Novel Synopsis- By Carl Christenson

Unashamedly returning to her adopted hometown of Eatonville Florida, Janie ignores the condemning, questioning, and gossiping gazes of the habitants. Only as she relays her life’s narrative to her beloved confidant, Pheoby, can the mystery of her situation be fully understood. In the height of the Florida land boom of 1920, the stunningly gorgeous Janie, with her long black hair and surprisingly fair completion that nearly denies her negro heritage, begins her childhood living with her grandmother in West Florida in the vicinity of Washburn. In her flippant naivety, Janie imagines the romance of marriage. This theme of striving for self-efficacy and the attainment of affectionate devotion is Janie’s ultimate struggle throughout the duration of her life. Pleading with Janie to marry someone of her supposed status, Janie’s grandmother arranges the marriage of Janie to Logan. Soon, however, Janie’s dream of idealistic love created through marriage is smashed as she realizes that her union with Logan has not formed passion. While Logan is away, Joe Starks passes by Janie’s abode. Startled by his dashing appearance and confidant swagger, Janie invites Joe to have a drink. Soon they are in rapt conversation and Joe promises Janie a freedom from manual labor and queen-like treatment. Enamored by this proposition and disillusioned with Logan, Janie believes that she has finally found a path to the attainment of her ideal love. Leaving Logan, she boards a wagon bound for Eatonville Florida. Upon arriving, Joe begins a campaign to win both the praise and respect of the black community. Diligently working, Joe begins to reform the primitive society. After his ascension to mayor, he demands that Janie assume her proper place as mayor’s wife, detaching herself from the uneducated, uncouth prattle. Feeling rebuffed and confined, Janie begins to resent Joe’s overbearing attitude and condescending treatment. When she finally verbally retaliates and publicly mocks Joe’s physique, thereby degrading his status, the state of their marriage decays into a distant coldness. Soon, Joe begins to suffer from the effects of renal failure. After being confined to his bed he staunchly refuses to admit Janie. After many days and with undeterred resolve, Janie barges into Joe’s room to speak to him. As their conversation descends into argument, Janie attempts to mend their tattered relationship, but is only met with unforgiving spite. With a last strangulated gurgle and hateful yell at Janie, Joe meets his death. While now in her forties, Janie’s appearances and vitality deny her age. As she continues to manage the store created by her deceased husband, a young man named Tea Cake begins to frequent her company. The easygoing, carefree, and charming Tea Cake quickly wins Janie’s love. For the first time in her life, Janie allows her feelings to become unguarded in their affection for this man. Unlike her two previous marriages, Tea Cake encourages Janie to strive for her goals, participate in activities of interest, and live life with child-like abandon and pleasure. Janie realizes that her quest for the ideal union as she imagined in her childhood, was becoming fulfilled through this man. Leaving with Tea Cake for the wild untamed everglades surrounding Big Lake Okechobee to battle against nature, Janie feels contentment. Having shunned her life of relatively easy comfort, Janie only rejoices in her union with Tea Cake. The working Negro community toils under the scorching sun and droves of attacking insects, and is bound by friendship created through the common struggle to scratch out a meager living. As droves of workers arrive to Big Lake Okechobee, toil the fertile soil, the area is soon saturated with thousands of workers. Suddenly, a hurricane of massive proportions strikes. As Janie and Joe franticly flee, exhaustion tearing at their bodies, they battle against the wind with its hurtling dangers, and waters with their turbulent collection of living and dead. Sinking below the surface of the deadly water, Janie attempts to hold onto a bovine that is battling the current. A dog perched upon the back of this living island strikes out at Janie. In an attempt to protect Janie, Tea Cake attacks the dog and kills it but only after the crazed rabid beast sinks its glistening white teeth deep into Tea Cake’s face. Weakly dragging themselves to safety, Janie and Tea Cake do manage to survive. After being pressed into the labor of burying the bloated dead, and rotting corpses, Tea Cake yearns to return to the mud flats to labor again with his comrades. Upon returning to the mud flats, Tea Cake falls ill with rabies that he contracted from the dog. Unable to drink, and often lapsing into a snarling hate-crazed state, Tea Cake is in desperate need of medicine. As Janie struggles, waiting for the cure to arrive, the crazed Tea Cake confronts her. With his head listing to the side and jaw clenched in a crooked manner, there was murder in his eyes. Grabbing the pistol, he aimed at Janie. With three of the pistols chambers empty, Janie hears the first hollow snap of the misfire and seizes her rifle. Pleading with the insane Tea Cake to drop his weapon, Janie hears the third ‘click’ and aims her rifle at Tea Cake. As Tea Cake pulled his trigger for the fourth time Janie simultaneously fires with him. Tea Cake’s bullet buried itself above her head as her metallic projectile fatally embedded itself into him. As he crashed to the floor, he bit down into the flesh of her arm and died. After being acquitted at her trial, Janie remained in the everglades only long enough to bury Tea Cake. Then she returned back to Eatonville. As Janie concludes her narrative to Pheoby, she admits that now she has fulfilled her dream. Content with her life, she has achieved self-efficacy. Ultimately, Janie has realized that her love could not be given to the hard-working Logan who restrained her free spirit, nor to the Dapper Joe Starks who repressed her, but to the immature Tea Cake who allowed her to reach self fulfillment unhindered and aided her in liberating her soul.