ly not so independent- even with the verbal assaults she launches back at Jody, she still stays with him until he dies.Tea Cake is the only man to ever court Janie (what Logan Killicks did with Nanny is more like lobbying his cause). He is fun-loving, high spirited, outgoing, and does not act like he owns or wants to own her. These things make Tea Cake the ideal mate for Janie, and her relationship with him is the only one that she really enjoys being a part of consistently.What is bothersome about Tea Cake is that he does in fact hit Janie. Apparently this was tolerable, and even expected at the time. In today's society it would certainly not be tolerated, nor would the attitude that goes along with it. Tea Cake hits Janie because he is weak, and the act has the complete opposite effect on the reader from the effect it has on the characters in the novel.When Mrs. Turner's brother came and she brought him over to be introduced, Tea Cake had a brainstorm. Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him of possession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around to show her who was boss. (p. 140)Maybe it isn't the beating that is such a problem, but the fact that he needed to be reassured of possession when it is all but assumed that tea Cake is different from the rest of the characters who had tried to possess and/or control Janie.At her trial, Janie is silent either by Hurston's wanting to tell it in omniscient third person, or because Hurston is, in fact, trying to qualify the reader's total optimism about Janie's life. Was Janie unable to achieve her voice as Robert Stepto contends (see Forward, xi)? Or did we the readers not hear Janie defend herself because knowing how to use your voice includes knowing when not to as Alice Walker believes? Or is Mary Helen Washington the one who hits ...
