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Chapter 14 Summary
In the Everglades, Tea Cake gets a job picking beans. Janie marvels at what Tea Cake calls "the muck"—the ten-feet-tall grass and the rich, black soil. Everything seems big and new. The season has not yet started, so Tea Cake buys some guns and teaches Janie how to shoot. She gets to be a better shot than Tea Cake, and she busies herself hunting and cooking and making a home. Eventually, the migrant workers pour in, people who live for nothing but the day and a good laugh. Tea Cake and Janie's house becomes the center of the fun, filled with good jokes, gambling and Tea Cake's music. Other nights are spent at the jukebox, dancing, singing, fighting, crying and laughing. After a while, Tea Cake asks Janie to come work with him in the fields, since he cannot stand to be away from her all day. Therefore, Janie dons some overalls and sets out to pick beans. This redeems her in the eyes of the other women, who until now thought she felt herself above them.
Chapter 14 Analysis
The Everglades presents an ideal setting compared to the restrictive settings of Janie's earlier life—Logan Killicks' sixty acres and Eatonville's rigid hierarchy. Here, Janie finds herself in the middle of a collective where everyone has the same job, the same amount of money and the same ambition—to have fun. She learns to shoot like a man and works with the others in the field, not because she is expected to, but because Tea Cake wants to spend time with her. Working in the field with Tea Cake differs from the work her previous husbands requested of her. Tea Cake seems to have a true respect and adoration for his wife, unlike the other two who only wanted to be able to control the woman they married. Ironically, this warms the other women to her, and for the first time, Janie does not feel the weight of other people's expectations.
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