Their Eyes Were Watching God

One day, when Janie is tending the store by herself, a young man named Vergible Woods, who goes by the name “Tea Cake,” walks in to buy some cigarettes. With most of the town away at a baseball game, Janie agrees to sit with Tea Cake and play a game of checkers; she finds him instantly charming. He gently flirts with her, flattering her by calling her smart. Unlike Joe, Tea Cake clearly sees women as capable beings. He treats Janie like a regular person rather than someone to be placed upon a pedestal.

When the townspeople trickle back into town, Tea Cake socializes easily with them and convinces Janie to allow him to walk her home. She has misgivings about walking home with a stranger, but he gallantly leaves her at her door.

With Tea Cake away for a week, Janie is assailed by doubts. She worries what the townspeople would think of her for dating a much younger man and wonders if Tea Cake is after her money. When he returns, to Janie’s relief, she plays checkers with him on the porch, much to the pleased surprise of the townspeople. He walks her home and this time sat on her porch with her. He also takes Janie out fishing at night, arousing her long dormant sense of play.

That night, Tea Cake, a blues man, plays Janie’s piano and even grooms her hair while she sleeps. When Janie asks why he is interested in someone so ordinary, he tells her that he finds her far from ordinary and encourages her to really look at herself. Tea Cake addresses her fear that he is merely after her money. She dismisses his concern but notes that most people might find their age disparity objectionable. Tea Cake doesn’t care about what other people think, but he leaves abruptly after Janie tells him that he might feel differently once the heat of the moment passes.

In the days that follow, Janie tries to think pragmatically about a relationship with Tea Cake, but she cannot escape her desire for the sexual passion she had dreamed about under the pear tree. At daybreak one morning, he shows up to plead his love only to rush away to work; on another morning, he kisses Janie fiercely enough to wake her from sleep. She finally accepted that she loves him, but her doubts came back again when he disappears for four days.

He returns in a car, asked her to go to the big social event of the year—the Sunday school picnic—and offered to take her shopping beforehand. She asked him earnestly if he wanted to make such a public declaration that they were together. He assured her that he did and that he loved her wholeheartedly.

When the love between Tea Cake and Janie becomes public, the townspeople are shocked that “Mrs. Mayor Starks” would date a man so different from her deceased husband (110). Pheoby’s husband Sam asks Pheoby to encourage Janie to put an end to this unseemly relationship.

Pheoby talks with Janie about all the possible ways it could go wrong, but Janie insists that she knows what she is doing. Her former separation from people like Tea Cake is Joe’s doing. Janie hated being idolized and hardly knew what to do with herself because Joe forced her to stay up on a pedestal that kept her lonely and unhappy. Such a life might have suited the formerly enslaved Nanny, but Janie is interested only in love; she is willing to violate social norms, if doing so will bring her happiness on her own terms. Janie discloses a bombshell that she asks Pheoby not to share quite yet: She plans to marry Tea Cake, sell the store, and start over somewhere else, away from the shadow of Joe Starks.

Janie receives a letter from Tea Cake: He got a railroad job in Jacksonville and wants Janie to come right away so that they can be married. Once Janie arrives, they spend their honeymoon in a boarding house. On a morning a week later, Tea Cake leaves to get some fish but fails to return for a day and a night. Even worse, Janie discovers that $200 hidden in her dress (on the advice of Pheoby) has gone missing. Janie fears that Tea Cake has made a fool of her. As she waits for him, she recalls the story of Mrs. Tyler, an older woman who lost everything when she married a man in Tampa who stole her money and abandoned her. She previously dyed her hair to look younger, but the cheap dye ends up wearing off, leaving her hair gray and streaked. Mrs. Tyler relied on charity to return home and died soon after.

Tea Cake returns. When Janie asks where he’s been and what happened to her money, he tells her a long tale about discovering the money and deciding to go on a spending spree so he could feel like a rich man for a day. He threw a catered party for his railroad coworkers and got his guitar out of the pawn shop. Janie is offended that he didn’t bother to invite her to join in the fun. He was afraid that she would look down on his friends, working-class railroad laborers, but she loves him and didn’t care about any of that, so the two make up.

Tea Cake also assures her that he will get her money back. The upcoming Saturday will be payday for the railroad workers, and Tea Cake considers himself an excellent gambler. Janie has misgivings, but she accepts his decision because she loves him; after being gone all Saturday night, he returns with two shallow knife wounds and $320. When she tells him that she has $1,200 in the bank, he tells her to keep it. They will live only on what he brought in.

Tea Cake decides that they should head to the Everglades, where work and fun are plentiful. She agrees, feeling a love that snuffs out her fear that he will abandon her.