In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, struggles between two identities, her exterior life, a life drawn from the white world foisted upon her, and her interior life, a more vigorous free black woman, this being the one she tries to forge for herself throughout the novel. The relationship that Janie has with her Nanny ultimately set’s the stage for the conflict regarding her interior and exterior life. In addition to Nanny, her first two husbands Logan and Joe act as the sole cause that separates Janie’s interior and exterior lives while Janie’s third and final husband, Tea Cake, is what causes her to begin the reconciliation of the conflict regarding these two lives. As the novel begins we come
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We also recognize that Janie’s willingness to even provide the exterior life demanded by others is slowly coming to an end. This becomes apparent during a conversation between Janie and Phoeby regarding the attitude Janie should be displaying as a mourning wife. In response to Phoeby telling her she should act more upset in front of the townspeople, Janie says: Let 'em say whut dey wants tuh, Phoeby. To my thinking mourning oughtn 't tuh last no longer than grief" (93). Thus during the transition between Joe and her next husband, Janie emerges as a new woman, ready to dictate which life she lives. It is in this state of readiness that Janie meets Tea Cake. In every respect, Vergible “Tea Cake“ Woods is Joe Starks 's character foil, his feminized nickname “Tea Cake” offers a gentler kind of masculinity and “his surname represents a healthy black identity compared to the sterility implied in Joe 's” (Susan Edwards Meisenhelder, ). One should note that although Tea Cake is all Janie seems to wants in a relationship, she is still very sure to establish her dominance early on by setting the boundaries regarding where and when they meet. Anyways, regarding Tea Cake and Joe, Hurston stresses this contradistinction by painting Tea Cake as emphatically black and by highlighting his resistance to the hierarchical values Starks embraces from dominant white culture. By teaching Janie how to play checkers, shoot, to drive, and by inviting her to work alongside of him, Tea Cake breaks down the rigid gender definitions Joe sought to impose upon Janie, the restrictions of her interior life. By doing these things, Tea Cake brings Janie into the cultural life of the black community and builds a relationship with her grounded on expression and reciprocity which encourages Janie to “Have de nerve tuh say whut [she] mean '" (165). As a result of all this, Janie has been able
We also recognize that Janie’s willingness to even provide the exterior life demanded by others is slowly coming to an end. This becomes apparent during a conversation between Janie and Phoeby regarding the attitude Janie should be displaying as a mourning wife. In response to Phoeby telling her she should act more upset in front of the townspeople, Janie says: Let 'em say whut dey wants tuh, Phoeby. To my thinking mourning oughtn 't tuh last no longer than grief" (93). Thus during the transition between Joe and her next husband, Janie emerges as a new woman, ready to dictate which life she lives. It is in this state of readiness that Janie meets Tea Cake. In every respect, Vergible “Tea Cake“ Woods is Joe Starks 's character foil, his feminized nickname “Tea Cake” offers a gentler kind of masculinity and “his surname represents a healthy black identity compared to the sterility implied in Joe 's” (Susan Edwards Meisenhelder, ). One should note that although Tea Cake is all Janie seems to wants in a relationship, she is still very sure to establish her dominance early on by setting the boundaries regarding where and when they meet. Anyways, regarding Tea Cake and Joe, Hurston stresses this contradistinction by painting Tea Cake as emphatically black and by highlighting his resistance to the hierarchical values Starks embraces from dominant white culture. By teaching Janie how to play checkers, shoot, to drive, and by inviting her to work alongside of him, Tea Cake breaks down the rigid gender definitions Joe sought to impose upon Janie, the restrictions of her interior life. By doing these things, Tea Cake brings Janie into the cultural life of the black community and builds a relationship with her grounded on expression and reciprocity which encourages Janie to “Have de nerve tuh say whut [she] mean '" (165). As a result of all this, Janie has been able