Ch. 14-15
For this blog I’d like to respond to each chapter as I read — so Chapter 14 first, then 15. Chapter 14: This chapter really demonstrated for me that for the moment, Tea Cake is to and should be trusted. Everything to criticize about Janie’s previous marriages are all contradicted here: she is truly in happy with Tea Cake, he is treating her as an equal, she is able to sit on the front porch/stoop with her neighbors and just talk and have a good time, and she is also working voluntarily for the first time. All of this seems wonderful and I am very happy for Janie’s character at the moment, but I have to admit that it troubles me that there are still six chapters left. And I’m sure that Hurston won’t have six more chapters of just bliss and good times. Also worth noting is the presence of fertility [of the land] and wealth/richness associated with the Everglades. For example on page 124: “The people who were pouring in were broke. They didn’t come bringing money, they were coming to make some.” I find it interesting that this is the place where Janie has been the happiest we’ve seen her throughout the novel, yet wealth is not the reason she moved there. She was living in the muck yet it is physically described as a place of fertile, rich lands and potential wealth to be made. Janie moved to the Everglades out of love and adventure, and these being fulfilled she is truly happy and spiritually wealthy — not economically wealthy, as they are in the muck surrounded by some of the poorest people living a very modest existence.
Chapter 15: Nunkie is as pleasant a woman as her name would insinuate, and I do not like her coming in to intrude on Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship like the “chunky” little home-wrecker she is. In this brief chapter I found it interesting how possessive and almost needy Janie got of Tea Cake — she even tries to physically fight him out of frustration/jealousy of the Nunkie situation. Also, Janie seems to not be trusting Tea Cake as much as she had in previous chapters, as she asks Tea Cake again after their, well, reconciliation through physical means, whether or not he has feelings for Nunkie. She really needs to hear Tea Cake say that he isn’t attracted to Nunkie for her to be satisfied, it does not matter the passion they had the night before.
