17;s successor, and so it’s appropriate that after his death Janie discovers her true feelings about Nanny” (Callahan 105).Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made-the horizon-for no matter how far a person can go, the horizon is still way beyond you- and pinched it in such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughters neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love. (Hurston 14)At last Janie thinks she has encountered love with a much younger man named Tea Cake. Bush states, “She finds happiness in [this] third marriage by rejecting the hierarchical, materialistic codes others have imposed on her” (1038). Janie and Tea Cake enjoy being themselves portraying their own identity. “Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone to dance” (Hurston 105). Janie ultimatly realizes that she can have fun without being bound by restrictions. According to Dalgarno, “Janie has an inside and an outside and suddenly she knows how to mix them” (531). Tea Cake treats Janie like a person and helps her understand who she really is. Janie comes as close as she ever will to freely expressing her conscious desires while living with a man (Collins 146). It is clearly their love for each other that predominates. Janie can accept Tea Cake as an equal, without illusion, discovering love because she has finally accepted herself (Hemenway 75). “He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be a crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps” (Hurston 109). Tea Cake is not an ideal husband, but he does grant Janie the dignity of self. Tea Cake seems to be the bee for Janie’s blossom, but he is the ultimate betrayal of Janie (Davies 153). Tea Cake makes Janie his “whipping mule” to reassure himself of possession as...
