cake's house. Everyone has a wonderful evening
gambling and joking. The weather starts to get worse and everyone but Motor Boat leaves
to go home. As the whole world starts to rumble, Janie, Tea Cake and Motor Boat look
fearfully at the rumbling door. "Six eyes were questioning God."
Tea Cake asks Janie if she wishes that she had never come with him to the Everglades. But
Janie says that before she had met Tea Cake she had been fumbling around. "God opened the
door" and brought her Tea Cake. The lights go out and the three stare into the darkness.
"They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Tea Cake and Janie decide to find a car to take them out of the storm. They wake up Motor
Boat and the three trudge through the storm. The dam on the lake breaks and the water rushes
behind them, dangerously high. The three find a tall house on high land. Motor decides to
stay in the house; he thinks it is safe. Janie and Tea Cake continue on. Tea Cake shouts to
help a passerby escape a snake; afterwards he is breathless. Janie sees a piece of roof sailing
in the wind. As she grabs it, it lifts her off the ground. She flies through the air and falls into
the water. She is starting to drown when Tea Cake instructs her to swim toward a large cow
with a dog standing on it. Janie grabs the cow's tail and the dog starts barking at her.

Tea Cake swims into the water to rescue her and the dog bites him on the face. Afterward,
Janie and Tea Cake walk to safety. Janie tells Tea Cake they should find a doctor for his dog
bite, but Tea Cake says he is fine. They find a place to rest and recover.

Analysis:

Tea Cake's death is heavily foreshadowed in this chapter. At the beginning of the chapter, he
is compared to John the Conqueror, who went to heaven playing a guitar and then went to
Hell and gave water to all the sufferers. The reader knows that Tea Cake's death will come
soon.

This chapter emphasizes the wisdom of people who watch nature and God. The Indians
realize first that the hurricane is coming, but Tea Cake dismisses them in a stereotypical
anglocentric capitalist manner. He believes that the Indians are wrong because they have
"always been wrong." Why else would they have lost their land? Tea Cake does not realize
that he too at last has become too dependent on money. He does not want to leave because he
does not want to lose any potential earnings. Hurston is commenting that American blacks
are too far removed from their roots and the need to watch God and the messages he sends
them. The people who are closest to nature (the Indians and the Bahamans) understand God's
ways and signals. The blacks and the whites are removed from perceiving God because they
are too concerned about money.
Only when God's fury and power are literally knocking down their front door do Tea Cake
and Janie "watch God."

Chapter Nineteen Summary:

Death, personified again as the man with square toes that lives in a house with no sides (so
that he can see all the mortals of the earth) returns to his house. This means that the time for
death is over and it is time to bury the dead.

Janie and Tea Cake are not certain where to go next. Tea Cake decides to head into town to
see if he can hear any news about his friends in the Everglades. Janie warns Tea Cake not to
go into the city because the Red Cross is pressing men into service burying the dead. Tea
Cake tells Janie that because he has money, the Red Cross people will not bother him.
Unfortunately, he is wrong. As soon as Tea Cake wanders into the city, he is approached by
two white men with rifles who call him "Jim" and enlist him to bury the dead. Tea Cake
resists their command, saying that he has just survived the storm himself. But they point their
rifles at him and tell him that if does not help, he will be dead soon.

Tea Cake helps bury the dead from the storm. The Red Cross orders the workers to separate
the blacks from the whites when they are dumping the bodies in the cemetery. All of the
whites will be put in coffins, while the blacks will be dumped in a mass grave. Since the
bodies are so mangled, it is difficult to tell black from white. So the workers are instructed to
use the hair as a guide. Tea Cake remarks, "Look lak dey think God don't know nothin' 'bout
de Jim Crow law."

Time passes and Tea Cake realizes that Janie must be worried. He escapes when the truck
leaves to unload the bodies. Although he is almost shot, he runs home and finds Janie. Tea
Cake tells her that they should leave, but Janie thinks that it is safer to stay put. Tea Cake is
adamant that they should leave. They are in danger because they are strangers and white
people don't like "strange niggers." Janie laughs. She says: "De ones de white man know is
nice colored folks. De ones he don't know is bad niggers."

