When Janie moves from Joe Starks to Tea Cake, Hurston (in my reading) makes clear the following changes (perhaps debatable) in Janie's situation. All of them can be thought of as side-effects of the major change that occurred: Janie's stepping down from living as though placed on a pedestal and showered with love from afar onto level ground (Joe was "pouring honor all over her; building a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the world" (62)), where she can shower love as well as be showered with it. The changes, in this order, are effects of one another:
- African American upper-crust --> African American average plebian
- wealth --> poverty
- love through material wealth --> love through emotional/physical wealth
- closed communication --> open communication
- percieved loneliness --> social connections, both within and outside marriage
- marrige subordinacy --> marriage equality
- Janie with necessity to ask permission to do what desires (no free will) --> Janie with free will
Additionally interesting is that Starks judges other people in community (such as "pushin' and shovin' wid they no-manners selves...in all dat mess uh commonness" (60)), whereas Tea Cake never (so far) judges other people in the community as bad or good. Janie never seems to judge in either scenario.
However, there is a parallel between Janie's situations with Joe Starks and with Tea Cake that is a bit surprising in the latter case. In both situations, Janie is portrayed as a central character in the public eye of the town, even though she doesn't seem to realize it much. With Joe Starks, this is fairly self-explanatory, since Jody himself is the town's mayor. Thus, necessarily the porch must develop opinions about Joe and his actions, and Janie is included with Joe in the porch's idea of those in charge. With Tea Cake, this centrality seems to be of less importance, likely because Tea Cake views himself as a part, not a guardian, of the people. However, almost at the beginning of Hurston's depiction of Janie's life as a mucker in the 'glades, she states: "Tea Cake's house was a magnet, the unauthorized center of the 'job'" (132) because "the house was full of people every night" (133). Again, the people are flocking to Janie's porch.
This, interestingly, is the complete opposite experience of both Bigger and the invisible man. Perhaps this difference is significant in showing the difference between the actions/experiences of some of the characters in these books? Is it even possible to show a character who is one of the powerful and influential members of the African American community if one is trying to write a protest novel (Wright), or trying to encompass the whole African American experience, since this is not possible by showing only the upper crust? Or is it actually the case that Janie is unlike Bigger and the invisible man in that she is the talk of the town? Perhaps all three are, at some point, but it manifests itself differently in each. Probably, the best any reader can do is to guess the author's intentions here by reading their own writings on these works.
You raised this idea of the parallel between Joe's role in Eatonville and Tea Cake's role "on the muck" today in class, and it's definitely another interesting parallel Hurston sets up, and as with the others, it's the contrast that seems most telling. Joe likes to "lord it" over the town--people respect him and defer to him, but they don't really like him (and they talk behind his back). Remember, Janie points out that while Joe hangs out for the "porch talk," and laughs his big old laugh, he never really takes part in it himself. He's not *of* the people, in a sense, and he plays it like a classic politician.
ReplyDeleteTea Cake doesn't have a political bone in his body. He's more of a magnet for the social/partying/musical scene on the muck--people flock to his house because it's so much *fun*, and he's such a great guitar player. There's no sense of hierarchy, as you point out. It's more that his personality is magnetic. Janie enjoys a very different, more democratic kind of social distinction in this context.