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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Killicks, Starks, Woods:
Janie's husbands act as foils for each other. In doing so, each emphasizes the bad qualities of the husband before him. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, is dirty, gross, and doesn't wash, which Janie describes to Pheoby in a disgusting bit of imagery:
His belly is big too, now, and his toe-nails look lak mule-foots. And 'tain't nothin' in de way of him washing his feet every evenin' before he comes tuh bed. 'Tain't nothin' tuh hinder him 'cause Ah places de water for him. Ah’d ruther be shot wid tacks than tuh turn over in de bed and stir up de air whilst he is in dere. He don’t even never mention nothin’ pretty.
In contrast, Joe Starks, her next husband, is always clean. He is described as prim and proper, dressed well and handsome. Hurston emphasizes this cleanliness in a pitiful observation near his death, as Janie looks sadly on her dying husband: "The half-washed bedclothes hurt her pride for Jody. He had always been so clean." Jody comes to be more like Logan near the end of his life. They are even similar, to Janie, in that they both stink up her bed. But this late-life convalescence only serves to further emphasize Jody's usual cleanliness, contrasting with Killicks's dirtiness.
But Jody's bad qualities, in turn, are made clear by his own foil, Tea Cake. Where Jody was controlling and paternalistic, Tea Cake allows Janie to have anything she wants and to participate in public life. Hurston describes their affairs in montage-like prose:
Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to go to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance. Tea Cake making flower beds in Janie's yard and seeding the garden for her. Chopping down that tree she never did like by the dining room window. All those signs of possession. Tea Cake in a borrowed car teaching Janie to drive. Tea Cake and Janie playing checkers; playing coon-can; playing Florida flip on the store porch all afternoon as if nobody else was there. Day after day and week after week.
Jody never let Janie participate in the life of Eatonville, preferring she keep to her work in the store: "If you could git yo' mind out the streets and keep it in yo' business maybe you could git somethin' straight sometimes." Janie's adventures with Tea Cake position him as a foil to Jody, just as he was a foil to Killicks. These contrasts help to build the narrative structure of the book, as Janie learns over time from her three husbands, each bad in his own way.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Killicks, Starks, Woods:
Janie's husbands act as foils for each other. In doing so, each emphasizes the bad qualities of the husband before him. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, is dirty, gross, and doesn't wash, which Janie describes to Pheoby in a disgusting bit of imagery:
His belly is big too, now, and his toe-nails look lak mule-foots. And 'tain't nothin' in de way of him washing his feet every evenin' before he comes tuh bed. 'Tain't nothin' tuh hinder him 'cause Ah places de water for him. Ah’d ruther be shot wid tacks than tuh turn over in de bed and stir up de air whilst he is in dere. He don’t even never mention nothin’ pretty.
In contrast, Joe Starks, her next husband, is always clean. He is described as prim and proper, dressed well and handsome. Hurston emphasizes this cleanliness in a pitiful observation near his death, as Janie looks sadly on her dying husband: "The half-washed bedclothes hurt her pride for Jody. He had always been so clean." Jody comes to be more like Logan near the end of his life. They are even similar, to Janie, in that they both stink up her bed. But this late-life convalescence only serves to further emphasize Jody's usual cleanliness, contrasting with Killicks's dirtiness.
But Jody's bad qualities, in turn, are made clear by his own foil, Tea Cake. Where Jody was controlling and paternalistic, Tea Cake allows Janie to have anything she wants and to participate in public life. Hurston describes their affairs in montage-like prose:
Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to go to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance. Tea Cake making flower beds in Janie's yard and seeding the garden for her. Chopping down that tree she never did like by the dining room window. All those signs of possession. Tea Cake in a borrowed car teaching Janie to drive. Tea Cake and Janie playing checkers; playing coon-can; playing Florida flip on the store porch all afternoon as if nobody else was there. Day after day and week after week.
Jody never let Janie participate in the life of Eatonville, preferring she keep to her work in the store: "If you could git yo' mind out the streets and keep it in yo' business maybe you could git somethin' straight sometimes." Janie's adventures with Tea Cake position him as a foil to Jody, just as he was a foil to Killicks. These contrasts help to build the narrative structure of the book, as Janie learns over time from her three husbands, each bad in his own way.
Related Themes:
