Unrequited love. According to Merriam-Webster it is a one-sided love that is not reciprocated or returned in kind. This concept has been used throughout prose and poetry since the beginning of literature. The most famous example is Romeo and Juliet. But in Their Eyes Were Watching God, it is Janie and Tea Cake.
After the six month mourning period of Jody’s death Janie is ready to get back into the dating game. She does not force a relationship but let’s one grow organically with a stranger (unlike with the other suitors). Through a mini “date” of checkers, Janie is “glowing inside” (Hurston 96). Admiration begins to seep through her as no man has treated her as an equal before .
“Is he going to call me? Should I text him? I can’t like his picture first!!” These are common things teenage girls say when thinking about a special someone in 2015. Which why in 1937, Janie had the right to be a little upset when it took Tea Cake a week to come back into the store. Has he never heard of the three day rule before? Besides that little altercation, romance began to bloom two. Secret late night rendez-vous together? Check. “Holding her and caressing her as if he feared she might escape his grasp and fly away” (Hurston 107)? Check. Wanting to go public? Check.
Although “older than Tea Cake” (Hurston 115) and afraid of being what some might call a modern day Nick and Mariah, Janie realizes she is able to find herself within him and is untroubled by the gossip of the town. She is wary no more, and accepts Tea Cake’s love because he “taught [her] de maiden language all over” (Hurston 115) again.
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