THIS IS MY THIRD TIME TYPING THIS. it won’t save but if there’s more than one not my fault. Anyway we already know that this relationship is going to end badly, because of the beginning. But is Tea Cake going ot cheat on Janie or are they just going to have a falling out.

at least Janie didn’t have to run away and Tea Cake Died.

I agree the author also uses the terms shanties to further the comparison to escaping a storm in a ship or something

It seems as if they are both questioning god and watching to see if he is going to do somethings

It seems as if Tea Cake has finally shown his true colors and janie is going to have to run away again

probably getting beat by Krystal

but bitterly sulks at it now

The baby rabbit appears to act as a symbol of Janie. Not only does it show her fear in regards to the storm, but it shows how she felt hidden and unloved/unwanted in the past. This is especially interesting as (despite his many issues) Tea Cake does not make Janie feel unloved or unwanted during the storm, while her other husbands most likely would have.

That may just be the headline for this novel because wow. I think Hurston was tired of men at this point and was basically like ‘do I have to spell it out for you?’ Janie does all of these things for Tea Cake and now SHE, not Tea Cake, is the one being penalized by the plot gods.

I think it’s super interesting Janie’s attitude toward Nature’s role because as you mention nature is unavoidable but Janie has spent this whole book talking about Nature in a way that suggests she has influence over it, not the other way around. It’s one of the Hurston full circle gotcha moments that is insanely prevalent throughout this book.

As I read it, I was thinking: are these two words even that different? Watching is to be wary or at least taking note of and I think that is the heart of questioning. Especially in this intense moment, the fear they have is so close to expectation that they’re almost inextricably connected. I also found a couple of definitions that were nearly identical for the two words.

I love the ancestral religious idea presented here. These people are presented as different but their skin color, their heritage is a commonality for them.

It’s WILD to me, reading this from the comforts of being in the 2000s (and as a man), that the treatment of these women – plural because we can see the other husbands’ reactions – is so normal. It’s like Tea Cake and Janie are becoming ‘othered’ not like how Jody and Janie were with the spit cups and house but by how Tea Cake hits her. And now she doesn’t even “holler” for the rest of the chapter by not speaking…at all. JANIE IS SILENCED I GREATLY ABHOR YOUR WORK HURSTON

The inclusion of “this time” is so telling. Throughout Tea Cake’s time as a love interest, he was constantly compared and contrasted with Joe. Following her second husband’s death, Janie was constantly dressed up to be the pinnacle of feminine grief: a poor, lamenting mayor’s wife. However, with Tea Cake, she is simply Janie: a wife who lost the only man whom she ever felt she received love from.

I think the emphasis on nature’s unavoidable victory over humanity is so interesting. Before, it was the animals that managed to sense the change in the weather and fled before the carnage ensured; now, it is the animals that gain life because of a man’s death.