Janie and Jody, at least for a short time, seem happy. After a while though, they both get old, the spark falls out of their marriage, and Jody becomes increasingly abusive and stubborn. I can't help but think that if Janie hadn't rushed into the marriage as a solution to her current marriage, she wouldn't have seen some of Jody's poorer traits. I also cannot fathom why she would choose to marry someone else as a solution to her problem, being that she's unhappily married. It seems like the better solution would be to just leave her husband and continue being single.
After Jody's death, Tea Cake comes into Janie's life. He's goofy, handsome, and charming, and he seems to treat her well, so it makes a lot of sense that she'd fall for him. Yet, after two failed marriages previously, it doesn't really make any sense to again rush into a marriage with a man she barely knows. Sure they get along well now, and he's much better than her previous two husbands, but she only knows him for a few weeks or so before she marries him. That's hardly enough time to decide to spend the rest of their lives together, and they really don't know much about her. In fact, for the first few weeks of the marriage, until the day he brings back the guitar, she doesn't really even trust him, as we see when she's worried he left her. He also doesn't know much about her, as he doesn't know how just how wealthy she is, or that she really would have enjoyed the party, rather than leaving her behind because she's too "high society". We again see lack of trust later when Nunkie blatantly flirts with Tea Cake, and Janie immediately assumes that Tea Cake is cheating on her despite his numerous protests, only much later, and after a fight, convincing her that (truthfully) he wasn't. While their marriage seems fine now, her two failed marriages seem too similar to ignore completely.
Tea Cake especially struck me as an odd case. While I don't think he forms a danger to Janie like the townspeople thought he might (that is, stealing her money), their interactions seem more indicative of an abusive relationship than one would aim for. They fight, Tea Cake runs off and does whatever he wants, but still to some extent restricts Janie (she isn't to use her bank funds, she must start working in the fields, she needs to get Mrs. Turner to leave them alone). And, in the latest chapter, things take a particular turn where Tea Cake actually beats Janie because Mrs. Turner's brother pays her too much attention, rather than the other way around. It seems a bit suspicious to me...
ReplyDeleteWell, it is clear that when Janie runs off with Jody, there is a slight sense of compromise (he isn't "blossom," but he is "far horizon"). It's an interesting question whether a slower, traditional courtship would have led her to see how it might have turned out. Clearly, this isn't the first marriage to take this kind of course--in some ways, what's "failed" about it has to do with how depressingly *typical* it seems--and plenty of people have ended up in unhappy marriages who came together under less spontaneous circumstances. (And why do we blame Janie for this, more than Joe?)
ReplyDeleteWhatever we might say about the relationship with Tea Cake (and Tristan raises some valid points, no doubt), it isn't *typical*.