Journal #9

In the final chapters of Eyes Hurston uses the atmosphere of Palm Beach and Tea Cakes sickness to develop the theme that life sucks, get used to it.

The atmosphere of the decimated city of Palm Beach is one of death and racism. This is most prevalent when Tea Cake goes downtown and is told how the dead will be sorted, "They makin' coffins fuh all de white folks...Don't dump no white folks in de hole" (171). This idea that even a dead man is more important than a black man is sick and disturbing. Hurston uses these events to snap the reader out of the heroic mood of the previous chapter and change the mood of the book to one of despair and sadness. Where as the aftermath in Palm Beach is a detached and generic event that the reader is not meant to have a strong connection to, Tea Cakes fate at the hands of rabies is much more personal. The slow disintegration of Tea Cakes mind and body is ment to drain the reader of any hope that the end of Eyes will be positive. Hurston pulls the reader even farther down when Jaine is forced to kill Tea Cake to defend herself, and leaves the reader questioning how Jaine will be able recover from such a traumatic experience. But in the final chapter Janie shows that she is not the weak girl who was lead away from her desires by her grandmother or her past husbands, she is now strong enough to stand on her own against any obstacle. Hurson ends the book this way to give a sharp edge of realism to the sword that is her book.


P.S. to Ms. Wecker and anyone who reads this-probably no one-I have a question and it goes thus...would any male character in the book even including Tea Cake care about Jaine if she wasn't so beautiful. I feel that the answer is a resounding NO, and that makes Tea Cake especially seem like just as much of a shallow prick as the rest of the men. I really want to hear peoples opinion on this because I find it to be quite a big hole in the entire plot.

Oh and to Ms. Wecker personally I would really like some feed back either over the blog or in class. If i don't get any then i will assume that you didn't read my blog and i will wear a sad face for the next to classes two show my disappointment.

oh yeah and here is my plot diagram

Jim is a single parent living in a large city during the third world war. His city is bombed and he barley makes it to his shelter in time. When he emerges he surveys the devastation, he also realizes that his 12 year old daughter, Julia would have been on her bus ride home about the time the bombs started to hit. Fearing the worst Jim starts to run toward the school, before he is halfway there he finds what remains of his daughters bus. He cries and screams for a while but eventually starts to make his way home to examine his house and to see if other need help.