They return to the Everglades and find Sop-de-Bottom, 'Lias, Coodemay, Bootyny and Motor
Boat. Motor Boat stayed safely in the house after Janie and Tea Cake had left. Sterrett,
another friend, died in the flood. Tea Cake finds work cleaning up after the storm. He buys a
new pistol and a new rifle and he and Janie practice shooting. Janie is a better shot than Tea
Cake.

Tea Cake wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like someone is strangling him in his
sleep. He tries to drink water but it chokes him. In the morning, Janie is worried and calls
Doctor Simmons. She tells him that Tea Cake was bit by a dog one month ago in the storm.
Doctor Simmons tells her that Tea Cake has rabies and will die. He will try to fetch an
antidote for Tea Cake, but it is probably useless because the disease has had so much time to
progress.

No serum is available in Palm Beach; Simmons calls Miami and they say that it will be
delivered the next morning. Meanwhile, Simmons instructs Janie not to sleep with Tea Cake
since he might bite her and give her rabies as well.

Tea Cake falls into a jealous rage when he finds out that Mrs. Turner's brother is back in the
Everglades. He asks Janie why she left the house without telling him; is she interested in
Turner? Janie tells him that he is sick and that he is taking everything the wrong way; she is
not interested in Turner at all. In the morning, Janie sees that Tea Cake is holding a pistol
underneath the pillow; he is ready to kill her. When Tea Cake goes to the outhouse, Janie
rushes to see if the pistol is loaded and it is. There are three bullets inside. She whirls the
cylinder so that the pistol will not fire on the first three pulls of the trigger; at least she will a
warning if Tea Cake shoots. She loads the rifle and makes sure that she can grab it if she
needs it.

When Tea Cake comes back from the outhouse, he has a strange loping gait and a clenched
jaw. He believes that Janie is not sleeping with him because she is interested in Turner. He
grabs the pistol and aims it at Janie. He fires three shots, all blanks. Janie grabs the rifle, and
they both fire at each other at the same time. The rifle is slightly faster, and Tea Cake falls to
the ground, biting Janie's forearm.

Janie falls to the floor with him, weeping. She whispers her love to him and he dies. Janie is
arrested for murder, put in jail, and tried in court. All of her black friends believe she is at
fault for Tea Cake's death and want her to go to prison. Simmons explains her case to the jury
and she is not convicted of murder. She is set free.

Janie arranges a beautiful funeral for Tea Cake in Palm Beach. She explains to Sop and the
other friends that she knows that they were not trying to hurt her. They loved Tea Cake and
just didn't understand what had happened. Sop and the friends all apologize.

Analysis:

This chapter presents the climax of the novel: Janie and Tea Cake's shoot-out. Tea Cake
taught Janie how to shoot a gun, and, in a tragically ironic twist, Janie ends up using this skill
to kill Tea Cake.

This chapter is full of social commentary. After the flood, Tea Cake is forced to seperate the
victims by race before burying them. Hurston suggests how absurd racial prejudices are by
showing how far they extend. Tea Cake's commentary is Hurston's own political viewpoint:
he says, "Look lak dey think God don't know nothin' 'bout de Jim Crow law."

The Jim Crow laws were the laws that existed in state constitutions from 1880s through the
1960s that guaranteed the equality of people through "separate but equal treatment." Tea
Cake comments that giving whites coffins and blacks a mass grave is unequal treatment.

In addition to her hair, a new symbol of Janie's identity is her overalls. She wears overalls to
the funeral: "She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief."
She also wears them home to Eatonville when she returns.

Janie's voice is used more rarely in this chapter than usual. In certain scenes, for example the
court scene, Janie's voice is entirely absent from the narration. Some critics have argued that
places where the reader hears Janie's voice indicate places where Janie has power. In the
court scene, the fact that Janie does not have power is reinforced by the fact that her voice
does not mediate what is happening. Thus, critics argue, Janie fails in her quest to find her
voice, because when it really matters most she is unable to speak out in her own defense.

