1. How are the whites buried? How is this different from the blacks? How do they decide to distinguish between the dead?
2. The "Jim Crow law" is the law which separated whites from blacks in the United States. Under the Jim Crow laws, schools and other public facilities were segregated. What do you think Tea Cake means when he says "Look lak dey think God don’t know nothin’ ‘bout de Jim Crow law"?
3. How does Tea Cake’s personality change once he begins feeling sick?
4. What do we learn about Tea Cake’s bite?
5. What makes Tea Cake finally "snap"? What happens as a result?
6. Describe Janie’s perspective of the people in the courtroom.
7. What is the jury’s verdict? How long does it take them to make their decision? Why is this amount of time important?
8. At least twice in this chapter, Janie refers to Tea Cake as "the son of Evening Sun.
" This allusion may be referring to a popular blues song called "St. Louis Blues," which begins: I hate to see that evening sun go down, I hate to see that evening sun go down, 'Cause my lovin' baby done left this town. Or it could be a reference the William Faulkner’s short story "That Evening Sun" (1931), in which the black protagonist fears that her husband is going to kill her in her sleep once the sun goes down because she is pregnant with a white man’s baby. Which do you think is more plausible? Or is it an combination of the two? Explain your