The Fate of Tea Cake

At the very end of Their Eyes were Watching God, Tea Cake undergoes a transformation of his character, as rabies twists his brain, making him suspicious of everything and everyone, especially Janie. This suspicion shifts to absolute rage, culminating in him trying to shoot Janie, and Janie killing him. This fate, I think, is an incredibly close parallel to the fate of Joe Starks, but the speeds at which each person changed were quite different. Joe Starks impressed Janie with his promises of status and of change to Janies dull life with Logan. But, once they were married, it didn't take long for him to start abusing her, and, as they age, his treatment of her gets worse and worse. Tea Cake, on the other hand, changes his character over the course of days, but he undergoes the same sorts of changes to his personality. The difference being, we view the Tea Cake infected with rabies as not his true self, the actual Tea Cake would never do such a thing. But with Jody, we see the shift in his character as an unveiling of a true self. He always was a horrible person to Janie, who just got worse at hiding it, we believe. But I want to ask if maybe the rabid Tea Cake should count to his character, and if the aged Jody should count against his.

Comments

  1. MitchellNovember 23, 2019 at 12:19 PM

    This is an interesting question, and I think you nail the key distinction when you note that Joe's "true character" is revealed in the *years* after the shine wears off their marriage, and he maintains his regime where Janie has to serve as the dutiful "mayor's wife." There's a real consistency to this phase of Joe's life, as Janie lays out in great detail in their final scene together.

    With Tea Cake, it's absolutely vital to keep remembering that in a very real sense, this *isn't him* being so paranoid and jealous of Janie. It is literally a symptom of the illness in his blood, and it certainly adds to the tragedy of the ending that her final memories must be of him being surly and accusatory and suspicious: she has to shoot the man she loves, while reminding herself that the "real Tea Cake" is already dead, for all practical purposes. The idea of seeing a loved one transform so profoundly in a few short days is nightmarish. We might want to remember him as the guy who risks (and eventually *gives*) his own life in order to save Janie's--this is the guy she surrounds herself with memories of in the final passage of the book.

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  2. JoshuaNovember 24, 2019 at 9:11 PM

    I don't know much about rabies or the exact effects it has on people. Before he was bitten, Tea Cake showed signs of being an overprotective and jealous husband, like showing up at random times to check in on Janie. I assume the rabies heightened any fears he might have had but been able to keep under wraps, blowing them out of proportion. I don't think it's fair to hold what Tea Cake did/tried to do while rabid against him, especially because he contracts rabies while saving Janie's life. In Jody's case, it was more that he made a decision to stop trying to hide the real him, while Tea Cake didn't choose to go rabid.

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  3. Emi L.November 25, 2019 at 9:24 PM

    I felt bad for jody. I think he had issues with himself and never really fixed them, so although he wanted love from janie he dug himself into a hole of bad relations and couldn't get out in the end. I wouldn't compare that to Tea Cake's rabies. I don't think they're related. But it is pretty weird that tea cake gets so crazy that he would shoot the woman he professed love for a few hours ago. I don't really know how to interpret that shift, but currently I'm still moping over how janie just can't seem to find happiness.

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  4. NiiicoNovember 26, 2019 at 6:54 PM

    I agree with Joshua about the fact that Teacake may have started showing signs of being overprotective, especially with that weird beating scene where he asserts his dominance over her. He was weird in many senses, taking her money and stuff, but it was obvious that he was loving too, like, he literally saves her. I wonder what would've happened had he not gotten rabies and how their marriage would have played out then- would he have started to become like jody? His character development was cut short, and I feel like I just didn't have enough knowledge about him to judge him completely as a character.

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