Sam Pletcher
AP American Literature
Cosgrove Period One
25 February 2010
Let Love Be at Peace
It does not take a complex person to love. The feeling of love is almost a natural instinct. Humans are born with emotions of love: love of mother or of family. But as they mature and grow, the naïve childhood love becomes something different, a more sexual and passionate desire. This happens in all humans, but is not always fulfilled or requited. The mythical “true love” is a driving force in many human beings. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston, the antagonist Janie Starks is constantly trying to find this goal of true love. She experiments with man after man to search for this feeling and none can satisfy her desires of both free will and affection, until she meets Tea Cake, a man who can comply with both needs. But just when a balance between love and independence is found, life often presents an extreme decision to choose, not only in self interest but in the interest of the lover, and ultimately discover the true meaning of love.
In the time period Janie lived in, fraternizing with a love interest before marriage was frowned upon. Marriage came before love, Janie was told by her apprehensive grandmother. “There are years that ask questions and years that answer. Janie had no chance to know things, so she had to ask. Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun of the day?” (Page 20). Janie had already been married by the time of this quote, searching for answers to her apathetic feelings towards her husband. This was not the true love perfection she had pictured in her mind. The two husbands previous to Tea Cake had been one dimensional relationships, and she had hidden parts of herself from her husbands and restrained herself rather than be independent. This was the only way these men accepted her, was in a reserved version of herself. “She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them… She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.” (Page 68). Janie’s previous marriages taught her nothing of true love, they were rather relationships of control. She was not her true self in these marriages, but instead she was what her husbands wanted her to be. Autonomy was very lacking, and to rule her own life is what Janie desperately required, but the men in her life forbid it. This was not the true love Janie dreamed of.
When Janie met Tea Cake for the first time, her second husband had recently passed away. Janie had been mentally liberated from his controlling grip and was content with being a strong single woman. But when Tea Cake arrived, she was swept off her feet. He was unlike the other men, who believed they were above Janie because she was a woman. Tea Cake, instead, refused to let her work for him. “He wouldn’t let her get him any breakfast at all. He wanted her to get her rest. He made her stay where she was…after a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind. That was the beginning of things.” (Page 103). Never before had Janie been treated so well, and this quality of Tea Cake was what attracted Janie so much. This was the independence she had always wanted and never found, and it was the start of a deep love. The relationship between them worked so perfectly because it was a balance of reliance and self sufficiency. Together, they completed each other.
The love between Tea Cake and Janie was so strong that when a rabid dog is circling Janie, Tea Cake launched himself between the dog and Janie. The bite that would have fatally injured Janie is taken upon by Tea Cake, and his selfless act reflects the deep love between the two. Weeks later, the rabies takes effect on Tea Cake and he is reduced to a psychotic state of mind. Janie must make the heavy decision between letting Tea Cake take her down with the pistol he keeps under his bed, or killing Tea Cake before he can harm her. This is the climax of the book; everything in the plot has been leading to this point. The choice Janie makes can either leave Tea Cake sick and alone for the rest of his life or force herself to live without him. Though she chooses to kill him, which seems initially selfish, when considering the sacrifice she has made, the decision is great. When Janie kills Tea Cake, she is sacrificing the only man in her life she has ever felt love for, something she searched for her whole life, only to relieve him of his earthly pain. “It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap. She had wanted him to live so much and he was dead…Janie held his head tightly to her breast and wept and thanked him wordlessly for giving her the chance and loving service.” (Page 175). This decision is so difficult, no matter which way Janie would have chosen, pain would have come with. However, Janie chose the morally correct decision to let her loving husband be free.
The purpose of the novel seems to be a point of finding oneself through others. Janie only found the true meaning of happiness and love through another human, and even after Tea Cake was departed, she still felt at peace. “He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace.” (Page 184). Tea Cake was forever part of Janie, as true love is always a part of the mind. Just as she had found the perfect balance with Tea Cake, of love and independence, she was forced to prove her love in the ultimate ultimatum; misery in your partner or misery in yourself. Janie established the amount of love she holds for this man when she chose her misery over his. When her decision was made, and Tea Cake had finally moved on, she felt true love and being at peace with Tea Cake’s absence. Even though he was no longer with her, she became a stronger woman. With the balance between love and independence decided, life gave Janie a choice between self interest or her lover’s interest and Janie fully discovered the vastness of her love.
Work Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1937. Print.