For this digital commonplace, I’d like you to post two related— and symbolic—passages, along with their page numbers in your edition. Then, instead of asking a question, make a claim as to what you think these scenes represent in relation to broader societal racial and gender dynamics at the time. Close read these scenes, in other words. Please feel free to draw from the entire book and from parts of Wednesday’s discussion activity that we didn’t get around to discussing as a whole class.
Passages from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Z.N. Hurston:
"Janie loved the conversation [on the porch] and sometimes she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge. He didn't want her talking after such trashy people. 'You'se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie. I god, Ah can't see what uh woman uh yo' stability would want tuh be treasurin' all dat gum-grease from folks dat don't even own de house dey sleep in. 'Tain't no earthly use. They's jus' some puny humans playin' round de toes uh Time'" (p. 53-4).
"Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable - Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her down from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake its alters. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise - a heaven of straighthaired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs... She didn't cling to Janie Woods the woman. She paid homage to Janie's Caucasian characteristics as such. And when she was with Janie she had a feeling of transmutation, as if she herself had become whiter and with straighter hair and she hated Tea Cake first for his defilement of divinity and next for his telling mockery of her" (p. 145)
Similarly to Janie, characters such as Joe and Mrs. Turner have been influenced by racial relations to the point where each are forced to confront their position in society. Throughout the novel, Janie attempts to follow her preferences and find her position in society in accordance to her nature; she feels able to do so since she grew up in a mixed race household. Joe and Mrs. Turner, however, see society as a social hierarchy in which the white race is ranked highest since that is how they have been conditioned. Although Joe is a black man, he attempts to show his higher status in the black community through his flamboyant clothing and confident attitude. Mrs. Turner on the other hand highly values her resemblance to white races and, as Janie points out, reveres them as gods. As Mrs. Turner suggests, it's the duty of the women in such a society to raise the status of the races lower in the hierarchy by producing lighter skinned children. In attempting to promote such a change in the population, the biracial and black women are being encouraged to follow a similar path to the one Janie's grandmother suggested for Janie.
“The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (25).
“This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn’t seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was. He never told her how often he had seen the other men figuratively wallowing in it as she went about things in the store. And one night he had caught Walter standing behind and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing. Joe was at the back of the store and Walter didn’t see him. He felt like rushing forth with the meat knife and chopping off the offending hand. That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store. That was all. She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others (55)
"Naw, Pheoby, Tea Cake ain’t draggin’ me off nowhere Ah don’t want tuh go. Ah always did want tuh git round uh whole heap, but Jody wouldn’t ‘low me tuh. When Ah wasn’t in de store he wanted me tuh jes sit wid folded hands and sit dere. And Ah’d sit dere wid de walls creepin’ up on me and squeezin’ all de life outa me. Pheoby, dese educated women got uh heap of things to sit down and consider. Somebody done tole ‘em what to set down for. Nobody ain’t told poor me, so sittin’ still worries me. Ah wants tuh utilize mahself all over" (112).
These three passages depict Janie’s confinement over time with the three major men that she has been with throughout the duration of the novel. With Logan, she feels lie her dream and ideas on marriage are dead and she longs to escape from him and to travel towards the horizon. With Jody, she becomes more of an object than a human being and because he idolizes he beauty so much, he takes away her freedom and isolates her from everyone. The fact that he tells her to wrap her hair up is symbolic of that since her hair represents her freedom and her individuality. With TeaCake, Janie finally has a balance between independence and love. Instead of treating her like an object or keeping her confined, TeaCake treats her like an equal. He listens to her, he talks to her, and they both work together. This is important because it confinement and freedom serve as two dichotomous themes in the novel. Women are depicted as imprisoned by men, and marriage is seen as another form of confinement. Social class is also relevant because, even though Janie doesn’t care about social class as it doesn’t control how happy she will be, it allows her more freedom as she keep moving up the social ladder which is seen after Jody’s death and she had both individual freedom and economical freedom.
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (Part 2)
“When Mrs. Turner’s brother came and she brought him over to be introduced, Tea Cake had a brainstorm. Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (Hurston, 147).
After the trial at the courthouse: “’Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look like her.’ ‘She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.’ ‘Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.’ ‘Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please’” (Hurston, 189).