Other critics, particularly Alice Walker, take an opposite line of reasoning: a woman who has
a voice has power and may choose when to use her voice and when to keep silent. Walker
argued that Janie has power in the final scene; she chooses not to use her voice because she
knows that it would not help her.

Chapter Twenty Summary:

After the funeral, Janie's friends on the Muck blame Mrs. Turner's brother for Tea Cake's
death and force him off the Muck again. After two days, they forget about ever having been
angry at Janie; remembering is "too much of a strain." Janie remains for a few weeks, but the
Muck reminds her too much of Tea Cake. She gives away all of her belongings, except a
package of seeds that Tea Cake had been planning to plant before he fell ill.

The narration returns to the porch where it began in the first chapter. Back on the porch of her
old home in Eatonville with Pheoby, Janie takes her feet out of the pan of water and dries
them. She says that she is happy to be home and that the house does not seem so empty as it
used to be, because it is now filled with her thoughts and memories. She has been to the
horizon and back; she knows now that, "you got tuh go there tuh know there...Two things
everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out
about livin' fuh theyselves." Janie tells Pheoby to explain her story to the townspeople;
perhaps they will learn a little about love from her experiences.

After a long hug, Pheoby leaves. Janie climbs the stairs to her bedroom with her nightlamp.
Shutting the window and brushing her hair, she remembers the day of the shooting and the
trial. She sees visions of Tea Cake all around her. Tea Cake is not dead; while Janie is living,
he will live on in her memory. Janie finally finds peace; she pulls in the horizon like a great
net and drapes it over her shoulders. "So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to
come and see."

Analysis:

This chapter is the resolution of the novel and of Janie's development. She has seen the
horizon and taken control of it; the horizon is no longer some strange faraway source of
inspiration. Janie owns the horizon; she can wrap it around herself and rejoice in the
memories that have been trapped in it like fish in a net.

The theme of the novel is summarized by Janie in three sentences: "you got tuh go there tuh
know there...Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and
they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." These sentences empower direct action by
all people, women and men alike. Janie has found that she must live for herself in order to be
self-fulfilled.

More difficult to understand, perhaps, is the theme of "going to God" or "watching God."
Why would Janie recommend that all people find God? Janie's recommendation is not
synonymous with the traditional Christian understanding of finding God. Janie "finds God" in
the hurricane. The might and fury of the storm causes Janie and her friends to seek a larger
meaning behind the storm. They watch God to try to glimpse a meaning behind nature's fury,
nature's creation, and their own destinies.

Part of the Harlem Renaissance?

The time in which it was written, along with the fact that Hurston had lived in New York City
caused many to label the book as a product of the Harlem Renaissance. This was a period
from the end of World War I through the middle of the Great Depression during which a
group of talented African-American writers produced a body of poetry, fiction, drama, and
essays. One of the quintessential themes of the Harlem Renaissance was the notion of
"twoness," a divided awareness of one's identity. The major proponent of this notion was
W.E.B. DuBois, one of the founders of the NAACP. He argues in the Souls of Black Folks
that blacks can always sense their twoness: "American and Negro, two souls, two thoughts,
two unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone
keeps it from being torn asunder." Twoness is a subtle theme in the novel, but is exemplified
by Janie's divided feelings over Logan as an ideal husband in her Grandmother's slave
mentality but as far from her own ideal man.
Other common themes of the Harlem Renaissance were alienation, the use of folk material,
and the use of the blues tradition. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement across every
form of art, from literature to jazz to painting to drama.

Despite the fact that she wrote in a particular era and geographical area, Hurston held
political views that were quite different from other Harlem Renaissance writers. Unlike
communist-sympathizers like Langston Hughes, Hurston supported the Back to Africa
movement led by Marcus Garvey. Hurston's writings were, in some ways, fostered by the
Harlem Renaissance but they extended far beyond its themes and political agenda. Part of
what makes Their Eyes an exceptional book, is that it extends beyond the themes fashionable
among a decade's literati.