Characters
Quotations
Plot
Context and the Big Picture
Even More Plot
100

Janie's true love

Tea Cake

100
“Ah told you in de very first beginnin’ dat Ah aimed tuh be uh big voice. You oughta be glad, ‘cause dat makes uh big woman outa you.”
Joe Starks
100
What Janie is wearing when she returns to Eatonville
Dirty overalls
100
The author's full name
Zora Neale Hurston
100

The animal that Joe bought to give a rest to

The mule

200
Janie's best friend in Eatonville
Pheoby
200
“Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gits hot. You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place. ‘Taint no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long.”
Logan Killicks
200

The thing that is wrong with Tea Cake when he comes home from gambling to win back Janie's money

He has been cut by a razor

200

The novel was written as a part of this period of cultural revolution for Black artists in America

The Harlem Renaissance

200
This caused the end of Janie's childhood
The kiss with Johnny Taylor
300

The woman who looks down upon Black people and is friends with Janie because she is light-skinned

Mrs. Turner

300
“So long as they get a name to gnaw on they don’t are whose it is, and what about, ‘specially if they can make it sound like evil.”
Pheoby
300
The first thing Tea Cake shows Janie to do
Play checkers
300
The author herself shares many traits with this character
Janie
300

Joe forces Janie to do this out of jealousy

Tie up her hair

400
When Janie leaves with Tea Cake, she is warned that she may end up like this couple--the man took all the lady's money
Annie Tyler and Who Flung
400
“Janie is wherever Ah wants tuh be. Dat’s de kind uh wife she is and Ah love her for it.”
Tea Cake
400

The term used to refer to the play-fighting and pretend-insulting that the people of Eatonville do on the store's porch

Signifyin' or Playing the Dozens

400

The most commonly recurring symbol in the novel

Pear tree / blossoms

400
Hezekiah is most like this person as he runs the store
Joe Starks
500
The girl who flirts with Tea Cake in the Everglades
Nunkie
500
“Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”
Janie
500

This event causes Janie to fall out of love with Joe Starks

He slaps her for making a bad dinner

500

Joe was never what Janie wanted for herself. Whose vision of the perfect man did Joe represent?

Nanny's

500

What Tea Cake does with Janie's $200

Throws a big party

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