In these passages, Hurston demonstrates how black women are doubly oppressed, both by white society and by black society. The first section refers to Tea Cake beating Janie out of jealousy. Another man has presented himself to his wife, so he beats her to assert his “possession” over her. First, this objectifies Janie. Tea Cake blatantly says that Janie herself did nothing at all to deserve the beating. Yet he finds that he is only comfortable in his relationship with her once he has made her into his object, through the act of physical violence. Within the context of a relationship that supposedly has set her free, this action confines Janie. Secondly, the word “whipped” is used here to describe this beating. When I initially read this, I thought it meant that Tea Cake literally used a whip to beat her. This does not seem to be the case, however, as the passage goes on to say that Tea Cake “just slapped her around a bit.” The specific use of the word “whipped,” to me, evokes images of slavery. I believe that Hurston did this deliberately. In a way, it equates the black man’s oppression of his wife to the history of slavery. White society maintained control over people of color through physical force, and in this instance a black man is doing the same to his wife, asserting possession of her through violence.
The second passage, a conversation between the black men of the ‘Glades after Janie’s trial is over, demonstrates attitudes of black men towards black women that present black women as privileged beings, thereby oppressing them further. These men are angry that Janie was let go for Tea Cake’s murder, and they claim that her lightness was the contributing factor to this. Janie is presented here as too dark for white society but also too light for black society. They argue that she could go around killing anybody she wanted (though not anybody white) without any consequences. By presenting Janie in this light, these men are dehumanizing her. They all know Janie personally, and arguably should know that she would never kill her husband in cold blood. Yet they are personally enraged by the fact that a wife rose up against her husband and did him harm. It could be argued that these men looked at Janie’s case and figured if she could do this, any of their wives could have the agency to rise up against them. I think this thought frightens them. I do not think it is murder they fear, but the fact that their wives could be independent enough to act against them. They fear female agency, and want to suppress it.
“‘Cause Tea Cake ain’t no Jody Starks, and if he tried tuh be, it would be uh complete flommuck. But de minute Ah marries ‘im everybody is gointuh be makin’ comparisons. So us is goin’ off somewhere and start all over in Tea Cake’s way. Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (114).
“In the few days to live before she went to Logan Killicks and his often-mentioned sixty acres, Janie asked inside of herself and out. She was back and forth to the pear tree continuously wondering and thinking. Finally out of Nanny’s talk and her own conjectures she made a sort of comfort for herself. Yes, she woud love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so. Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore” (21).
Janie’s love interests certainly reflect the time of her life she’s going through. For instance, when she is young and, undoubtedly, naive, she marries Logan Killicks thinking love could come after marriage. She lives her life adjusted to Nanny’s rules, falsely assuming the older generation has everything figured out. On her third time around, being with Tea Cake, she takes matters into her own hands, proclaiming it is time for her to live according to her own rules. I’m very interested in the relationships between the men of Janie’s life. They reflect where she is at in her own life. For instance, she probably would have wanted to be with a man like Tea Cake to start, but she played by different rules. She gets a second start. In her relationships with Logan and Jody, Janie is submissive. She isn’t allowed to express her voice and spends a great deal of time holding back. With Tea Cake, she expresses herself. She has grown and is more receptive to people around her. What does this say about the way that the world changes? Was younger Janie ahead of her time in relationship dynamics? In what ways do generational gaps play into our own lives?
"Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah’m uh featured woman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves" (142).
"Look at they hair, when you can't tell no other way. And don't lemme ketch none uh y'all dumpin' white folks, and don't be wastin' no boxes on colored. They's too hard tuh git holt of right now" (171).
The racism in these passages is more apparent than in others, but its brutality is still incredibly telling. In the first, Mrs. Turner is complaining about other black folks, even though she is one, just not as "dark" as those like Tea Cake. Yikes. She complains that her features are not like those of the people she is prejudiced against, and wonders why "dey" won't give her her own class, even if it's not as a white woman. "Dey" (they), as well, must be white folks, as it's approval she is looking for, to be considered less dark than her neighbors, like Tea Cake.
Even after the horrifying incident of the flood, something done by nature, there is no spiritual unifying of black people and white people. White people get to be buried in boxes, while black people are to be put all together in the ground. Though slavery is illegal at this point, prejudice is still so high that black men are plucked, much like Tea Cake is, to do the burying, while the white men supervise. And they must take the time to decipher who is who. They don't have the supposed resources to take care of both white and black people, but they refuse the possibility of equal death.
“Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an altar to the unattainable- Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise -a heaven of straight-haired, thin lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs.” (145)
“Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her.” “She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.” “Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.” “Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please.” (189)
These two passages focus much on the outward appearance of the characters in the book. This shows the significant difference in how men and women and whether they were either black or white were treated. The first passage shows the level of importance that people put on having Caucasian features especially if they were a mixed race like Janie and Mrs. Turner. The desirable features were those of the white people because they were treated better than those who were black. The other passage also shows this because the men that were talking say that the only reason Janie got away with shooting Tea Cake was because of how she looked and also because she is a woman. There is much emphasis on both appearance and gender and this seems to be the deciding factor on how a person is treated or looked upon in society as well as the court system.
"'Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think...'" (24)
"She couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom-- a pear tree blossom in the spring" (106)
The novel follows Janie's search for love, symbolized by the repeated images of the pear tree as a female sexual symbol and the pollinating bee as a male sexual symbol. In the first quote, Janie attempts to explain to Nanny why she does not love her first husband, Logan Killicks. Her first two marriages, her failed marriages, are to older men who do not understand women. They do not satisfy her "pear tree". She does find love (second quote) with Tea Cake, who is much younger than her, handsome and devoted to her. She sees him as her other half, the person to complete her equation, the only one who can satisfy her after her previous disastrous marriages. Janie has finally broken society's mold of what love looks like. Tea Cake fits the description of someone who Nanny may not have approved of, but Janie is both attracted to him and loves him romantically. In these two qualifications, she fulfills the tree/bee metaphor and defies expectations to be with the man she wants to be with rather than a man society dictates she be with.
"Then two men tried to pick a fight with one another, so Tea Cake said they had to kiss and make up. They didn’t want to do it. They’d rather go to jail, but everybody else liked the idea, so they made ‘em do it. Afterwards, both of them spit and gagged and wiped their mouths with the back of their hands. One went outside and chewed a little grass like a sick dog, he said to keep it from killing him." (123)
"Janie made a move to seize Nunkie but the girl fled. So she took out behind her over the humped-up cane rows. But Nunkie did not mean to be caught. So Janie went on home. The sight of the fields and the other happy people was too much for her that day. She walked slowly and thoughtfully to the quarters. It wasn’t long before Tea Cake found her and tried to talk. She cut him short with a blow and they fought from one room to the other, Janie trying to beat him, and Tea Cake kept holding her wrists and wherever he could to keep her from going too far." (137)
These two passages show the vast differences in the gender during Their Eyes Were Watching God. Regardless of race, gender separated society on quite a stark dividing line. Women are not only considered the weaker gender but are defined by their relationship to men. This is why marriage is such a big deal; women can only gain power through marriage to powerful or ambitious men. When women show any traditional male characteristics – ambition, intelligence, and authority – they are stigmatized as too masculine and, thus, unattractive. Men, on the other hand, are expected to always be dominant. Male characters prove to their peers that they are real men by showing their wives who’s "boss". Throughout the novel, there are many instances of how men and women are treated vastly differently, and only so much of it can be chalked up to the times. Janie and Tea Cake have these different gender roles that they must fall into, and when they stray from them, there is always some price to pay.
"She thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of a man. Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered. Perhaps she'd better look. She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again. Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see, and opened up the window and cried, "Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah husband is gone from me." (87)
"Now, dat's how everything wuz Pheoby, jus' lak Ah told yuh. So Ah'm back home agin and Ah'm satisfied tuh be heah. Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. Dis house ain't so absent of things lak it used tuh be befo' Tea Cake came along. It's full uh thoughts, 'specially dat bedroom. Ah know all dem sitters-and-talkers gointuh worry they guts into fiddle strings till dhey find out whut we been talkin' 'bout. Dat's all right, Pheoby, tell 'em. Dey gointuh make 'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore." "Lawd!" Pheoby breathed out heavily, "Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus' listenin' tuh you, Janie. Ah ain't satisfied wid mahself no mo'. Ah means tuh make Sam take me fishin' wid him after this. Nobody better not criticize yuh in mah hearin'." (192)
As much as Janie had been focused on finding love with another person, the primary focus of Janie's "quest" was essentially finding self-love and living her life on her own terms until she felt fulfilled. For Janie's entire life, people around her told her what to do, how to live her life, and how to use her own voice. Her grandmother did this, Logan Killicks did this, and Jody Starks did this as well. On the other hand, Tea Cake filled both aspects of Janie's desires. He provided the love she wanted from a man, but he is also symbolic for Janie finding herself, living her life on her own terms, and learning how to love herself, with and without a man in her life.
