I'm a little confused as to what to think about Tea Cake. On the one hand, he seems like a genuinely nice guy who treats everyone well. He treats Janie well for sure, but I don't know if that counts since he is trying to win her. He is a well-liked guy everywhere he goes. In Eatonville he is not a respected citizen, but people like him and have fun with him when he's at the sore. He always seems to be having fun no matter where he goes. There are no instances of him treating anyone badly. He's never beating anyone up or plotting against anyone. He doesn't take advantage of Janie either, even when it is clear to him that she loves him.
But I can't bring myself to completely love him, either. The reason is best examplified in the end of chapter 14. In that chapter, he finds the two hundred dollars that Janie brought and "When he found out how much it was, he was excited and felt like letting folks know who he was" (124). He then decides to throw a huge party giving tons of strangers free food and hiring musicians, spending all kinds of money. "And he stood in the door and paid all the ugly women two dollars not to come in" (124). In total, he spent $188 in a single night. And that was a whole lot more money then than it is now. This kind of irresponsible behavior makes me not like Tea Cake. That money could have been somehow invested in the future, but instead its spent for a party.
What irks me even more is how Tea Cake gets away with it. He doesn't have to pay the consequences for his irresponsibility because he is "one uh de best gamblers God ever made" (125). He takes the $12 remaining, goes gambling for a night, and returns with $322. I hate him so much for this. He spends all his money carelessly, but then wins it back and more easily. He's the kid who sleeps every day in class but aces every exam while the kids who pay attention and study fail. Take Logan, for example. Logan works hard on his sixty acres, but he couldn't afford to spend $188 in a night and have it not matter. Jody might spend $188, but always in a way that it would help him later. And it's not like Tea Cake makes money appear magically. He takes it from people. "So around four o'clock Ah had done cleaned 'em out complete--all except two men dat got up and left while dey had money for groceries, and one man dat wuz lucky" (127).
This makes me hate Tea Cake, but at the same time, he seems like a likable guy.
I think that a large part of Teacake's allure is this aura of carelessness and freedom he exudes. Janie goes from a life of no freedom created by her responsibilities on Logan's farm to a life with no freedom created by Joe's ideas about what a woman should be able to do. Once Joe dies she is pretty financially secure and her artificial separation from the rest of the town is no longer being enforced. Teacake represents the opposite of the things that Joe was, which doesn't necessarily make those things objectively good, just a change of pace. This is originally what attracted Janie to Jody, as she didn't really love him but he was simply the opposite of Logan and she wanted change. Just as you said Jody would never have wasted that 188 dollars but the fact that Teacake doesn't really care is attractive to Janie.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lucas - Janie definately loves carelessness and freedom. Logan definately did not offer freedom, so she ran away with Jody. She thought Jody would give her freedom, but it turns out he is just as confining. So now, her sights are set on an even more alluring and carefree figue. (She sure seems to be moving through the men pretty quickly...). Jonny, you made an interesting comment when you said you questioned Teacake's niceness because he is trying to win Janie. I see your point, especially on the heels of Jody's initial niceness, though I think it's a bit cynical. I like to think that everyone is nice, even if they want something (including love). However, I guess you do make a descent point. Take for example if I want a part of someone's cookie. I may have always been nice to that person and nice in general, but maybe I was just a little nicer in the hopes of a treat. Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteI agree -- Tea Cake's carefree lack of constraint in gambling is simply a furthering of the blunt, brash, happpy-go-lucky social interactions with Janie at her house and in the store that originally attracted Janie. And it is these same characteristics that make us as readers like Tea Cake, too! This is especially true because the characters we have encountered so far are stressed even when they are laughing (if they even laugh at all). Tea Cake, however, never seems stressed about anything, even when he is faced with potentially life-changing dilemmas. For him, neither losing money, nor losing Janie, nor being faced with a hurricane, is an irrevocable problem.
ReplyDeleteWhen it appears to the first-time reader (and Janie) that Tea Cake has stolen her money and abandoned her--the behavior of a scoundrel--we immediately reassess everything we know about him. His whole charming demeanor starts to seem like an act, a deliberate manipulation of her emotions in order to benefit himself in the most loathsome way imaginable. But then his return, and his astonishingly frank explanation of his activities, is so winning, I think, precisely because it's so childlike and weirdly "innocent"--he's not a ruthless scoundrel out to benefit from a vulnerable widow; he's just never felt what it's like to be rich before, and he wanted to throw a huge party for all his friends. Next time he'll invite Janie, now that he knows she'd be up for it. He was worried about what she might think of *him* if she's seen his crazy friends. He seems so frank and honest here, and there's something oddly winning about his obliviousness to the fact that she might be angry.
ReplyDelete