Janie will regret this decision

At least their relationship is still equal. Jealousies on both sides.

Janie hated Nanny for turning the horizon into a noose around her neck, and she spent her whole life trying to reach it. Now she’s finally caught it.

Both the dog and Tea Cake had rabies when they attacked her, but Tea Cake saved Janie the first time. Now she has to be self-reliant, showing her independence

Rabies actually does make you both crazy and violent. It also does cause hydrophobia (why Tea Cake spit out the water) so victims are also at risk of dehydrating and dying. The irony is there was a cure at the time, and had Tea Cake gotten the shots right after being bitten, he could’ve been saved.

It’s ironic that Tea Cake empowering Janie by teaching her to shoot ended up being the cause of his death. Also interesting that Janie is often said to be the better shot, and she hits her mark while Tea Cake misses

The hurricane and lake destroying Tea Cake’s life with Janie is almost the opposite of the pear tree- both are images of nature, but with polar opposite meanings. Maybe it’s foreshadowing how the relationship will end?

english to dialect to show the heightened emotional state of Janie

way Janie heard it, is focused more on the wrongness and shame of what Annie did than what Annie sought. She is reduced, like many women, to other’s judgement of her. She has no voice, no way to speak for herself or what her life was missing. Janie fears being left, yes, but I think she also fears being silenced again for she has been silent for so long.

not intelligent, in fact quite the opposite. These characters are deeply complicated and Hurston still choosing to use eye dialect is, to be, a subversion of how people view those who speak in dialect (like our characters). Hurston is asserting that, despite our assumptions based on the dialect, these characters have rich inner lives. This is also asserted by the contrast between the narrator and the dialogue. Because of the more ‘formal’ English of the narrator, we understand the complexity of Janie’s inner world. To the world of story, however, Janie’s dialogue is informal and alone does not clue the reader into the intricacies of her mind. Hurston is reminding readers to check their biases i think :)

Is that actually how rabies make you act? I thought that you just got and infection and got really sick? I don’t know if Hurston is just exaggerating here or they didn’t know what the effects were back then but that’s a little crazy that you go insane and try to bite other people.