What makes tea cake finally "snap"? what happens as a result?

The one that causes Tea Cake to finally "snap" is the fact that Mrs. Turner, a co-owner of a coffee shop, would introduce his wife to her white son, since she considered it unacceptable that a Caucasian woman was with a black man, when Tea Cake heard the conversation, beat his wife severely, which generated the separation of the couple, many thought that the rage expressed by Tea Cake was product of Hydrophobia, a disease from which he died shortly after.