Setting & Location

During the second portion of the novel, Hurston again uses a change in setting to correspond with a change in Janie’s lifestyle. This time Janie travels from Eatonville to the Everglades with Tea Cake. Referred to as “the muck,” the Everglades represent a completely different environment for Janie, especially compared to Eatonville. While Janie’s old town was full of people concerned with image and the status of different members of society the Everglades are different. For starters, they are completely filled with nature and fertile lands. Due to this, Tea Cake has the ability to prove himself by working the land while Janie has the ability to explore herself by learning to do such things as hunt and work the fields. While not as glamorous as her life in Eatonville, this change provided my Janie’s new setting allows her to better explore herself. This expansion of skills and power helps to satisfy Janie’s need to transcend the subservient role she played for so long when married to Joe back in Eatonville.

Other aspects of the Everglades are also important in the development of the story and Janie’s character. One such example is seen at the end of chapter 14 when Janie reveals how much she enjoys her new setting. This is shown in the following passage:

“Sometimes Janie would think of the old days in the big white house and the store and laugh to herself. What if Eatonville could see her now in her blue denim overalls and heavy shoes? … She was sorry for her friends back there and scornful of the others… Only here she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” (134).

Through this passage Janie clearly states how she is much happier with her life in the Everglades compared to Eatonville. The freedoms that this new setting has provided have allowed Janie to develop as a character and move closer to her true desires and goals. After years of being trapped in the store with a man who did not love her, this new environment has finally giver her opportunity to exercise her own voice. Being herself and surrounded by nature will perhaps allow Janie to obtain her true desire: the moment under the pear tree with Johnny Taylor. In that moment Janie was in nature, without restrictions, and able to be herself. The Everglades has brought Janie back to a position without the restrictions and submissive requisites of Eatonville. Therefore this new location might represent the restitution Janie needs on her quest to find happiness after being without it for so many years.