I'm going to go with something that doesn't necessarily talk about Janie in the story...sorry to be the odd one out. There were a few places that the definition of race and differences really stuck out to me. Towards the end (when Janie was in Palm Beach County?) there was a lot of race factors brought up, and I find it intriguing that this part of the story (with the more equal standing between Janie and the world, as a few of you have mentioned) it's a prominent subject.

Not only is the black/white race divide (and the grey area) brought up, but some of the racist comments made about the Indians were surprising in the context. It brings up the complexity of racial divisions when one "minority" looks down on other minorities... The lighter folks (occasionally) look down on the darker ones-like Mrs. Turner, or one people who have fought for equality in the eyes of another who look down on another people with the same battle in their hands- "Indians are dumb anyhow, always were"(155). I always though making stereotypes based on race were stupid, though I almost found it ironically fitting that one like the aforementioned quote was in the text.

Janie's Fault

I agree with your assessment of their marriage Taryn. Theirs certainly wasn't the love story I expected when I read about Tea Cake first walking into Janie's store. But, I'm not sure Hurston wanted to portray their relationship as perfect. In fact, I would argue that, despite the obvious tendency for the reader to side with Janie because she is the protagonist, Hurston lays as much blame on her leading lady as she does on the men in her life.

Janie's conception of marriage was built on a feeling, one some might call romantic, that she experienced after observing nature. Her construction of a good marriage was not based on a logical or reasonable reaction to another successful relationship she saw around her; it was constructed on the cornerstone of an irrational expectation based on butterflies (or bees) in her tummy. Maybe the reason many critics tend to read Janie's relationship with Tea Cake as they do is exactly what you said: they are deluded by the feelings Janie felt for Tea Cake. Despite how healthy we perceive their relationship to be, the fact remains that Janie absolutely loved Tea Cake. Most people interpret that feeling of Janie's as the only evidence necessary to prove the equality of their relationship. I think, as you pointed out, that Hurston expects us not to fall into that trap. Janie may have found happiness in some way, but it may not have been true happiness. Instead, Janie may have only found the feeling she equated with love and happiness with Tea Cake, but I think Hurston leaves it up to the reader to determine for themselves whether or not they think it truly was love. I'm not so convinced.

A Connection between Janie and George Willard

There are many similarities between Janie and George Willard when we begin to think about Culture and the Individual. In both cases, these individuals are dependent on their relationships with others in order to define themselves when searching for their own identity. Janie looks to her grandmother for advice, looks to her first husband Logan to teach her about love, and looks to her second husband Joe to give her direction (although she grows to resent him for it). George looks to his relationships with other women to help him develop his own identity; particularly women such as Helen White. Both individuals are attempting to come of age in their respective novels, but are being held back by their culture.

George is being held back by the rural town of Winesburg, Ohio. In order to grow, he must leave the town for the city, or the urban, at the end of the novel to ultimately gain his own identity. He is so influenced by the thoughts and ideas of those in his small-town that it has become almost impossible to develop his own ideas. For Janie she is stifled by both her race and her gender. She is caught between what is expected of her as an African-American woman, and the "great tree" (Hurston 8) that she strives to become. Both individuals seem to be attempting to change the expectations for themselves within their culture, but struggle to change the traditional values and ideals.

Janie and Tea Cake: An Example of Egalitarian Marriage?

In reading various articles on feminist readings of Their Eyes, I have noticed that, at least originally, the prevailing interpretation seemed to be that Janie fights her way through two controlling men, but eventually finds herself in a truly egalitarian marriage with Tea Cake. These readings attempt to neatly describe Janie's journey as one that ends with some kind of growth and transformation. While this might be a convenient way to read the novel, I find that the text doesn't bear it out. One article I read suggested that Tea Cake was at least partly in favor of feminine advancement, and cited instances in which he takes Janie fishing and teaches her to play checkers. It's true that these are activities neither Logan Killicks nor Joe Starks allowed her to try, but I would argue that giving a woman a couple of hobbies doesn't really qualify as standing her on equal footing with men. In fact, Tea Cake's first encounter with Janie is a didactic one, with him in the position as teacher and her below, as his student. This is where she remains throughout their relationship. Just a few examples: he takes her money without her permission and spends it all on a party to which he doesn't even invite her, asks her to work in the fields alongside him (something she absolutely refused to do for her previous husbands), and beats her to maintain his "possession" of her. The aforementioned article argued that since Janie had already beaten him due to his interest in Nunkie, his physical violence towards her was not an element of a patriarchal relationship. To that I roll my eyes and say....right. Yep, sounds like a super-egalitarian marriage to me. Actually, it sounds like verse three of the same song Janie has been singing since she first was forced to marry Logan Killicks; the only reason we are tempted to read it differently is because Janie does. She is in love with Tea Cake, and so in her mind, he can do no wrong. We as readers, though, should know better.

Janie as Social Deviant

In Benedict's definition, although the deviant is a constant in society their respective treatment differs from one culture to the next. Using the American rural South as a backdrop for the alternating spaces and social customs contained in the novel, Hurston, by focusing on the varieties of black experience within these contexts (as well as Janie's failed assimilation therein), seems to dispell any myths of essentialized racial categorization along cultural lines.

Sure, Janie is unwittingly part of various cultures within the novel-whether they be along historical, familial, or civic lines. What remains consistent in the novel, however, is Janie's continued resistance to each respective set of cultural norms. The type of culture Janie seems to favor is one that fosters choice and a tolerance of individuality rather than strict compliance to social norms.

Janie, through her willingness to alter her physical space, to recognize her unconscious self and its awakening of desire at the expense of duty (both to Nanny and Joe), and her willful resistance to cultural impositions fits her into the category of deviant as defined by Benedict.

A Contemporary Situation Which Calls Into Question a Statement of Benedicts?

On page 271 of Patterns of Culture, Benedict claims that "No society has yet attempted a self-conscious direction of the process by which its new normalities are created in the next generation." Immediately upon reading this an exception came to mind that is glaring because I have witnessed it happen with a great degree of amazement in my own lifetime--that is the "new normality" associated with NOT smoking. After reading Benedict's (in my opinion) highly objective and egalitarian cultural treatise, I do not doubt at the moment of her writing that there existed no such obviously concerted effort by a culture to eradicate an activity deeply embedded within its accepted cultural standards. Our generation's complete reversal of attitudes and practices regarding tobacco usage has tampered with some very deep-seated aspects of our current cultural make-up--our fierce belief in the freedom of personal choice, our easy brand of hedonism, our individualism, our self-image as free-agents of our own destiny. Yet in twenty-five years (and I speak from personal history) I have evolved from being an accepted (even admired) chain-smoking, 3-pack a day professional woman to being a social pariah(if I indeed still smoked.) When I started smoking in my mid-teens in the sixties, I was cool and bohemian--smoking was an accepted rite-of-passage. In the mid-eighties, I could walk down the street or into a restaurant in my dress attire with a cigarette in my hand and exemplify the norm, not the exception. As for now?--just admitting this personal example as a case study causes me to view myself in negative light and my daughters (for whom I quit smoking) are almost belligerently anti-smoking. The woman--worse yet,the mother--I described above would be an anathema to them. While our culture still values personal choice, individualism, a healthy dose of hedonism--we HAVE created a new normality (one that involves plasticity, one that embraces new and evolving priorities in our cultural array)which centers on personal health as a desired construct and consciousness of an individual's affect on the health and comfort of others. Maybe I simplify, but so it seems to me!

Ruth