Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake

So far in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has had a significant relationship with three men. The first man is Logan Killicks, who Janie was forced to marry because her grandmother thought that he would provide her a solid future. She was not happy in this marriage because Logan was much older and expected her to work on his farm. Soon after, Janie met Joe Starks who charmed her into running off with him.

The initial attraction to Joe was something that Janie hadn’t really felt before, and I think that is one of the reasons that she so willingly moved away with him. Before Joe, the only man that she had a relationship with was Logan, which was not a relationship based on love. When Joe drove up, and started talking to her about a better life, Josie was all on board:

“De day you puts yo’ hand in mine, Ah wouldn’t let de sun go down on us single. Ah’m uh man wid principles. You ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated lak a lady and Ah wants to be de one tuh show yuh…” (29)

He says that he will treat her like a lady, which sounds a lot better to Janie than her life with Killicks, where he makes her work on the farm. Soon after marrying Joe, however, she realizes that he isn't always as charming as he was when they met. He still makes her work, but in a different way than Logan. Their marriage eventually turns into a facade for the town, because they really don't feel the sparks that they initially had anymore:

“The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands wheneber company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again.” (71)

After Joe dies, Janie finds that she really likes the freedom of being single. But soon, another man comes into her life who is very different from both Logan and Joe. Janie fell for Tea Cake because of his super charming and cute personality. We haven’t read much about what happens with Tea Cake yet, but it is almost like things are too good with him. I think that it is possible for the reader to be skeptical of Tea Cake because he is so charming and so interested in Janie, who is much older than him.

The Invisible Man

In most of the novel, the narrator of Invisible Man has not actually experienced what he calls “invisibility” in the prologue. He continues to develop towards it, meeting people that betray him and becoming more defensive. In the prologue, the narrator describes his invisibility as never being quite on the beat. When the narrator discovers invisibility, he not only discovers that he can use a disguise and not be himself, but he can be secluded; he can live in a disguise and start to notice more things without worrying about the relationships he already has. The narrator’s first experience with being invisible to people that would normally recognize him is in Chapter 23, when he must put on a disguise so that Ras’ men don’t recognize him. He then starts to run into a bunch of people who mistake him for a man named Rinehart, who presumably leads many different lives with different people. The narrator realizes that he really enjoys being invisible because he is the only one who knows who he is. This is a big step and the narrator is almost at the mindset of the “prologue narrator”, there is just one more event that changes him. In the last chapter, the rebellion in Harlem gets out of control and the narrator ends up getting sucked into it and falls into a manhole. In the manhole, he decides to burn everything in his briefcase because it is all he has to get light. This is a very significant action, because up to this point in the book, the narrator has kept all of the significant items that he has come across in that briefcase. At this point, he is completely detached from his life. He says,

No, I couldn’t return to Mary’s, or to the campus, or to the Brotherhood, or home. I could only move ahead or stay here, underground. So I would stay here until I was chased out. Here, at least, I could try to think things out in peace, or, if not in peace, in quiet. I would take up residence underground. The end was in the beginning. (Ellison 571)

These are the last words in the book before it goes back to the narrator in the room with the lights. By now, he has completely realized that he wants to live an “invisible life.” He says in the quote above, “the end was in the beginning,” meaning that his new life starts here.