Sunday, November 18, 2012

How are the porch gatherings here different from the ones in Eatonville? Please give specific details from the text to support your response.

I assume by "here" you are referring to the portion of the
novel when Tea Cake and Janie move onto the muck, the
Everglades.


On the porches of Eatonville, and in particular
on the store's porch, Janie was never allowed to be a participant in the bantering and
storytelling that when on among men. She was allowed to listen and to witness, but Joe
does not allow her to participate. It is no coincidence, then, that it is upon the
store's porch that Janie finally "finds her voice" to stand up to Joe and emasculate him
with her "when you pull down your britches, you look like the change of life" insult.
Even with Joe gone, when Janie plays checkers on the store's porch most of Eatonville is
left feeling very uncomfortable with the situation.


The
porches in the Everglades are similar in one way but overall are very different. Just
like in Eatonville, Janie's porch is a gathering
spot:



Tea
Cake's house was a magnet, the unauthorized center of the "job." The way he would sit in
the doorway and play his guitar made people stop and listen and maybe disappoint the
jook for that night. He was always laughing and full of fun
too.



In most other ways,
however, the porches are very different because of the attitudes of the people who
occupy them. In Eatonville, Janie was a listener and a witness; on the muck, she is an
active participant. Janie's memories of the store in Eatonville--and the actions on its
porch from which she was prohibited--are central to her self-actualization.  As she
says, in Eatonville:


readability="8">

The men held big arguments [...] like they used
to do on the store porch. Only here [on the muck], she could listen and laugh and even
talk some herself if she wanted to. She got so she could tell big storied herself from
listening to the rest.



It is
in the Everglades that Janie finally finds her voice and realizes her
dreams.

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