Critical Lens

Critical Lens Essay
          One quote that best relates to the book “Their Eyes Were Watching God “would be “In a dark time, the eye begins to see . . .”.   This quote by Theodore Roethke written in The Collected Poem of Theodore Roethke means that as your eyes get adjusted to darkness, you begin to see the most important things that are best illuminated. This quote relates to the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston because Janie was living under the “darkness” which her last husband Jody Starks put her in.   Jody tries to dominate everyone around him, so his marriage with Janie was based on using Janie as an object or contribution to his schemes or for an image for Jody. Janie had done everything that Jody told her to do without even considering how she felt about doing certain things such as having conversations with “common people”. Jody starts to notice that he was starting to look older than he actually was and when Janie began to notice it, he started to chastise her about her age because he didn’t want her to notice that he was getting old while she still looked young.   But when Jody passes away, Janie gets the chance to be a strong and proud woman with the help of a man named Vergible Woods but formally known as Tea Cake.
As Janie was closing Jody’s store, a man came in to buy cigarettes and is flirtatious with Janie.   Tea Cake asked Janie to play a “good-natured” game of checkers, without even knowing his name.   As the two strangers continuously flirt with each other and play their game of checkers, Janie finally asks the man his name and he says,Vergible Woods but everyone calls him Tea Cake. After their fun encounter, Tea Cake walks Janie to the porch and bids her goodnight. After their first meeting the two started to hang out more and go through things together, the began to love each other and soon get married. In the mist of Janie and Tea Cake’s love affair, Tea Cake eventually asks Janie to marry him, move to Jacksonville...