"Dat 'oman ain't so awfully pretty no how when yuh take de second look at her. Ah had to sorta pass by de house on de way back and seen her good. 'Tain't nothin' to her 'ceptin' dat long hair" (38)
"Whut make her keep her hair tied up lak some ole 'oman round de store? Nobody couldn't git me tuh tie no rag on mah head if Ah had hair lak dat." " Maybe he make her do it. Maybe he skeered some de rest of us mens might touch it round dat store. It sho is uh hidden mystery tuh me." (50)
"Why, Tea Cake? Whut good do combin' mah hair do you? It's mah comfortable, not yourn." " It's mine too. Ah ain't been sleepin' so good for more'n uh week cause Ah been wishin' so bad tuh git mah hands in yo' hair. It's so pretty. It feels jus' lak underneath uh dove's wing next to mah face." (103).
Janie's hair is one of the most talked about things in this novel, especially by men. It symbolizes her sexual power as a woman. However, the men in the town only value her for this power, they cannot see her as attractive beyond her hair, her raw sexual power. Jody is scared of this power, which is why he makes her tie it back around other men. He is afraid of her using her sexuality and beauty to usurp his own masculine power and ego that he uses to keep hold over the town. Finally, Tea Cake is the only one who is fully able to access the beauty of her hair, to fully connect with her sexuality as a woman. Other men only see her hair to see her hair/sexuality for their own benefit, to admire from afar or fear. Tea Cake is the only man in Janie's life to truly appreciate her hair and herself as a woman, as he goes on to describe the beauty of her eyes and lips.
“Mrs. Turner was almost screaming in fanatical earnestness by now. Janie was dumb and bewildered before and she clucked sympathetically and wished she knew what to say. It was so evident that Mrs. Turner took black folk as a personal affront to herself. ‘Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah’m uh featured woman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves’” (166).
Mrs. Turner does not like how she is treated under her black identity, and feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. She feels like a new race should be created in order for her to fit in better. Janie doesn’t mind her identity at this point. Because she went on a journey to find herself, she has accepted how things are at the time and is more in touch with herself unlike Mrs. Turner. This quote shows the struggle with identity and how Janie has grown.
“’Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her.’ ‘She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.’ ‘Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.’ ‘Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please.’” (222).
This quote goes on to show how although Janie was a black woman, she had “white features” and was treated better than some of the black women. This touches on both race and gender to, stating how black women and white men are the most free. It also discusses how Janie wasn’t punished terribly for shooting Tea Cake because she was a black woman with white features. Because of how she looked, she was treated differently than others.
"This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn't seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was. He never told her how often he had seen the other men figuratively wallowing in it as she went about things in the store . . . She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others" (55).
"She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there" (87).
Janie's hair kerchief is a symbol of her constraints in her marriage with Joe Starks through his views of how she should behave as a woman. She is limited to working in the store and is almost objectified; Joe believes she should only be for his enjoyment, and his insecurities make him more controlling and he begins to try to control everything about Janie down to her physical appearance. After Joe's death, Janie has a revelation at the mirror, taking a good look at herself for the first time since marrying Joe. The ripping off of the kerchief is symbolic of Janie's new freedom: she no longer has to live under the control of her husband and can embrace who she is as a woman.
The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman(25).
I feel as if her relationship with the men she dealt with made her confidence grow because she learned something from each man, due to them bringing something different to the table. For Teacake, he respected her enough to allow her her space and to look to her as a women.
Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable - Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her down from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake its alters (145).
The relations between black and white and how hatred depicted their relationship.
