Blog Post
Janie’s first experience with a relationship gave her a bleak outlook on the future of her love life. As a young girl, she was plucked out of believing a relationship should be about love, and forced into Nanny’s cynical, yet arguably realistic, ideal relationship with Logan Killicks. Being forced to do manual labor, being underappreciated, and not being attracted to Logan only further fueled Janie’s hopes for a better life. The culmination of these feelings led her to run off with Joe Starks, leaving Logan behind. One could view this as Janie simply taking advantage of Joe’s offer to get away from Logan’s harsh treatment of her, but this is probably not the case. Janie likes Joe’s ambition and confidence. However, over time as the initial spark starts to fade, Janie sees Joe’s true self, and does not like what she sees, nor how he treats her. Thus when he dies, Janie feels no remorse, and it is only cultural/societal pressures forcing her to pretend that she does. While promising at first, Janie’s relationship with Joe was just as disappointing as that with Logan.
After being let down twice, Janie felt a lack of desire to pursue any other relationships. Every man that attempted to court her was struck down by plain indifference. The one ultimate exception to Janie’s feelings of disaffection, Tea Cake, stood out to her. Tea Cake, contrary to all other men in the town, did not approach Janie with clear intentions of marriage or a relationship. Janie instantly feels a connection with this man, and her mind flashes back to the perfect relationship between the bee and the blossoms. As Janie and Tea Cake get to know each other, they find themselves equally appreciating, respecting, and reciprocating the same feelings of love, creating the ideal relationship (finally) in Janie’s own eyes. No longer would her relationship be defined by Nanny’s ideals, as with Logan, nor society’s ideals, as with Joe, but rather Janie’s.
This is a cool blog post. I like your synopsis of the timeline of Janie's love life and how it all culminates into her relationship with Tea Cake. Every experience she had prior was a stepping stone placed into a stream, and with each stone- or rather experience- she grew one step closer to Tea Cake. After finally crossing this stream and falling in love with him, we see Janie able to appreciate how far she has come, and appreciate her strength within.
ReplyDeleteHey Ethan, nice post! I like how you framed Janie and Tea Cake's relationship as something Janie decides for herself, rather than others in her life like Nanny or the townspeople. I think it's definitely notable that Tea Cake first comes to Janie without a marriage proposal, and their relationship only grows from their initial friendship. That's a major difference from her other relationships, where in one she was treated as a worker, and in the other, treated as a statue of ideals, with no real connection. In a life where Janie's personality have been overlooked and she is instead only noticed for her physical appearance, her relationship with Tea Cake refreshingly contrasts her past experiences.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary. Janie seems to be marrying better people each time after discovering what she values from the last relationship. it is a shame that she could not do this on her own as nanny interfered, but as you said, Nanny's actions are in good intention.
ReplyDeleteYour post was enjoyable to read. I think you did a good job of summarizing Janie's love life. After each relationship she chases after something that was missing in the last relationship, till Tea Cake. When she meets Tea Cake she has no intention of starting a relationship with anyone and feels content with life, but she falls in love with him. The relationship with Tea Cake is much more pure and they both have an equal appreciation for the other.
ReplyDeleteHey Ethan! You did a good job of explaining Janie's life before Tea Cake in the first part of your post, which is good setup for the second part, which introduces Tea Cake and explains what he differs from Janie's first two partners. Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Ethan! I agree that Nanny had a more realistic view of love and maybe even a more sensible view. I also think that Nanny forcing Janie into these relationships is what ultimately pushed her away and further down this track. Janie wants to find this natural, unattainable love before marriage while Nanny tells Janie that love always comes after marriage and that marriage should be arranged. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteGreat job, Ethan! I really found your dive into Janie's childhood with Nana, and the effect her words had on Janie's love life. I think that the loves of Janie's life upgrades each time, until she finally focuses that love on herself, and reaches the end of her self-discovery journey.
ReplyDeleteYou bring out a really important aspect of the early stages of this relationship: literally EVERYONE in Janie's society thinks it's a bad idea and worries about the risks Janie is taking by going off with Tea Cake. Even her best friend Pheoby has deep-seated qualms about Tea Cake as a gold-digger, so there's inherent value in Janie simply blowing off these dissenting voices and doing what *she* wants to do, following her heart rather than standards of respectability. And whatever qualms we have about the form this relationship ends up taking, it is clear that Tea Cake does not scam her for her money, he has no interest in her wealth (they deliberately choose to go live among poor itinerant farm workers), and has no interest really in social respectability. This refusal to be influenced by social expectations and standards represents an important move toward self-determination and independence. As much as the people on the porch *want* to hear that Janie has been "ruined" by Tea Cake, she is defiant and proud as she walks by them. She continues not to care about social standards, and this has a lot to do with what many readers love about her character and her story.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Mr. Roberts! I really like how you phrased it and used the change in line spacing to express your ideas. I also like how you specified certain examples and used them to support your claims.
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