Thursday, March 19, 2009

Characters and characterization- Jody, Janie, and Tea Cake

Zachary Bailey
Post 2
March 19th, 2009
Characters and Characterizations
Jody, Janie and Tea Cake

Their Eyes Where Watching God poses an extremely interesting twist on the normal stereotypes of characters. While Tea Cake is a Nomadic gambler, with not all that much constantly to his name, his is portrayed as the "Good Guy" of this story. Normal when one meets the stereotypical "Gambler" in any other story, they are a degenerate that a character meets and thinks is okay for a while, until it is reveled that that person is a gambler and has lost all the main character's money. This idea is very consistent, that gambler's lose, and we have seen it many time's. Look at Paul in A River Runs Through It, he was a great fun person, who is eventually beaten to death because of his gambling. Tea Cake however, defies this expansive stereotype, and turns out to be an honorable, upstanding fellow. When Janie fears that Tea Cake has taken her money and run off, not only does he return, but he promises to pay her back, and follows through "Look in mah left hand pants pocket and see whut yo' daddy brought yuh. When I tells yuh ah'm gointuh bring it, ah don't lie" (page 127). Far from being a degenerate as a gambler should be, Tea Cake is honorable and lives up to all Janie could have ever hoped of him.

Foiling Tea Cake, is Jody. Jody is the respectable hard working man, who works hard, raises to power and achieves success. Normally this character should be the "good guy" or the story, however when one gets down to it, Jody is actually somewhat of an awful person. While Jody does not commit crimes or cause anyone harm, quite the opposite in fact, that does not stop him from simply being a bad person. Jody expects the world to bend to his will, and while he basically builds Eatonville from the ground up, he appoints himself supreme leader of the town, and lords himself over everyone else. Characters in his position are normal expected to be humble, however Jody is quite the opposite. To top of his nastiness, is also just plan awful to Janie, treating her like a possession instead of a person "You gettin' too moufy Janie, Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers." (page 75). The only good thing that Jody manages to do for Janie is die in time for her to meet Tea Cake.

Janie, the central character of the story has the weakest personality. Not to say that her actually personality is weak, but she is constantly allowing it to be covered up by the wishes of others. IN the beginning of the story Janie is a whimsical, romanticizing girl, thinking that perfect guy was going to come only and sweep her off her feet, however, at her grandmothers wishes, she stifles that and always herself to be married off. Eventually Janie lets herself show through again for awhile, when she runs off with Jody, however once she begins to get to know him and after they have been together for long enough she becomes what he wants her to be as well. "SO gradually, she pushed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back to the bedroom again. So she put something there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church." (page 71) It is not until Janie meets Tea Cake that she at last starts to be who she truly is, and lets herself shine through.

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