How does janie survive a second widowhood

And one night he had caught Walter standing behind and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing.

He felt like rushing forth with the meat knife and chopping off the offending hand. That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store. That was all. She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others. Joe treats Janie like a trophy—a prized object, but an object nonetheless. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. Joe, by suggesting Janie has become an old hag, implies that she has lost her characteristic beauty.

Then Joe Starks realized all the meanings and his vanity bled like a flood. Janie had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men cherish, which was terrible. But Janie had done worse, she had cast down his empty armor before men and they had laughed, would keep on laughing.

When he paraded his possessions hereafter, they would not consider the two together. When he sat in judgment it would be the same. For what can excuse a man in the eyes of other men for lack of strength? Raggedy-behind squirts of sixteen and seventeen would be giving him their merciless pity out of their eyes while their mouths said something humble.

There was nothing to do in life anymore. Ambition was useless. And the cruel deceit of Janie! Making all that show of humbleness and scorning him all the time! Laughing at him, and now putting the town up to do the same. This seems to indicate that men care more about their reputations than women. Now, Joe not only refuses to have sex with Janie but also withdraws from society, choosing rather to live alone than be mocked by his peers.

Everyone assumes that women cannot do what men do and thus they laugh "at the expense of women. Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way. Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me.

Janie makes plain to Joe one way that men try to keep women down—by silencing their voices often by speaking louder than their women or ignoring their pleas. Why must Joe be so mad with her for making him look small when he did it to her all the time? Janie recognizes and laments an unfair double standard: men always put down women and expect them to take it while the reverse does not hold true; women cannot possibly insult their men without drastic and often public consequences.

Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered. She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features.

The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. Ike Green tries to feed Janie the idea that women cannot function on their own, without a man.

However, readers recognize that Ike is one of the "hawgs" that he is so quick to condemn. Janie found out very soon that her widowhood and property was a great challenge in South Florida. Before Jody had been dead a month, she noticed how often men who had never been intimates of Joe, drove considerable distances to ask after her welfare and offer their services as advisor.

You been well taken keer of, you needs a man. Women are considered incapable of fending for themselves. Seben miles is uh kinda long walk. You could too, if yuh had it tuh do. Janie seems to some extent to see herself as Joe intended—weak and incapable as a woman. Tea Cake sets to work undoing some of the damage Joe has done, assuring Janie that she is stronger than she thinks. To reinforce the idea, he tells her of other women he has seen walk seven full miles.

He [Tea Cake] set it [the checkers] up and began to show her and she found herself glowing inside. Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from one of his good points. Those full, lazy eyes with the lashes curling sharply away like drawn scimitars. Then lean, over-padded shoulders and narrow waist. Even nice! Because Tea Cake treats men and women relatively equally—thinking they both have the right and intelligence to play the same games—Janie finds herself attracted to him.

His unconventional thinking makes him even more attractive to Janie, who finds herself admiring his physical assets. You gointuh be uh good player too, after while. Jody useter tell me Ah never would learn. It wuz too heavy fuh mah brains.

Tea Cake differentiates himself from Joe by assuring Janie that women are just as smart as men and have just as much potential to better themselves. Even though Tea Cake tries to treat men and women equally, he still unconsciously considers women weaker than men; he assumes they require men to escort them back home safely.

He calls Janie a "lil girl wid her Easter dress on," somewhat diminishing her image and seriousness. Or, we could read it as his way of attempting to get an invitation to come inside her home. She oughta know by now whut she wants tuh do. Pheoby, being a woman, recognizes that women are intelligent and know what they want out of life and out of their men.

She sees that independence in Janie and thus awards her friend with the title of being "her own woman. Thus, this can be seen as one instance of Janie crossing the traditional boundaries between men and women. Annie Tyler who at fifty-two had been left a widow with a good home and insurance money. Tyler with her dyed hair, newly straightened and her uncomfortable new false teeth, her leathery skin, blotchy with powder and giggle.

Her love affairs, affairs with boys in their late teens or early twenties for all of whom she spent her money on suits of clothes, shoes, watches and things like that and how they all left her as soon as their wants were satisfied. Then when her ready cash was gone, had come Who Flung to denounce his predecessor as a scoundrel and took up around the house himself.

It was he who persuaded her to sell her house and come to Tampa with him. The town had seen her limp off. The under-sized high-heel slippers were punishing her tired feet that looked like bunions all over.

