Characters:
- Janie Crawford
- Nanny
- Logan Killicks
- Joe Starks
- Tea Cake
Summary:
- Janie's grandmother Nanny was a slave impregnated by a white man and whose daughter was in turn raped as a teenager and who gave birth to Janie.
- Nanny sees Janie kissing a neighborhood boy and fears that Janie will become a "mule" to some man so she arranges for Janie to marry Logan Killicks, an older man and farmer looking for someone to keep his home and help on the farm.
- Janie however believes marriage must involve love - she came to this realization through a scene where she sees bees pollinating a pear tree - and after Logan hits Janie, Janie runs off with Joe Starks who takes her to Eatonville.
- Starks buys land in Eatonville, hires local residents to build a general store for him to own and run, and appoints himself mayor. Janie realizes Joe only wants her as a trophy and asks her to run the store for him but excludes her from his social life.
- After Stark dies, Janie falls in love with a drifter and gambler named Tea Cake. She sells the store and they move to the Everglades region where Tea Cake finds work planting and harvesting beans. Janie now has the marriage with love she wanted.
- The area is hit by a hurricane and Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog while saving Janie from drowning. Tea Cake becomes rabid and tries to shoot Janie but she shoots him with a rifle in self-defense. She is charged with murder.
- At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her while a group of local white women support her. The all-white jury acquits Janie and she returns to Eatonville, only to find the residents gossiping about her and assuming that Tea Cake has run off with her money.
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