Toward the end of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is on trial for shooting and killing Tea Cake. Tea Cake suffered from an unnamed medical condition, which worsened shortly before Janie shot him. Janie shot Tea Cake in self-defense, as his condition afflicted his psychological stability to the point that Janie feared for her life. And because she shot Tea Cake, she is now in fear for her life while in the courthouse.

There are a number of people who speak during the trial. Of course, the attorneys prosecuting and defending Janie speak, as does the judge. In the courthouse, there are white Americans serving as officers of the court, jurors, and audience members, in addition to the African Americans who are in attendance, mainly as spectators. Hurston describes the difference in the groups’ urge to speak in the courthouse:

So it was all ready after a while and they wanted people to talk so that they could know what was right to do about Janie Woods, the relic of Tea Cake’s Janie. The white part of the room got calmer the more serious it got, but a tongue storm struck the Negroes like wind among palm trees. They talked all of a sudden and all together like a choir and the top parts of their bodies moved on the rhythm of it.

The white Americans grow more grave and silent as the trial progresses, while the African Americans become so vocal, the judge has to intervene to moderate who speaks. Although they are the officers of the court and jury members, the white people in attendance are not a part of the community of the people involved in the conflict. Their silence signifies the separation among people and communities.

While the African Americans present are more vocal, they speak only to say that Janie’s intent must have been malicious and that she must be guilty because, from their perspective, she had a great life and a great man in Tea Cake. Those who speak do so quite a bit, but all are silent when it comes to Janie’s innocence and right to defend herself. Although the doctor testifies to Tea Cake’s illness and danger to himself and others, everyone else is silent with respect to how plausible it could be that Janie both loved Tea Cake very much and concurrently shot him, not with malicious intent, but to save her life. Janie provides testimony for her defense, yet hers is the only voice directly defending her actions. The silence of those who do not come to Janie’s aid reflects their jealousy of Janie and Tea Cake, as well as Hurston’s recurrent theme of how African American women are a group who suffer extremes and lack support while providing support for many groups in American society.