The Truth About Janie & Tea Cake

Описание: Syllabus: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L...

Closing Thoughts: Janie had the privilege and the freedom to want love, as opposed to marriage for survival and that set her apart from every other character in the book. It’s not that the others’ imaginations weren’t great enough, it was that that was not the world they inhabited. Janie existed in proximity to Blackness and could not understand or acknowledge her privilege. She loved people and did not measure them by what they had; that in and of itself at that time was a privilege. Tea Cake inhabited a world that measured him by his wealth and the color of his skin. Even today, men struggle to define their manhood as they partner with women who make more than them or women whose star power casts a shadow over their existence. I’m not saying that I expected Tea Cake to overcome the obstacles white supremacy created in his relationship with Janie and that they should have just been able to live happily ever after, quite the opposite actually. Tea Cake had to die for Janie to fulfill her prophecy of grasping the horizon and cloaking herself in it. She wanted the world for herself and she got it in her love for Tea Cake because it brought her closer to herself and the world. She got the community she was looking for and lived a million lives before returning home. She lived for herself, as she always dreamed, not for Nanny and not for a man. Tea Cake had to die for Janie’s fate to be fulfilled. She had to see herself as meaningful and worthy to inhabit her world wholly. Had he lived, Janie would have only seen the horizon in his eyes and never looked beyond to see herself.