What a Woman Wants

Janie & Tea Cake (Below)

In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Mae Crawford embarks on a life journey in search of the beautiful natural union of love that she witnessed under the fertile pear tree. From Nanny to Logan Killicks to Joe Starks to Vergible Woods aka Tea Cake, Janie progressively experiences love of bondage and restrictions to a beautiful fulfilling relationship with Tea Cake.

Logan has plenty to provide Janie in terms of financial stability. Joe provides financial stability and power. But Tea Cake provides love and romance which is what Janie really wants even though he does not have as much power and money like Joe. Yet Tea Cake has a kind of soft appeal to him, a kind of ability to charm and draw people to him like a magnet through his carefree lifestyle and singing with his guitar. This ability of his makes him equal or even surpass Joe with his form of rigid authoritarian power obtained by making people bow to him and requires him to place himself on a pedestal, away from the common folks.

What Janie really wants seem like what Backstreet Boys sing of in As long as you love me where one loves blindly, risking everything, ignoring the history of the lover, ignoring their flaws. I think this is something admirable, foolish in some people's opinion but I think it is like the ideal kind of womanly love that people still sing praises of where a woman loves a man regardless of what they did in the past, do for a living, earn for a living as long as the man is the romance of her life. Sounds really quite idealistic and fairy tale like isn't it? This is especially considering how money really does plague so many married lives. How many of you would love your man so much, you allow him to beat you up like how Tea Cake slapped Janie who allowed him to do so without so much of a protest simply because her neighbour invited her brother over to be introduced to Janie? Is that love? If you love a person, would you let that person thrash you because they are afraid of losing you, afraid that you'll hurt them? Could you be trashed without getting emotionally hurt? Or would the trashing make you feel happier because in a warped way you know someone is afraid to lose you? I think those who answer the last question in positive would enjoy having a jealous boyfriend, which explains why jealous men still can get girlfriends I suppose. I don't know if I am getting it right here. But I'll really like to know why Janie would let Tea Cake beat her up and still find that the most beautiful relationship she had for her to remain so faithfully in love with him. Is this the power of love then? Or the foolishness of love? You tell me.