Janie and Tea Cake Analysis

Janie
Throughout the first couple encounters with Tea Cake, Janie seems extremely unsure of herself as well as Tea Cake. Janie is starting to remark more of her age and seems to be bothered by how old she seems. She is a beautiful woman who criticizes herself. Many parts of the story Janie seems to second guess herself and her thoughts and she seems to make different remarks to herself so she doesn’t get her hopes up. She seems like a typical girl falling in love but being scared to get too close. “All next day in the house and store she thought resisting thoughts about Tea Cake. She even ridiculed him in her mind and was ashamed of the association.” Here is an example of Janie pushing her thoughts about Tea Cake to the side since she is so worried about their relationship. After they get married and move, Janie seems to become so in love with Tea Cake. This worries the reader that she will get hurt again since she has been hurt so many times before.

Tea Cake

So far, Tea Cake seems extremely honest and hopeful with Janie and his personality. He seems to tell the truth when it comes to his feelings and he also seems to do what he wants to do, going with his heart and going for it. He seems like a funny, attractive, and smart man. That is what scares Janie the most about him. Tea Cake seems a little intimidating because of his looks and confidence and makes Janie extremely nervous. He is a poor man, who seems to try to impress Janie as much as he can. Many people are worried he may be a gold digger, but Janie is blinded by his charm and is unsure if that is his actual motive. Tea Cake resembles Joe in the sense that they both know how to talk and impress Janie with their spontaneity. This is also a reason for Janie to be cautious with him considering her other relationship didn’t seem to workout well. Once he takes Janie and marries her, he seems to treat her like an equal. This makes him seem like a guy who is trustworthy and really does love Janie for who she is and not what she has. Although he makes us nervous with his honesty and everything, so far he seems like a true man who is in love with a girl and wants the best for the both of them.

Janie and Tea Cakes relationship

These two seem to have a lot of fun together. Janie seems to be extremely impressed by Tea Cakes spontaneity and his interest in her. They have a large age difference that Janie seems really nervous about, but Tea Cake doesn’t seem to care. They get along great, joking around, eating together, and hanging out and having fun. He pushes honesty into the relationship which seems to improve their communication so much more, making this a much healthier relationship then Janie had with Joe. Although he tries to get her things and surprise her, there is a big worry that he is a gold digger and just looking for money from Janie, which seems like an ironic part of the book that makes the audience kind of nervous to trust Tea Cake. Their relationship seems awesome because of their ability to communicate so easily. At one part, Janie gets extremely jealous of Tea Cake and another girl, which shows that she really does love him and doesn’t want to risk losing him. Both of them so far seem to be in love with each other and want to make this work out. The story makes us nervous about Tea Cake still being in the marriage for the wrong reasons, but in the story so far there is no reason for us to get worried just yet. I admire their relationship so far and hope in the end it will workout even though there is a good chance it wont.

---