Directions: Read each of the following options carefully. Choose a writing option to respond to, extensively. Answer on a separate piece of paper, in at least 10 complete sentences. Include 1 piece of cited evidence, to support your response.

Option 1
Consider the important scene of the young Janie under the pear tree. Why do you think Janie is so fascinated by the action between the bee and the flower? What components of this scene (plants, animals, sexual union, love) are repeated in the novel and where do they repeat? What do you think these things symbolize?

Option 2
How does Janie define love? Does her conception of love develop from her sixteen-year-old obsession with the bee and the pear blossom? What specific things does Janie learn do NOT comprise love? All of the men Janie marry exhibit jealousy in one form or another. Yet why does Janie tolerate it in Tea Cake and not the others?

Option 3
The most fateful moment of Janie’s life involves a dog with "pure hate" in his eyes. In light of Janie’s character, how does this dog represent everything she has come to fear? Read from another angle, how could this battle between the dog, Tea Cake, and Janie, be interpreted as an allegory of racism?

* allegory - a story, poem or image that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden, typically moral or political meaning.