summary of their eyes were watching god
... season begins, the boarding houses will be too full to find even floor space to sleep on. Once the season begins, Tea Cake spends his day picking beans while Janie tends the house. Although Tea Cake spends a lot of free time entertaining Janie with his guitar, there still is not much to do. So, Tea Cake teaches Janie how to hunt and fish. Thanks to Tea Cake's encouragement, Janie becomes an exceptional hunter; she even becomes a better hunter than her teacher, Tea Cake. At night the pianos "clang and clamor". People would sing the blues and "dance, fight, sing, cry, laugh, win and lose love." Tea Cake's house becomes the center of social life. People come to hear him play the guitar and laugh with him. Tea Cake starts popping in on Janie during the day. One day, Janie asks why. He tells her that he misses her too much to be away all day long. He asks her to come out to the field with him and she does. At night the men would have discussions and arguments, just as they used to on the porch in Eatonville. Only here, Janie can "listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wants to. She [gets] so she can tell big stories herself from listening to the rest." Some of the men gamble: namely, Ed Dockery, Bootyny and Sop-de-Bottom. One night, after a nerve-racking game, Ed Dockery wins a pile of money. He tells the others that he is sending the money straight to Sears and Roebuck to buy clothes. He says, "And when I turn over Christmas day, it would take a doctor to tell me how near Ah is dressed tuh death." Analysis: When Janie comes to the Everglades, she comes into a real understanding of the beauty of black culture. Throughout the chapters in the Everglades (14-19), watch carefully how Hurston paints the beauty of black society. In this chapter, we witness how incredibly impoverished men and women can manage to find true joy and love in the black itchy Muck of the Everglades. Hurston, in this chapter, reconciles too extreme contrasts. First, she describes vividly the depth of destitution amongst the blacks converging on the 'Glades: "Day by day now, hordes of workers poured in. Some came limping with their shoes and sore feet from walking... They came in wagons from up in Georgia and they come in truckloads from east, west, north and south. Permanent transients with no attachments and tired looking men with their families and dogs in flivvers. Skillets, beds, patched up spare inner tubes all hanging and dangling from the ancient cars on the outside and hopeful humanity, herded and hovered on the inside, chugging on to the muck. People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor." Then, Hurston describes vividly their joie de vivre: she describes pianos playing all night long; she describes people singing and dancing and gambling. These contrasting images placed together, articulates in picaresque (like a painting) form, the great accomplishment of black culture: transcendence above poverty and destitution to joy and laughter through a reliance on music, conversation, play and love. Apart from these broad themes, Hurston also drops several literary elements into this chapter. First, there is much foreshadowing here. Hurston describes how "people are wild" in the Everglades. She describes Okechobee as "Big" several times and then says, "they rattled nine miles in a borrowed car to the quarters and squatted so close that only the dyke separated them from the great, sprawling Okechobee." These sentences foreshadow the tragic end of the novel. There are also many codas, resolutions to some of the disappointments Janie had in her previous marriages. When Tea Cake suggests that Janie come work in the field, it is not because he wants to turn her into a mule, like Logan did, but because he truly wants to spend time with her. When Janie begins telling stories to the other men, we remember how her voice had been squelched during her relationship with Joe Starks, but is now listened to and enjoyed. Also, it is important to recognize that Tea Cake is the leader of his community just as Joe was the leader of his; recognize the parallelism in this chapter with the comparison between Joe's big white porch and Tea Cake's doorway. However, Tea Cake's leadership is not oppressive he leads the other workers' laughter and encourages them to play in the fields. Instead of using a "big voice" he entertains with his guitar and his good humor. Chapter 15 Summary: Janie learns about jealousy. A little chunky girl named Nunkie often taps Tea Cake on the shoulder and then runs into the fields hoping that he chases her. Sometimes he does. Janie is worried that Nunkie is weakening Tea Cake's loyalty to her. One day, Janie leaves Tea Cake's side to chat with another woman. When she looks back, Tea Cake and Nunkie have disappeared. Janie runs into a row of sugar cane and finds them on the floor struggling. Janie tries to grab Nunkie but she runs off. She asks Tea Cake what he's doing, and Tea Cake describes that Nunkie took his working tickets and he had to struggle with her to get them back. Janie slinks home. Tea Cake follows her home, and Janie slaps him. They fight for a while, shouting and struggling, but then Tea Cake makes love to Janie to reconfirm their love. When they wake up, Janie asks if Tea Cake still loves Nunkie. Tea Cake says he never did love Nunkie. He tells Janie that no one can compare to her. Janie is "something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die." Analysis: It is interesting to try and analyze why Hurston would devote an entire chapter to this incident between Nunkie and Tea Cake. This chapter