The conclusion of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston took me by surprise. To begin with, I was completely shocked and confused when Tea Cake beat Janie. Obviously Tea Cake beat Janie to show his control and claim his domination over her. However, what struck me as bizarre was how Janie acted so passive about the situation. The entire beating, Janie did not say a word, she simply went along with it.
Throughout the novel Janie has been struggling to find her own voice. When she was with Jody, she never opened her mouth or spoke up for herself. Janie's silence with Jody symbolized his power and her weakness. As she quickly discovered with Tea Cake she was allowed to voice her own opinions and speak whenever she pleased. Perhaps this moment of silence from Janie signifies her strength, and her ability to sacrifice her own body to satisfy Tea Cakes need for power. It appears as if Janie was able to forget about the negative effects of domestic violence because she feels complete elation when she is with Tea Cake.
Although I understand how in love Janie is with Tea Cake I can not seem to get over how she could just brush this incident off. Personally, I can not even imagine how awful this must have been for her to go through. The entire act disgusts me. However, during the time this novel was written I suppose it was common for men to beat their wives.
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5 comments:
i think Hurston is a great speaker for women's rights. I too was shocked to find out that Tea Cake beat Janie. I do think that he did it because he was intimedated by his wife. She had more money, and more money ment more control.
Janie was silent I think more because of shock. I think in that situation, when you love somebody so much, you are shocked that they would ever want to hurt you.
I myself would never forgive a man, if that would have happend to me. Luckily Janie, ended up on the stronger end.
What struck me most about the section where Tea Cake explains why he beat Janie was when he told a friend he did not hit her because she did something wrong, only to show the Turner’s that Janie was his girl. It seems that Janie goes along with the treatment because she recognizes it is part of Tea Cake’s masculinity? Perhaps becomes she remembers how much her comments hurt Jody. Or, maybe it symbolizes the convention role for women at the time. It is if Janie and everyone else accepts such obviously backward thinking because it is simply what must be done, and that in some odd way it shows how much Tea Cake loves Janie. I think we’d hear something like that today on Oprah or Dr. Phil when they do a program on abused women.
I was also shocked when Tea Cake beat Janie. This was completely out of character for Tea Cake. I think that if he was not under the pressure of the community to show them that he had control and dominance over Janie, he would have never done something like that to her. In all of his other actions Tea Cake showed nothing but respect and consideration for Janie. He valued her strength and independence. However, I understand that it was completely accepted in society for men to beat women at this time but I just did not expect this from Tea Cake.
I think that even though tea ckae hit her he was still the best out the three husbadns that she had.I think that tea ckae had a good heart and loved her. he let her speak her mind and i think that was the most importatn part of her life that she was missing adn if she didnt get with him she wouldnt have been able to do that with pretty much most of the men at this time period. i was mad that he hit her but still liked him as her best husband.
I think the end of Hurston's novel has been a surprise for everyone. It seems to me a common topic in blogs. I too was shocked and confused when Tea Cake beat Janie. In fact I'm still confused about this. I don't understand why it happened. I still don't think this was at bad as the other two men that Janie was with. I guess it's just a difference in time periods.
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