Life on the Muck
This is the region of Florida where Janie and Tea Cake settle to work and live together.
The Everglades (the muck)
This is the name of the woman on the muck who makes Tea Cake jealous with her flirtatious behavior toward him.
Nunkie
Mrs. Turner is described as having this type of features which she prizes above everything else.
Caucasian-like / white / light-skinned features
This natural disaster strikes the Everglades in Chapter 18 and forces Janie and Tea Cake to flee for their lives.
A hurricane
Hurston writes the dialogue of the muck workers in this style to authentically capture their voices.
African American Vernacular English / dialect
Tea Cake teaches Janie to do this so she can work alongside him in the fields.
Pick/harvest beans (shoot a rifle / play checkers)
When Janie finds Tea Cake and Nunkie alone in the cane fields she feels this powerful emotion for the first time in her life.
Jealousy
Mrs. Turner runs this type of business on the muck.
A restaurant / eating house
Before the storm many of flee these ____________ flee the area, which was a warning of danger to come.
Native Americans (Seminoles) and wild animals
The title of the novel comes from a passage in which Janie says women forget all those things they don't want to remember and remember everything they don't want to forget — the horizon represents this.
Dreams / desire / self-discovery / possibility
Unlike in Eatonville where Janie stood behind a counter Janie does this kind of labor on the muck.
Field work / picking crops alongside the other workers
After the incident with Nunkie Janie and Tea Cake do this to resolve their conflict and reassure each other of their love.
They fight/argue and then make up passionately (reconcile physically)
Mrs. Turner wants to introduce Janie to her brother because she believes Janie should be with someone of this description.
Light-skinned / someone closer to white
During the flood Janie is nearly drowned and saved when Tea Cake fights off this dangerous animal.
A rabid dog
Hurston uses this literary device when she describes the storm as a "monstropolous beast" crawling out of the sea.
Metaphor (also accept personification)
The workers on the muck come from many places; Janie and Tea Cake's home becomes the center of this kind of activity each evening.
Music / dancing / socializing / a gathering place
Tea Cake's jealousy of this man causes tension because Janie is friendly with him.
Ed Dockery (a friendly worker Janie speaks with)
Tea Cake is the target of Mrs. Turner's scorn primarily because of this physical characteristic.
His dark skin color
This is the tragic consequence for Tea Cake after he saves Janie from the animal during the hurricane.
He is bitten and contracts rabies
These chapters shift the setting from a town (Eatonville) to the wilderness of the muck — this change of setting mirrors Janie's internal shift toward this.
Authenticity / true self / freedom from social constraints
Janie reflects that on the muck she feels a sense of this for the first time because she is treated as an equal and chooses her own life.
Freedom / belonging / horizon
Hurston uses Janie and Tea Cake's mutual jealousy to show that their love is this — unlike Janie's previous marriages.
Real / equal / passionate / reciprocal
Mrs. Turner's belief system represents this major theme that Hurston critiques throughout the novel.
Colorism / internalized racism / the worship of whiteness within the Black community
Hurston personifies the hurricane in this way ________________ to convey this literary effect.
describing Lake Okeechobee as a living force/The lake/storm as a monster or god; to show nature's overwhelming power over humanity
Hurston based much of the Everglades setting and dialect on her work in this field — the same work that informed the folk culture throughout the novel.
Anthropology / ethnographic fieldwork (her research collecting African American folklore)