"It was so crazy digging worms by lamp light and setting out for Lake Sabelia after midnight that she felt like a child breaking rules. That's what made Janie like it. They caught two or three and got home just before day. Then she had to smuggle Tea Cake out by the back ate and that made it seem like some great secret she was keeping from the town."
This passage occurs in the early stages of Janie and Tea Cakes relationship and Janie feels quite rebellious and young around Tea Cake during this time. Hurston uses diction to describe exactly how Janie is feeling. She writes in sort of a more childish way than she usually does and this helps to portray the way Janie feels about being with Tea Cake. She also uses pretty simple sentences to also portray that young feeling that Janie feels.
"'Mis' Janie," Hezekiah began sullenly next day, "you oughtn't 'low dat tea Cake tuh be walkin' tuh de house wid yuh. Ah'll go wid yuh mahself after dis, if you'se skeered."
"What's de matter wid Tea Cake, 'Kiah? Is he uh thief uh somethin'?"
"Ah ain't never heard nobody say he stole nothin'."
"Is he bad 'bout totin' pistols and knives tuh hurt people wid?"
"Dey don't say he ever cut nobody or shot nobody neither."
"Well, is he-- he--is he got uh wife or something lak dat? Not dat it's any uh mah business." She held her breath for the answer.
"No'm. And nobody would marry Tea Cake tuh starve tuh death lessen it's somebody jes lak him--ain't used to nothin'."
This passage is after Tea Cake and Janie have known each other for awhile and other people have noticed. Hezekiah voices the opinion of the town about the couple and Janie asks prodding questions partly for her own knowledge and partly to defend Tea Cake. The author uses dialogue to help her describe the views of the townspeople. She also uses a little foreshadowing when Janie asks Hezekiah if Tea Cake has a wife because eventually they get married.
"She adored him and hated him at the same time. How could he make her suffer so and then come grinning like that darling way he had? He pinched her am as he walked inside the door."
This excerpt is after Tea Cake has left Janie for a couple of days and Janie begins to worry about if he is like every other guy. Janie is talking about doubt and how he tortures her because of his weird habits. This passage is a representation of a rhetorical question asked to the reader because it only has one answer and it forces the reader to agree with the author.
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