is not like the other chapters that dwell on black culture and the contrasts of black culture against white culture. Rather, this is a chapter about being a woman, being a wife. Jealousy, is a universal feeling. Janie's fear and anger regarding Tea Cake's possible affair are feelings that every woman past and present can relate to. This chapter is about the universality of the fears of womanhood. "The next morning, Janie asked like a woman, 'You still love ole Nunkie.'" Then later, "She wanted to hear his denial. She wanted to crow over the fallen Nunkie." Here, Hurston emphasizes Janie's position as a woman, not exclusively a black woman. Chapter 16 Summary: The season of bean picking ends and Janie begins to see some things in her community that she had been too busy too notice before. She notices Bahaman drummers and she and Tea Cake spend evenings together enjoying their music. Janie also gets to know Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner is a mulatto, her skin is "milky", her nose is "slightly pointed," her lips are thin, her buttocks are small. Mrs. Turner does not understand why Janie associates with black people; she does not understand why she would marry a man as dark as Tea Cake. Mrs. Turner feels that women like herself and Janie that are part white should try to "lighten the race" by only associating and marrying people that have light skin color. Janie laughs at Mrs. Turner's ideas; Janie tells her that Tea Cake is a wonderful man, "He kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull." Mrs. Turner continues to show her disdain of black people; she does not understand why blacks laugh so much and so loudly. She tells Janie that she thinks the black race is dragging down people like herself: people with mixed racial backgrounds. If the blacks weren't there, white people would embrace the mulattos and include them in their culture. She tells Janie that she never shops at black shops; she thinks that blacks have no business know-how. Then, Mrs. Turner tells Janie that she would be better off married to another mulatto, particularly her brother. Finally, after some time, Mrs. Turner leaves. Janie goes into the kitchen and finds Tea Cake sitting with his head in his hands. Tea Cake overheard the entire conversation. He tells Janie that if Mrs. Turner hates black people so much, she should stay away from him and Janie. He tells Janie that he is going to tell Mrs. Turner's husband to keep Mrs. Turner away from their house. Then one day, Tea Cake runs into Mr. Turner and his son on the street. Tea Cake wanted to instruct Turner to keep Mrs. Turner away from his home, but Mr. Turner was such a weak, vanishing man that Tea Cake realizes Turner would not be able to prevent Mrs. Turner from doing anything. So, Tea Cake tells Janie to snub Mrs. Turner every time she sees her. Unfortunately, Mrs. Turner believed that Janie had the right to snub her because she had Caucasian characteristics. "Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness." Because Mrs. Turner had so much to hate, she was constantly frowning. It didn't bother Tea Cake and Janie that much; it just gave them to talk about during the dull summer months on the muck. Sometimes they would make day little trips to the beach to pass the time; but soon enough the summer months were over and droves of people returned to the muck to do the picking. Analysis: Some critics rebuke Hurston for not infusing her literature with protests against racism and hatred. We recognize that this criticism is not at all appropriate when we read chapters like chapter 16. Instead of writing "angry" literature to support black culture, Hurston's Their Eyes is a celebration of black culture, music, oral tradition and way of life. In this chapter, Janie must defend black culture, interestingly, to another black woman. Mrs. Turner is a weak, ugly woman who takes pride only in her white characteristics and finds extreme distaste in her black characteristics. Turner ridicules blacks for laughing too much, for 'whooping and hollering", for wearing bright colors, for being poor, for being black. But Janie defends her black culture through her life-style choice. She marries Tea Cake and comes to the muck to work and live and learn in nothing but overalls and her good spirit. Hurston, like Janie, defends black culture by embracing it. She writes Their Eyes in black folk style: beautiful images and symbols, hyperbole, lyrical language. Unlike her contemporaries who wrote about black rights in "white prose", Hurston supports the language and life of her people by writing in its language. One important contrast to note in this chapter is the "white" perception of God versus the black perception. Mrs. Turner embraces the white perception of a cruel and uncaring God. She thinks, "All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped." Later in the novel, we will be shown a clearer explanation of the traditional black folk perception of God. So far we have not seen God characterized specifically. Death is separated from God for Janie, and thus the cruelty that Mrs. Turner identifies with God would probably not be identified with Janie's God (since He is separated from Death). As the chapters progress, watch carefully how God is personified and try to connect it with the cultural story that Hurston is writing. Chapter 17 Summary: Many people return to live on the muck; some of the people are familiar from last year and some people were brand new. Mrs. Turner brings her brother to town to introduce him to Janie. Tea Cake whips Janie to show Mrs. Turner's brother that Tea Cake had full control over