Even though Tea Cake was poor and much younger, Janie decided to marry him, thus beginning her first marriage of love (The Concept of Love and Marriage in Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes Were Watching God). Janie had grown to trust Tea Cake and love him, something she had never had done
While with Logan she didn’t have feelings for him and all and didn’t even try to show it. With Joe, she liked him at first, but her affection and openness decreased drastically throughout their marriage. With Tea Cake on the other hand, we see her express love and gratitude a few different times. “But you come ‘long and made somethin’ outa me. So Ah’m thankful fuh anything we come through together.” (pg 167).
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their eyes were watching God the main character Janie is on a quest for self-fulfillment. Of Janie’s three marriages, Logan and Joe provide her with a sense of security and status. However, only her union with Teacake flourishes into true love. Janie’s first marriage to Logan Killicks was an arranged marriage by her Grandmother Nanny. One day Nanny caught Janie kissing the neighborhood riff raff Johnny Taylor, and Nanny becomes convinced that Janie has entered her womanhood, and needs to marry.
While conversing with the naive Janie, Nanny declares, “Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (15). By referring to Janie as “baby,” Hurston utilizes a childish connotation to exaggerate Janie’s ignorance of marriage. Preparing for the potentially disastrous future, Nanny impregnates security as a top priority for Janie instilling that a prudent marriage will lead to love. Accommodating to her grandmother’s desires, Janie marries Logan. Through this union, Janie assumes an emotional attraction will coincide; however, Janie’s perception of love depreciates as Nanny equates affection to material wealth explaining how Logan “got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road... Dis
God 's love is not easily angered. He has much patience and grace for all of us. Gods keeps no record of wrongs we do. He is a true forgiver and holds no grudges against us. God’s love does not delight in wicked ways but celebrates with the truth and it always safeguards, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
TeaCake makes no promises to Janie and has nothing to offer her except his love, making him different from his previous counterparts who promised to meet her every want and need but fails extremely short of their goal. Janie has low expectations for the relationship, and is proven mistaken when he gives her what she truly desires. TeaCake 's loving fidelity and simple but true love for her is a relief to Janie after her previous marriage confinements. She feels completely free to do as she pleases without losing her feelings of love as she did in her relationships with Joe and Logan. As Janie and Tea Cake bond, Janie sees that TeaCake, a younger man with no richness, knows, accepts, and values her as no one else has ever done.
Logan forces silence from Janie which becomes an oppressor; Joe exploits Janie’s silence and uses it as a manipulator; and Janie’s only true love, Tea Cake, allows Janie to control silence, which becomes her liberator. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, silence is manifest as an evolving source of empowerment and identity for Janie, in that her character is molded not only by her speech but, more importantly, by her silence. In Janie’s journey to find herself, she initially has limited control of her own life, being forced into marriage by Nanny. Nanny wants what she feels is best for Janie, wishing for her to have security and protection. This marriage provides the perfect solution in Nanny’s eyes; Nanny promises Janie that all will go well with her marriage even though it may not seem so at the time.
In addition to being wise, Janie is a courageous woman who never fears regardless of the situation. Janie displays her first act of courage by telling her husband, “ah’m just as stiff as you is stout. If you can stand to chop and tote wood Ah reckon you can ... ... middle of paper ... ... her first orgasm and she thinks she might have found her true love. She fears for a while that it would end up like her other relationships: “If only Tea Cake would make her certain!” (Hurston 108). She finally accepts the love when, “After a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake mount to the sky on a wind.
Her marriage to Joe quickly became monotonous, and soon enough, Joe died of kidney failure. Later in the novel, Janie meets a poor, young and lovable man named Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods. Tea Cake surpasses her ideal of love. Janie’s view on love did not change throughout the course of the novel; instead her first two marriages engrained her wishes and desires further; all of which were fulfilled in her marriage to Tea Cake. Janie’s relationship with Logan was exactly the opposite of her ideal type of relationship; not only did he treat her as if she was worthless because she refused to work for him, but the overall marriage was totally devoid... ... middle of paper ... ...t a bloom clearly is an underdeveloped blossom, hinting that Janie’s concept of love might have evolved.
While thinking about her marriage to Logan Killicks, Janie thinks “finally out of Nanny’s talk and her own conjectures she made a sort of comfort for herself. Yes, she would love Logan after they were married” (Hurston 23). Janie allows her grandmother to place into a marriage with a man that she has to learn to love after the fact. The conflict within Janie’s mind forces Janie into marriages which are destructive but also give Janie the opportunity to learn from her mistakes. Janie learns and grows throughout her three