"It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on.But it was night,it stayed night.Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands...they sat in company with others in other shanties, their eyes straining cruel walls and their souls asking if He ment to measure their puny might against His.They seemed to be staring at the dark,but their eyes were watching God"
Promlems can be detached during the day, people get distracted or push their problems away. Yet in the dark there is no one but your self to look back on those problems and really think about them and if you are the only one to answer to those problems then you are the only one to fix those problems. And if you can't fix them the only one to answer is God.
People have so much faith, even with their problems, I wonder how they didn't give up even after praying so much without any physical evidence? Can God fix any problems that people themselves have physically created for themselves. Or can God fix any natural problems that have occured? If people fixed their own problems during the day and stopped wondering about them at night would there even be problems?
"When they were alone Tea Cake wanted to put his head in Janie’s lap and tell her how he felt and let her mama him in her sweet way." (211)
"Janie, us got tuh git outa dis house and outa dis man’s town. Ah don’t mean tuh work lak dat no mo’."
"Naw, naw, Tea Cake. Less stay right in heah until it’s all over. If dey can’t see yuh, dey can’t bother yuh." (197).
Explanation: Both of these passages cast Janie in the feminine role. While Teacake clearly loves Janie he is still holding her back simply because they play different gender roles to each other. In both these passages Janie is not herself, she is passive or motherly and therefore lets herself be defined by Teacake.
9. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 2-28-16
“It was so easy to be hopeful in the day when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands” (Hurston Ch. 18, p. 158).
“Well, she thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in its eyes had killed her after all. She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.” (Hurston Ch. 19, p. 178)
I am fascinated by the darkness that runs through this book. In the beginning, the narrator tells that Phoebe and Janie “sat there in the fresh young darkness close together.” I saw some of the symbolic reading when I first read that, but now I see it even more. The darkness grew heavier and darker as the story went on. Knowing all of the things this darkness could represent, I am curious which things it actually does. I find “Evening Sun” to be a strange name for Tea Cake. Is it because he “whip[s]” (147) Janie? Does he help bring on the darkness? Or he just trying to escape it like Janie? Or maybe both? This darkness that creeps behind them and then rushes like the lake at them I think is representative of more than one intangible element of society. Everything – maybe not everything but a good majority of things – can be in this darkness: the want to harm each others, inequality, racism (that one is questionable for me in this particular case), lack of education, poverty, all of the unfair parts of society come crashing over Janie and Tea Cake. And it literally bites Tea Cake in the face and kills him. The fact that Janie is the one who is beaten multiple times, yet she is the one to survive . . . she is the bottom of the food chain. She is what’s left when the strong fighters like Tea Cake are torn down. Janie is the underdog.
IMPORTANT: SPECIAL DIGITAL COMMONPLACE DIRECTIONS
ReplyDeleteFor this digital commonplace, I’d like you to post two related— and symbolic—passages, along with their page numbers in your edition. Then, instead of asking a question, make a claim as to what you think these scenes represent in relation to broader societal racial and gender dynamics at the time. Close read these scenes, in other words. Please feel free to draw from the entire book and from parts of Wednesday’s discussion activity that we didn’t get around to discussing as a whole class.
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ReplyDeletePassages from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Z.N. Hurston:
ReplyDelete"Janie loved the conversation [on the porch] and sometimes she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge. He didn't want her talking after such trashy people. 'You'se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie. I god, Ah can't see what uh woman uh yo' stability would want tuh be treasurin' all dat gum-grease from folks dat don't even own de house dey sleep in. 'Tain't no earthly use. They's jus' some puny humans playin' round de toes uh Time'" (p. 53-4).
"Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable - Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her down from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake its alters. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise - a heaven of straighthaired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs...
She didn't cling to Janie Woods the woman. She paid homage to Janie's Caucasian characteristics as such. And when she was with Janie she had a feeling of transmutation, as if she herself had become whiter and with straighter hair and she hated Tea Cake first for his defilement of divinity and next for his telling mockery of her" (p. 145)
Similarly to Janie, characters such as Joe and Mrs. Turner have been influenced by racial relations to the point where each are forced to confront their position in society. Throughout the novel, Janie attempts to follow her preferences and find her position in society in accordance to her nature; she feels able to do so since she grew up in a mixed race household. Joe and Mrs. Turner, however, see society as a social hierarchy in which the white race is ranked highest since that is how they have been conditioned. Although Joe is a black man, he attempts to show his higher status in the black community through his flamboyant clothing and confident attitude. Mrs. Turner on the other hand highly values her resemblance to white races and, as Janie points out, reveres them as gods.