Her body squeezed and crowded into a tight corset that shoved her middle up under her chin. But she had gone off laughing and sure. As sure as Janie had been. Then two weeks later the porter and conductor of the north bound local had helped her off the train at Maitland. Hair all gray and black and bluish and reddish in streaks. All the capers that cheap dye could cut was showing in her hair. Those slippers bent and griped just like her work-worn feet. The corset gone and the shaking old woman hanging all over herself.

Everything that you could see was hanging. Her chin hung from her ears and rippled down her neck like drapes. Her hanging bosom and stomach and buttocks and legs that draped down over her ankles. She groaned but never giggled. She was broken and her pride was gone, so she told those who asked what had happened. Who Flung had taken her to a shabby room in a shabby house in a shabby street and promised to marry her next day.

They stayed in the room two whole days then she woke up to find Who Flung and her money gone. She got up to stir around and see if she could find him, and found herself too worn out to do much. All she found out was that she was too old a vessel for new wine…. This passage is particularly illustrative of the popular idea that women are all artifice and no substance. As Janie enjoys her newfound freedom of speech, she becomes more introspective and self-aware. In previous chapters, Janie distances herself from her emotions in order to survive with Jody.

Now, however, she confronts feelings that have lain dormant for almost two decades. She realizes, somewhat to our surprise, that she hates her grandmother for raising her according to a flawed belief system that values materialism and social status. Janie understands that while people are what matter to her, she had been raised to value things.

Nevertheless, she has a mature enough understanding of life not to blame Nanny; she understands that Nanny impressed these values upon her out of love. As with Jody, evil is localized not so much in a person as in a broader set of beliefs. Nanny is not really a villain; she is merely misguided by a flawed way of looking at the world.

With Tea Cake, an entirely new worldview enters the story. Tea Cake clearly respects Janie for who she is and wants to engage her in a substantive manner. He converses with her and plays checkers with her—both activities that grant equal status to the participants. Furthermore, Tea Cake exhibits a creativity that is immensely appealing to Janie.

He makes her laugh with fanciful, imaginative jokes: pretending to hide behind imaginary lampposts, talking to invisible companions, making puns and creative wordplays. Whereas Jody lives to consume and has materialistic goals involving power and status that he displays with objects like fancy spittoons, Tea Cake, as his creativity demonstrates, is concerned with things beyond material life.

Through his respect for her and his vibrancy, Tea Cake seems to Janie the man who will complement her and take her toward the horizon for which she longs. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. What does the title mean? Why is the porch important? In his rise to power, Janie becomes Joe's possession, similar to the businesses and people of the town. For example, after Joe is appointed mayor, one of the townspeople, Tony, introduces Janie to make a speech.

Before she even has a chance to speak, Joe interrupts explaining "mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. She's uh woman and her place is in de home.

He fails to treat Janie as an equal, but rather as one of his town subjects. Joe also refuses to allow Janie to wear her long hair down for fear that other men might touch it. Joe fears that another man will charm his wife and snatch her away from him, just as he did when she was married to Logan.

Janie abides by Joe's rules because she has no power to challenge him. Joe's position as mayor causes Janie to feel cold, isolated, and lonely. Janie feels isolated from most of the townspeople. Besides Pheoby Watson, she has no other close friends.

As the mayor's wife, many people keep their distance from Janie because "she slept with authority and so she was part of it in the town mind. She explains to Joe that his position as mayor exerts a "strain" on their relationship.

Joe believes Janie should be grateful to him for making "uh big woman" out of her. No longer is Janie an individual; she is the mayor's wife. For the second time, marriage for Janie is not what she had hoped. Ah'm uh son of Combunction a polite way of swearing; similar to "Well, I'll be a son of a gun. All de women in de world ain't. Turpentine stills and saw mills were usually located in the woods, removed from town and close to the trees essential for their products.

Isaac and Rebecca at de well This biblical reference is not literally accurate. Isaac never met Rebecca at the well. Isaac's father's servant encountered Rebecca at the well. The servant had prayed for divine guidance in finding a wife for Isaac — that after his long journey to the land of Aramnaharaim, a generous and humble woman would approach him at the community well and offer him a drink of fresh water from her jug, as well as to offer to draw sufficient water for his camels.

Rebecca did so and agreed to leave her village and travel to the land of Canaan to become Isaac's wife. All them dat's goin' tuh cut de monkey in other words, if everyone has finished acting silly.