Janie. "Being able to whip her reassured him in posession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss. Everybody talked about it next day in the fields. It aroused a sort of envy in both men and women." Other men are envious of Tea Cake's ability to hit Janie and leave marks on her skin. Because she is a mulatto, her skin is fairer than other blacks and thus her bruises are much more obvious. Tea Cake brags to the other men in the fields that he took Janie away from a "big fine house." He tells them that Janie is wherever he wants to be. Tea Cake tells Sop-de-Bottom that Mrs. Turner hates blacks. Sop-de-Bottom tells Tea Cake that he thinks they should throw rocks on her restaurant. Tea Cake agrees that they must find a way to drive her out of the city. Saturday afternoon rolls around and everyone gets paid and drunk. Everyone goes to Mrs. Turner's restaurant telling her that she has the best beef stew in town. When the waitress came to bring Coodemay's dinner to him, Coodemay refuses to take it off the table. Instead, he tells the waitress to stand there with the food on the tray and allow him to eat off it. He says that this is fair since the restaurant has run out of chairs and it would be very difficult to eat without having the waitress hold his plate. Then, Coodemay tries to take Sop-de-Bottom's chair. They begin fighting. Tea Cake "valiantly" steps into the fight on Mrs. Turner's behalf saying that "she is too nice a woman" to have people in her restaurant destroying the place. Then Tea Cake begins throwing plates at his friends; his friends, too, start to thrash the restaurant in their brawl. Once the restaurant is thoroughly destroyed, the men cheerfully stop fighting, apologize to each other and go off to another bar. Mrs. Turner's restaurant is destroyed and her hand is badly injured. She yells at her cowardly husband for not standing up to the men. Mr. Turner sits calmly in his chair, smoking a pipe. Mrs. Turner begins hitting him, exclaiming that had her son and brother been in the restaurant during the fight, they would have stopped the ruckus. What she does not know is that her brother and son had in fact been at the restaurant. When they saw there was trouble, they ran away to Palm Beach. Mrs. Turner decides to leave the 'Glades and go to Miami "where people are civilized." Monday morning, Sterrett and Coodemay come to the restaurant to apologize to Mrs. Turner. They give her five dollars each. Analysis: This chapter is very much about Tea Cake and the "black" perspective. In the previous chapter, Hurston exalted the black spirit, culture and way of life. In this chapter she explores subtly some of the more questionable actions of her people. The chapter begins with a lot of understatement. Hurston explains in brief emotionless fashion the brutality with which Tea Cake beats Janie. He beats her in order to show another man his power. Sadly and ironically, there is no mention of any discussion between Tea Cake and Turner's brother. Tea Cake, in some twisted rationalization, beats Janie in order to convince other men that he controls her. Hurston's understatement of this terrible logic is designed to make us feel angry and upset about Janie's predicament as a woman in black society. Although she has been liberated through Tea Cake by her guided induction into real black society and her cultural roots, she is still oppressed as a woman in black society. Although she is not a mule (as she was when she was Logan's wife) or a glittery showpiece (as she was with Joe Starks) she is still oppressed and beaten. In a twisted and complex way, the other men admire how dark and painful her bruises look against her fair skin. Possibly this admiration of her fair flesh in pain is symbolic of their anger towards the white race in general: Tea Cake retaliates against Mrs. Turner's racism by injuring a woman as white as she is, his own wife Janie. Strangely, too, Janie's own voice is not heard at all in this chapter. Perhaps, through the omission of Janie's voice, Hurston is commenting about the black woman's position in such oppression: women had no voice ... yet. The rest of the chapter is a description of how Tea Cake and his friends forced the Turner family to leave town. At the beginning of the chapter Tea Cake tells Sop-de-Bottom about Mrs. Turner's feelings about black people. Sop-de-Bottom says, "Ah'm goin' right off tuh all de men and drop rocks aginst her." In the next scene, the men intentionally destroy the restaurant, pretending that they're in a terrible fight. Although we do not explicitly see the scene where the men decide to wreck Mrs. Turner's establishment, we can infer that the ruckus was premeditated. We can hear Tea Cake's hatred of Mrs. Turner through his sarcasm and verbal irony: "Looka heah, y'all, don't come in heah and raise no disturbance in de place. Mis' Turner is too nice uh woman fuh dat. In fact, she's more nicer than anybody else on de muck." Mrs. Turner's stupidity is clear when she does not realize that Tea Cake is being very sarcastic. In fact, she "beamed" (smiled brightly) on Tea Cake after he says that she is the nicest woman on the muck. Ironically, in the previous chapter Mrs. Turner had criticized black people for "whoopin' it up" and "hollerin'" for no reason. What she does not understand is clear: most of the times the whoopin' and the hollerin' is for a reason. In this case, the destruction of her restaurant is the true intent. The brawl and Tea Cake's supposed valiancy (he steps into the fight, supposedly, to "help" Mrs. Turner) are just distractions to mask the true intentions of Tea Cake and his gang. Importantly, too, Hurston