Chapter 191. “Git on down de road dere, suh! Don’t look out somebody’ll be buryin you! G’wan in front uh me, suh!” (170).
-the black man’s reality is a white man with a badge and a gun
2. “Death had found them watching, trying to see beyond seeing” (270).
-Any significance between these “watchers” and the Watcher from in the opening lines of Chapter 1?
-What is significant about the title Their Eyes Were Watching God.
3. Why worry about putting the whites in a coffin? (171).
4. Treated like crap-here’s their reality: “Sofar as [de white man’s] concerned all [the blacks] he don’t know oughta be tried and sentenced to six months behind de United States privy house at hard smellin’”(172).
5. Why would Tea Cake be so angry with Janie? He’s never been angry with her before-just take his anger out on her (176).
6. Rabies! What would you do if your spouse was sick like Tea Cake? Save yourself or take care of him?
7. “If she didn’t see the sickness in his face she could imagine it wasn’t really happening” (178).
-Any significance about Janie’s character?
8. Would sop-de-bottom and Dochery have stayed with Tea Cake if Janie had told them he had rabies? (179)
-Should she have told them?
9. Why would Tea Cake sleep with a pistol under his pillow? (181).
10. “You’se uh lil girl baby all de time” (186) Is Janie to naïve for her own good?
11. Why didn’t Janie just run when she found the loaded gun? (182).
12. Why try Janie if she shot Tea Cake in self defense?
13. In what ways does our justice system waste time and money today?
14. What is it about gruesome details that make us want to see? To know? (Car accident?).
15. Why do we want to believe/see the worst in people?
16. Why does the author want us to see “the white woman [cry] and [stand] around [Janie] like a protecting wall and the Negroes… with heas hung down [shuffle] out [of the court house] and away (188).
17. “Aw you know dem white mens wazn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman. Dat look like her” (189).
-Do beautiful people suffer as a process/result of their beauty?
Chapter 201. Why do people have to place blame on someone or something when a loved one dies? (190)
2. “The seeds reminded Janie of Tea Cake more then anything else…” (191).
How does this feed the tree metaphor for Janie’s life?
3. “Ah done been to the horizon and back now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparison” (191).
How does this tie into Hurston’s opening lines about the dreams of men and women?
4. What does Pheoby mean when she says, “Ah means tuh make same take me fishin’ wid him after this (192)?
5. What does Janie mean by saying “And listenin’ to dat kind of talk is lak openin’ yo mouth and lettin’ the moon shine down your throat” (192)?
6. “She pulled in her horizon lke a great fish net” (193).
What would the rest of Janie’s life be like?
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Chapter 19
Ivan’s Summary:
After the hurricane Tea Cake decides to go walk around and finds himself being forced by two white men to help find and bury dead bodies. Has time go’s by Tea Cake find an opportunity to escape and he takes it. He gets back to his house only to find Janie crying worried, he calms her down and tells her that they need to move, and so they leave. A couple weeks later Tea Cake comes home with a headache and starts having problems eating and drinking water. Janie calls a doctor to do a diagnosis on him, Tea Cake has Rabies and it’s too late to save him because he has been infected for to long. Janie decides not to tell him and look for a cure but has time passes by it gets worse and worse until Janie finds out that Tea Cake is hiding a gun under his pillow so instead of taking the bullets out she fixes the gun so that it shoots three blanks first while he go’s to the out house when he comes back in a fit of rage he get’s the gun and walk into the kitchen with Janie he fires the first blank shots and has he is about to shoot the last one Janie gets the rifle and kills him. Janie held his head tightly to her breast and wept and thanked him wordlessly for giving her the chance for loving service. She had to hug him tight for soon he would be gone, and she had to tell him for the last time. “Then the grief of outer darkness descended." And that same day she was sent to jail. She was sent to trail and was considered innocent after that happened they held a funeral for her love and she buried him in her overalls.
Alejandro’s Summary:
In chapter 19 many interesting things happen. At the beginning Tea Cake is forced to help two white guys bury dead bodies. He finds out that white people get coffins and black people just get put in ditches. When he gets the chance he runs away and goes to Janie and tells her that they need to get away. So after some time Tea Cake starts to feel sick. His condition gets really bad so Janie tells a doctor what’s wrong. The doctor tells Janie that he has rabies and that she should be careful. Janie finds a gun on tea Cake’s bed and so she puts the blank rounds in first so that in case something was to happen the blank rounds would fire first. When Tea cake loses his mind he shoots at Janie and then defends herself by shooting Tea Cake. Tea Cake dies and Janie is sent to be on trial but is found innocent. At Tea Cake’s funeral Janie goes to it in her overalls.
1. What happen in town? (Literal)
2. Where do Janie and Tea Cake go at the beginning of the Chapter? (Literal)
3. When Janie is on trial do they find her guilty or innocent? (Literal)
4. Why was there two white men carrying weapons in town? (Literal)
5. What are some of the odd things that start happening to tea cake? (Literal)
6. What do you think Tea Cake means when he says “Dey claims dey’s after de unemployed, but dey ain’t bein’ too particular about wether you’se employed or not.”?(Interpretive)
7. When Janie goes to fix Tea Cake’s bed what does she find? (Literal)
8. What did Tea Cake have to do once he was part of the small army pressed into service? (Literal)
9. Do you think that Janie should have told Tea Cake that he had Rabies? (Interpretive)
10. Do you think it’s fair that the dead whites get coffins but the colored don’t? (Interpretive)
11. Why do you think that Tea Cake shoots at Janie? (Interpretive)
12. Do you think that Tea Cake became jealous because Janie went to Mrs. Turner’s Brother? (Interpretive)
13. If Tea Cake had taken the cure do you think things would have been different instead of how it ended happened with Janie killing Tea Cake?(interpretive)
14. Why do you think that Janie went to the funeral in her overalls? (Interpretive)
15. Do you think it was Janie’s fault that Tea Cake died? (Interpretive)
16. Would you be able to take the life of your one true love? (Universal)
17. If you took the life of the person you love would you be able to live your life like if it never did?
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Fransisco's Discussion
Chapter 20
This chapter is about Janie and her best friend Pheoby. And in this chapter it’s really talking about how everybody in court blamed her because she had killed Tea Cake. But after she had told everybody that she had done it because it was self defense everybody was sorry that they accused her. This chapter was also about how she came back to her home town and she was walking in her room for the first time after a long time, remembering all those emotions that she once had with Tea Cake. She is also remembering the whole story that had happen to her.
1. How long were they mad at Janie for? L
2. What one thing did Janie keep when she was giving her things away? L
3. What is Janie trying to say to Phoeby when she says,
…love is lak de sea . Its uh movin’ but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore. (pg. 191) I
4. What emotions come to Janie when she steps into her old room? I
5. Do you think that Janie found true love? I
6. Why did the court forgive Janie after she explained why she killed Tea Cake? L
7. Do you think that she will stay in town or move away? I
8. Do you think people like Janie seek love again or do you think that they stay alone? U
