Up to this point in the book we see that Janie doesn't have the best relationships with men. Her former husband Logan Killicks is now out of the picture and Joe Starks has just taken the stage. Joe is the head honcho in the Negro Town and Janie constantly lives in his shadow. He makes sure that Janie doesn't join in any conversations so that the men in town won't find out that she's a great gal. To me we see this type of shadow effect everywhere in political positions. The men who run for these positions are not really thinking about including their wives because they have to worry about the office they're running for and how they can get more votes. So unless women do something to make themselves stand out then they are never really recognized then anything but a pretty face in the background. Which in a way is how it should be, the person running for office whether it be man or woman shouldn't have to worry about their spouse being left out. It sounds terrible but in this case it is true. Joe Starks isn't trying to get his wife recognized also because she happens to be a very beatuiful woman who does actually make sensible comments to conversations. He doesn't want her to show her hair because he wants all of the attention on himself and not on his wife and her long-flowing, beautiful hair. Even with all of this bad treatment that Janie endures from her husband Jody she deals with everything that comes her way pretty well. She works in the store regardless of the fact that she is terrible at math. My favorite event in their entire marriage is when Janie calls out Jody in front of some people in town. I thought it was great that at the end she just exploded and pointed out all of Jody's imperfections instead of the other way around. I loved it! A man like that needed to be put in his place.
After Jody dies Janie kind of moves on and finds out who she really is deep down. She knows that she is a good person who deserves to find love and live a happy life. Tea Cake catches her eye and introduces her to new things and she loves that, what woman doesn't? So just when you think that things between them are perfect, a huge storm comes and washes them away. They are left to deal with living in horrible conditions and horrible situations. When Tea Cake stole her money I was furious I felt like I was in the book I kept thinking, how could he do this to her? After he seemed like the perfect guy he turns out to be this big jerk. My mind was changed when he came home and got all of the money back then he went back to the perfect guy (lol).
One thing that I thought the autho, Hurston, did a great job with was the foreshadowing. She lets the reader know that Tea Cake gets bit and they talk about those eyes that the dog had when he looked at Janie and I love how in the end those eyes coem up again. The ending had me on the edge of my seat I was like, Is she going to kill him? Is he going to kill her? Is anybody going to save her? I loved the entire book I though it had a great storyline and I absolutely loved the main character Janie.