Assignment task: When the wind catches a piece of roofing and throws Janie into the water, Tea Cake tells her to hang onto the tail of a cow that is swimming in the water. Yet a "massive built dog" is already sitting on the cow's shoulders; and the dog "race[s] down the back-bone of the cow" to "attack" Janie (165, 166).
Swimming out to save Janie, Tea Cake opens his knife and seizes the dog "by the neck," hoping to kill it "with one stroke" (166). But before the dog dies, it manages to "bite Tea Cake high up on his cheek-bone" (166). Why might Hurston include this scene in her novel? Does Tea Cake act heroically? How is the scene similar to and/or different from the scene in which Tea Cake is cut with a razor after recovering Janie's money in a game of dice?