it also justifies his jealousy. He has a certain power over Janie that was left unnoticed throughout their marriage. Hurston’s indirect punishment for Tea Cake is the mad dog. He tried to save Janie from the vicious animal and instead got bitten. Davies suggests that his rabies developed, and he transformed into a “mad dog,” a condition that reflects the anger that precipitated his betrayal of her (155). Janie put an end to the mad dog, and shot him dead because her love for him was stronger than death. Hemenway asserts, Janie has become a complete woman, no longer divided between an inner and outer self, a woman at home with the natural cycles of birth and death, love and loss, knowledge and self-hood. (77).For Janie learning about living means going to the horizon of her consciousness and establishing joyful relationships with others. Her eyes have been watching God-the God that expresses himself in nature, in other human beings and, especially, in our deepest selves (Bush 1038). During certain phases of her journey her dreams were crushed and her horizons were clouded by disappointments and empty marriages, (Jones 371) but Janie emerges as a woman that has been to the horizon in reality, instead of her dreams. Callahan concedes Janie has seen it all and is glad her journey has finally come to a rest. Alone at forty she dreams of integrating the immensity and intimacy of experience in the unfolding of the story of her life (106).Janie has worn her path and has discovered that only she can determine where it leads. She has been to the horizon and has become more aware of life and her inner-self. Janie is proud of who she has become in an existence full of mental, physical, and verbal abuse. She has come to be an independent woman with voice, identity, and a conscious. Janie now knows the truth and love of what life is made up of. “Increasingly Janie’s identity comes not in rebellion a...