successfully labels Mrs. Turner and her ilk as cowards. Mr. Turner does nothing during the fight and her son and brother do not even enter the restaurant when there are signs of trouble. Through the Turners, Hurston is commenting on all the "Turn"er's of black society: blacks who "turn" against their own when the going gets tough are cowardly, infertile, ugly, miserable people. Chapter 18 Summary: Tea Cake and Janie's friendship with the Bahamans grow. Soon every night there is dancing around the fire in the traditional African way behind Tea Cake's house. One afternoon, Janie sees Seminole Indians passing through heading east. They are heading out of town before the hurricane hits. That evening everyone talks about the Indians' leaving. No one believes that there can possibly be anything wrong. After all, the bean picking season is going so well, and every one is making huge amounts of money. The weather becomes very still. "Morning came without motion. The winds, to the tiniest baby breath had left the earth. Even before the sun gave light, dead day was creeping from bush to bush watching man." Next, the animals leave. The snakes, possums and rabbits all hurry east to Palm Beach. Some people get scared when this happens and leave as well. Then, the Bahamans leave. One Bahaman boy, Lias, encourages Tea Cake to come with him; the Indians and the animals have all left but Tea Cake is resolute about staying in the 'Glades. He responds that the "Indians don't know much uh nothin', tuh tell de truth. Else dey'd own dis country still. De white folks ain't gone nowhere." Lias tells Tea Cake that he will wish he had left when the hurricane comes. That night, everyone collects at Tea Cake's house. Tea Cake is compared to Big John the Conquerer, "how he had done everything big on earth, then went up tuh heben without dying atall. Went up there picking a guitar ..." Everyone has a wonderful evening gambling and joking. The weather starts to get worse and everyone but Motor Boat leaves to go home. The world gets very dark; it stays night. As the whole world starts to rumble, Janie, Tea Cake and Motor Boat look very fearfully at the rumbling door. "Six eyes were questioning God." Tea Cake asks Janie if she wishes she had never comes with him to the 'Glades. But Janie says that before she had met Tea Cake she had been fumbling around. "God opened the door" and brought her Tea Cake. The lights go out and the three stare into the darkness. "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but there eyes were watching God." Tea Cake and Janie decide to find a car to take them out of the storm. They wake up Motor Boat and the three trudge through the storm. The dam on the lake breaks and now the lake is coming quickly behind them. The three find a tall house on high land. Motor decides to stay in the house; he thinks it is safe. Janie and Tea Cake continue on. Tea Cake shouts to help a passerby escape a snake; afterwards he is breathless. Janie sees a piece of roof sailing in the wind. As she grabs it, it lifts her off the ground. She flies through the air and then falls off into the water. She is starting to drown but Tea Cake instructs her to swim towards a large cow with a dog standing on it. Janie grabs the cows tail and the dog starts barking at her. Tea Cake swims into the water to rescue her and the dog bites him on the face. The two walk to safety. Janie tells Tea Cake they should find a doctor for his dog bite, but Tea Cake says he is fine. The find a place to rest and recover. Analysis: This chapter is full of literary symbolism and imagery. First, notice the consistent personification of the animals, trees, storms and Lake Okechobee. Also note the foreshadowing of Tea Cake's death. He is, at the beginning of the chapter, compared to John the Conqueror, who went to heaven playing a guitar and then went to Hell and gave water to all the sufferers. We know that Tea Cake's death will come soon. In this chapter we learn about the wisdom of the people who watch nature and God. The Indians realize first that the hurricane is coming; but Tea Cake dismisses them in a stereotypical "anglocentric capitalist" way. He believes that the Indians are wrong because they have "always been wrong". Why else would they have lost their land? Tea Cake does not realize that he has been brainwashed by money-seeking, He does not want to leave because he does not want to lose any potential earnings. The Bahamans even recognize, through observing nature, that they should leave. However, Hurston is commenting that American blacks are too far removed from their roots and the need to watch God and the messages he sends them. The people who are closest to their natural culture (the Indians and the Bahamans) understand God's ways and signals. The blacks and the whites are removed from perceiving God. They are more concerned about money. Only when God's fury and power are literally knocking down their front door do Tea Cake and Janie "watch God." The dog standing on the cow's back is a very unnatural sign. Something is very wrong with the dog if he "fears water" and attacks Janie and Tea Cake. All of the other animals are cooperating during the storm. The dog's rabies is subtly revealed here. Chapter 19 Summary: Death, personified again as the man with square toes that lives in a house with no sides, (no sides, so that he can see all the mortals of the earth) returns to his house. This means that the time for death is over; it is time, now, to bury the dead. Janie and Tea Cake are not certain where to go next. Tea Cake decides to head into town to see if he can hear any news about his...