Early into Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, we are treated to a passage of Janie lying under a peartree and watching a beautiful scene of nature that appears to represent the commencement of Janie’s foray into romance. But despite such a fanciful (and to some (Mr. Mitchell) somewhat erotic) start to her love life, Janie’s experiences will prove to be anything but.
The first marriage we see Janie partake in is with Logan Killicks, a smelly, ill-tempered, and altogether unpleasant man. Janie ultimately leaves Logan for Joe Starks, or Jody. Jody is presented as smooth, sleek, and sweet-talking, everything that the peartree was meant to symbolize, a beautiful view of romance. But as the years went on, the marriage devolved into little more than a shouting match with very little benefits for either party involved.
From these two experiences, one would assume that Janie’s love life is doomed to fail, regardless of how perfect it may seem at first. And it is with this feeling of futility that we first encounter Tea Cake, who seems to be even more perfect than Jody did. Almost too perfect. Perfect enough to make a reader skeptical.
When Janie first encounters Tea Cake (and when the reader does as well), he is tall, funny, and with a charming face that makes an onlooker “in favor of the story that was making him laugh before she even heard it”. She observes Tea Cake’s full purple lips, curling lashes, lean and padded shoulders, and narrow waist and trades jokes with him. He seems very much to be a perfect man. But again, so did Jody.
But Tea Cake also has a rapport and connection with Jadie that seemed to be absent in her interactions with Logan and Jody. Despite her being a recently widowed wealthy woman, he appears to have no interest in her money. He doesn’t seem to take anything too seriously, constantly flirting with her like when they upset the game of checkers. And he combs her hair, something that, as Janie points out, is for her benefit and not his. They connect on such a level that when he leaves, Janie is left with the feeling that “she had known him all her life”.
And yet, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that there’s something off about the guy. While Hurston paints a general picture of Tea Cake being a charming ideal, it is possible she only does that because Janie has yet to break from the illusion. She appears to drop, if not hints, a general sense of eeriness about Tea Cake. He has an almost creepy omnipresence about him. When he first shows up, Janie thinks she recognizes him, and while that gives a “love at first sight” vibe, it also gives him this almost supernatural feel. When he leaves, she thinks of him as strange, but immediately shakes it off without thinking too much about it. There is also the weird thing of him showing up out of the blue combing her hair. While I am not Janie, I would be a little disconcerted if I woke up to a relatively new friend touching me. I am not alone in this suspicion either. While she is unable to back up her pleas, Hezekiah tells Janie not to mess around with Tea Cake, as if she sense something off about him as well.
There is half a book to go in our adventures with Tea Cake and with his strange nature as well as the mystery surrounding his death, I think it’s safe to say that we will learn a lot more about this seemingly flawless fellow in the pages to come.
