The Domination and Ownership of Women
Toxic masculinity and the patriarchy in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
“Janie wordlessly succumbs to this beating. Whereas Janie speaks for herself forcefully in the fight with Nunkie… Janie's voice, thoughts, and actions are entirely missing.”
- Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God narrates the life of Janie Mae Crawford, highlighting the three failed marriages that she endured throughout the duration of the novel.
Amongst these three men, it would appear that Tea Cake is the best—allows her the freedom to think for herself; teaches her to play checkers, fish, and shoot; makes her genuinely happy—however, he himself is extremely flawed. He is abusive, insecure, and controlling, all of which acting as defining aspects rooted in these ideas of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.
Unfortunately, Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship is centered in this patriarchal world, and it has catastrophic consequences to the two of them, especially Janie.
Violence as a Marker of Power
Yvonne Mesa-El Ashmawi explains how “Tea Cake’s greatest offense is his violence toward Janie,” illustrating one of the main instances where Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship reflects this patriarchal world (204). This is especially noted when Mrs. Turner suggests that Janie meet her brother in a romantic sense, expressing how she disagrees with Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship. Upon hearing this, Tea Cake initially plans to discuss it with Mr. Turner so that she would stop mentioning it:
“Ah’m telling her husband tuh keep her home. Ah don’t want her round dis house” (Hurston 143).
This follows the patriarchal belief of men being the dominant figure in any relationship—rather than discussing the issue with Mrs. Turner herself, Tea Cake believes that mentioning it to her husband would have a better outcome. He decides against doing so after taking in Mr. Turner’s state of health, though, instead stating how “her husband can’t do nothin’ wid dat butt-headed woman. All you can do is treat her cold whenever she come round here” (144).
Unfortunately, once Mrs. Turner’s brother does make it to the muck, Tea Cake preemptively whips Janie, “not because her behavior justified his jealousy,” but because he wanted to reassure himself that Janie would not act out (147). With this comes Tea Cake’s own lack of self-confidence, tying into the concept of toxic masculinity and chauvinism.
When he is whipping Janie, the narrator explains how “being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). Tea Cake does so to “relieve his own insecurities”—he needs to remind himself that he is in control of the situation and can express this through a show of violence and “manly” power (Ashmawi 204). By whipping Janie, he delves into one of the main aspects of toxic masculinity: using violence as a marker of power.
The Pervasiveness of Domination
This act can also be interpreted as him attempting to assert his dominance over Janie in front of other men, reminding the men themselves of their place.
In this, Tea Cake feels threatened in his position as Janie’s spouse—when another man comes into the picture, even though Janie herself assures him that she does not feel anything towards the man, Tea Cake feels the need to declare control—and desires to express this level of dominance to the other men. He wants them to understand that Janie is something to be owned, and that he is the one doing the owning, essentially objectifying his wife.
Tracy L. Bealer explains how “Tea Cake’s jealously and violence is the novel’s most intense and disturbing representation of the pervasiveness of domination” (312). And yet, it worked: “Everybody talked about it next day in the fields. It aroused a sort of envy in both men and women” (Hurston 147).
Not only has Tea Cake unfairly accused Janie of infidelity, but he also “brags about his ability to control her through beatings” (Bealer 312). The abuse that Janie experienced here also follows the patriarchal assumption of a man’s claims being more powerful and reliable than that of a woman’s, because as Janie promises that nothing is going on, he hardly listens to her.
This is similar to how Tea Cake would have preferred discussing the matter of Mrs. Turner’s behavior with Mr. Turner, because he believes that a man’s word—and power—holds truer than that of a woman’s.
What is most disturbing about this particular incident is the way in which Janie accepts it:
“Janie wordlessly succumbs to this beating. Whereas Janie speaks for herself forcefully in the fight with Nunkie… Janie's voice, thoughts, and actions are entirely missing” (323).
Not only is Janie blinded by her love for Tea Cake, allowing her to write off such violent actions, but she actually begins to lose the progress that she has made in her own journey of self-actualization. In a sense, she has been silenced—maybe by her own choice to do so but suppressed nonetheless—and this relates to the circumstances in which women have been silenced by way of the patriarchy.
This can also be found in the decision to stay in the muck despite the oncoming hurricane—Janie does not voice her opinions and instead follows Tea Cake’s decision to stay, which inevitably leads to the demise of their marriage.
Double Standards of Jealousy
There also seems to be a double standard to this sense of jealousy, though, in that it is appropriate for Tea Cake to experience this emotion of jealousy—and act on it accordingly—but it is not acceptable for Janie to.
The first time Janie ever faced romantic jealously was in their marriage as she felt as “a little seed of fear was growing into a tree” (Hurston 136). Tea Cake was becoming a bit too familiar with one of their coworkers in the fields, and when Janie called him out on this, an argument ensued. When he was not getting anywhere with his words, “he hurled her to the floor and held her there melting her resistance with the heat of his body,” effectively forcing her into having sex with him (137).
Although it does look like she reciprocates in the end, the violent and forceful nature of this tends to lead to further discussions on Tea Cake’s possessive behavior. He does not like hearing Janie spew out lies about him—although slightly warranted in the position she found him in—and tried to silence her in the only way that his dominant mind thought possible. He felt threatened like before, but instead of it being over losing Janie to another man, it was in losing her over a misunderstanding.
Here, Tea Cake physically dominates Janie, overpowering her into a state of submission. Also, when Janie asks again the following day to reassure herself that nothing was going on, Tea Cake explains how the woman “ain’t good for nothin’ exceptin’ tuh set up in uh corner by de kitchen stove and break wood over her head,” expressing even more aggression towards women as a whole (138).
Final Thoughts…
In this, it is clear how Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship was centered in a patriarchal world—there was an abundance of toxic masculinity, physical abuse, jealousy, insecurities, and so on. If it had not been for Tea Cake contracting rabies, it seems as if this relationship would have continued for the remainder of their lives—Janie seemed in no state to leave Tea Cake by her own devices, and Tea Cake himself was too prideful to let Janie go.
From a different perspective, this period of Tea Cake growing sicker can be viewed as Janie’s only escape route. Although her killing Tea Cake was in self-defense, it can also be interpreted as her finally fighting back from the physical abuse that she endured throughout the duration of their relationship. She loved him, and though it was difficult for her to follow through with this act, she had to finally put herself and her well-being first.
This situates Janie at the top, breaking down the walls of the patriarchy and destroying this small bit of toxic masculinity that wedged itself into her life.
Ashmawi, Yvonne Mesa-El. “Janie’s Tea Cake: Sinner, Saint, or Merely Mortal?” Explicator, vol. 67, no. 3, Spring 2009, pp. 203–206. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3200/EXPL.67.3.203-206.
Bealer, Tracy L. “‘The Kiss of Memory’: The Problem of Love in Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God.’” African American Review, vol. 43, no. 2/3, 2009, pp. 311–327. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/afa.2009.0039.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. E-book, John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston, 1965.