Their Eyes Were Watching God

Janie arranged a lavish funeral for Joe, and important people came from all over South Florida to see him off. Janie publicly presented as a grieving widow dressed in expensive black mourning clothes, but internally, she celebrated being free of restraints for the first time in her life. As she thought of Nanny’s decisions, Janie realized she hated her grandmother for foreclosing the possibilities in her life, and blamed Nanny for choosing material security over happiness for her granddaughter.

After the funeral, Janie carried on with her normal routine of minding the store with the help of Hezekiah, Joe’s assistant. Free of Joe, Janie burned all her head rags, wore her hair uncovered, and occasionally sat on the porch. When suitors began showing up just a month after Joe’s death, she ignored them, telling Pheoby that love for her newfound freedom, not grief, led her to deny these men. Pheoby told her to keep that subversive thought to herself.

One day, when Janie was tending the store by herself, a young man named Vergible Woods, who went by the name “Tea Cake,” walked in to buy some cigarettes. With most of the town away at a baseball game, Janie agreed to sit with Tea Cake and play a game of checkers; she found him instantly charming.