Nina G. African American Lit.

Ok, I’m going to be honest, I was skeptic of Tea Cake from the beginning. When he first walks into the store, I was nervous. Simply because of the fact that Janie thinks he looks familiar, and he knows her, but she doesn’t know him. Then, the way he talks is extremely flirty. My first impression was that Tea Cake is just a player. A sweet talker who goes out with many women. Given Janie’s previous romances, I thought that Tea Cake was the last thing she needed. He would have a good time, and then dump her. She would then have a third failed attempt at true love. As we move beyond the store scene, I started to like Tea Cake more and more. I realized that Janie was happy for one of the very few times in her life. In class, someone brought up the fact that Janie is getting to experience the life of a teenage girl, a life that she was cheated out of. They would go off, have fun, and get into “trouble” (if you count fishing at night trouble). Then, come page 103, my skepticism w...

For my blog post, I wanted to compare Ellison’s life (based on the video documentary shown in class), to the life of our narrator. When we first started reading this book (like all the way back in the prologue), I envisioned Ellison sitting at his desk thinking about how he could make this novel funny, ironic, symbolic, and confusing, yet serious, straightforward, and clear. I didn’t think he had very much connection with the narrator except for the fact that they both joined communist-like parties. I also know that when reading a book, the author doesn’t always identify with the narrator. As we continued reading, I envisioned less of Ellison and more of the story and meanings behind everything. Then when we watched the documentary, I realized how similar the narrator’s and Ellison’s lives were. Ellison and the narrator both received scholarships to attend college. Both left college (one by choice, the other by force), to go to New York. They both became involved in the “Brot...