TEWWG -End, Steinbeck

Well, this definitely was not what I was expecting, yet looking back at the book these last couple chapters have numerous things that were foreshadowed for.  To just name a few the fact that she kills Tea Cake with a gun and that he turns into a wild dog.  The imagery in these chapters are are just as inspiring as the rest of the chapters.  One part that really stuck out at me was after Janie’s trial she is declared innocent, “The sun was almost down and Janie had seen the sun rise on her troubled love and then she had shot Tea Cake and had been in jail and had been tried for her life and now she was free” (Hurston p. 179).  I feel as if the sun is an image of her identity—her spirit.  She mentions her freedom each time she is no longer with a man.  Hurston ends the book with “She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net” (p. 184).  I am not sure what I make of this last reference, perhaps we will discuss it further in class.

            I thought it was interesting how this book is more about gender problems and yet race is sprinkled throughout—especially at the end.  Tea Cake makes racist comments towards some Indians that were leaving the area because of the hurricane.  He thinks that they are not smart enough and are socially lower than blacks.  The trial was interesting from a racial viewpoint and the comment about white men and black women being able to “get away” with more. 

            All in all I think it was a good book, but I think I would like to read it again.  I think it might be beneficial to read it once more—I feel like the book had so much going on I couldn’t pick everything up.

            I especially enjoyed the poems by Steinbeck.  Nothing against the earlier poets but I feel like these were easier to understand and had better imagery.  They were personal histories and stories that could be understood and empathized with.