Summary: Chapter 11
Tea Cake doesn’t come back for a week, and Janie, thinking
that he is taking advantage of her wealth, decides to be rude to
him when he shows up. But when he finally comes by, his fanciful
joking—he pretends to play an imaginary guitar—immediately makes
Janie smile. They flirt and play checkers again, and then Tea Cake
walks Janie home. They sit on her porch and talk for hours, eating
cake and drinking fresh lemonade. As late as it is, Tea Cake proposes
that they go fishing. They stay out the rest of the night at the
lake, and in the morning, Janie has to sneak Tea Cake out of town
to avoid gossip. She loves the impetuous adventure of the whole
evening.
The next day, Hezekiah tells Janie that Tea Cake is too
low for a woman like her; Janie, however, doesn’t care. Tea Cake
returns that night and they eat a dinner of fresh fish. Afterward,
Janie falls asleep in Tea Cake’s lap and wakes up to find him brushing
her hair. They talk for a while, and Tea Cake says that he fears
that Janie thinks that he is a scoundrel. Janie tells him that she
likes him, but as a good friend, not as a lover. Crushed, Tea Cake says
that he feels more strongly about her than she apparently does about
him. Janie doesn’t believe him, thinking that he can’t possibly
be attracted to someone so much older than him. She tells him that
he will feel different in the morning. Tea Cake leaves abruptly.
The next day, Janie anxiously frets about Tea Cake, who
doesn’t return. The day after that, however, he wakes her up by
knocking on her door. He says that he has to leave for work but
that he wanted to let her know that his feelings for her are real.
That night, Janie finds Tea Cake waiting for her in her hammock.
They eat dinner and he spends the night. The next morning, he leaves.
Janie is again filled with desperate fears that Tea Cake has simply
taken advantage of her. But he returns after three days, driving
a beat-up car, and says that he wants to make their relationship
public; he bought the car because he wants to take her to the big
town picnic.
Summary: Chapter 12
After the picnic, Tea Cake and Janie become the topic
of scandalous gossip. The town doesn’t approve of the revered mayor’s
widow dating a poor, younger man. Sam Watson convinces Pheoby to
talk to Janie so that she doesn’t end up like Ms. Tyler, an old
widow who was cheated by a younger man. Pheoby tells Janie that
Tea Cake is too low for her, but Janie replies that while Jody wanted
her to act pretentious and high-class, Tea Cake treats her as she
wants to be treated. Pheoby warns that Tea Cake may be using her
for her money and tells Janie that she has stopped mourning for
Jody too soon. Janie dismisses these admonitions, saying she shouldn’t mourn
if she is not sad. Janie then reveals that she plans to sell the store,
leave town, and marry Tea Cake. She explains that she doesn’t want
the town to compare Tea Cake to Jody. She also says that she has
lived her grandmother’s way and now wants to live her own way. She
adds that augmented status seemed like the ultimate achievement
to a former slave like Nanny but that she, Janie, is searching for
something deeper. Pheoby cautions her once more to be careful with
Tea Cake, but then the two women laugh and share in Janie’s newfound
happiness.
Analysis: Chapters 11–12
Chapter 11 deepens our understanding
of Janie’s attraction to Tea Cake. By the end of this chapter, Janie
has begun to see him in mystical terms and has developed a conscious
sense that he is the partner that she needs in order to travel to
the horizon. Chapter 12 contrasts Janie’s
attachment to Tea Cake with her relationship to the town as a whole
and further explores Janie’s personal growth. Through her conversation
with Pheoby Watson, we see that Janie has a clearer idea now than
ever before of who she is and what she wants.
In Chapter 12, we see how Janie’s
relationship with Tea Cake has superceded her desire to interact
with the community around her. In Chapter 6,
when Janie hungers to join the world of the porch-talkers, the community
life of the town seems to offer the interaction missing from her
isolated life with Jody. But Tea Cake now shows her an intimacy
that she considers far more valuable. Whereas, earlier, the opinion
of the town means a great deal to Janie, she has now gained such
an amount of self-confidence and has been exposed to such a fulfilling
relationship that she is able to dismiss the petty gossip of the
town around her. The community, on the other hand, resents
Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship precisely because it replaces
the intimacy that the community offers; with Tea Cake, Janie has
found a connection much deeper and truer than that which the porch
offers.