As Mrs. Turner suggests, it's the duty of the women in such a society to raise the status of the races lower in the hierarchy by producing lighter skinned children. In attempting to promote such a change in the population, the biracial and black women are being encouraged to follow a similar path to the one Janie's grandmother suggested for Janie.
“The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (25).
ReplyDelete“This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn’t seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was. He never told her how often he had seen the other men figuratively wallowing in it as she went about things in the store. And one night he had caught Walter standing behind and brushing the back of his hand back and forth across the loose end of her braid ever so lightly so as to enjoy the feel of it without Janie knowing what he was doing. Joe was at the back of the store and Walter didn’t see him. He felt like rushing forth with the meat knife and chopping off the offending hand. That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store. That was all. She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others (55)
"Naw, Pheoby, Tea Cake ain’t draggin’ me off nowhere Ah don’t want tuh go. Ah always did want tuh git round uh whole heap, but Jody wouldn’t ‘low me tuh. When Ah wasn’t in de store he wanted me tuh jes sit wid folded hands and sit dere. And Ah’d sit dere wid de walls creepin’ up on me and squeezin’ all de life outa me. Pheoby, dese educated women got uh heap of things to sit down and consider. Somebody done tole ‘em what to set down for. Nobody ain’t told poor me, so sittin’ still worries me. Ah wants tuh utilize mahself all over" (112).
These three passages depict Janie’s confinement over time with the three major men that she has been with throughout the duration of the novel. With Logan, she feels lie her dream and ideas on marriage are dead and she longs to escape from him and to travel towards the horizon. With Jody, she becomes more of an object than a human being and because he idolizes he beauty so much, he takes away her freedom and isolates her from everyone. The fact that he tells her to wrap her hair up is symbolic of that since her hair represents her freedom and her individuality. With TeaCake, Janie finally has a balance between independence and love. Instead of treating her like an object or keeping her confined, TeaCake treats her like an equal. He listens to her, he talks to her, and they both work together. This is important because it confinement and freedom serve as two dichotomous themes in the novel. Women are depicted as imprisoned by men, and marriage is seen as another form of confinement. Social class is also relevant because, even though Janie doesn’t care about social class as it doesn’t control how happy she will be, it allows her more freedom as she keep moving up the social ladder which is seen after Jody’s death and she had both individual freedom and economical freedom.
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (Part 2)
ReplyDelete“When Mrs. Turner’s brother came and she brought him over to be introduced, Tea Cake had a brainstorm. Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession. No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (Hurston, 147).
After the trial at the courthouse:
“’Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look like her.’
‘She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.’
‘Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.’
‘Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please’” (Hurston, 189).
In these passages, Hurston demonstrates how black women are doubly oppressed, both by white society and by black society. The first section refers to Tea Cake beating Janie out of jealousy. Another man has presented himself to his wife, so he beats her to assert his “possession” over her. First, this objectifies Janie. Tea Cake blatantly says that Janie herself did nothing at all to deserve the beating. Yet he finds that he is only comfortable in his relationship with her once he has made her into his object, through the act of physical violence. Within the context of a relationship that supposedly has set her free, this action confines Janie. Secondly, the word “whipped” is used here to describe this beating. When I initially read this, I thought it meant that Tea Cake literally used a whip to beat her. This does not seem to be the case, however, as the passage goes on to say that Tea Cake “just slapped her around a bit.” The specific use of the word “whipped,” to me, evokes images of slavery. I believe that Hurston did this deliberately. In a way, it equates the black man’s oppression of his wife to the history of slavery. White society maintained control over people of color through physical force, and in this instance a black man is doing the same to his wife, asserting possession of her through violence.
The second passage, a conversation between the black men of the ‘Glades after Janie’s trial is over, demonstrates attitudes of black men towards black women that present black women as privileged beings, thereby oppressing them further. These men are angry that Janie was let go for Tea Cake’s murder, and they claim that her lightness was the contributing factor to this. Janie is presented here as too dark for white society but also too light for black society. They argue that she could go around killing anybody she wanted (though not anybody white) without any consequences. By presenting Janie in this light, these men are dehumanizing her. They all know Janie personally, and arguably should know that she would never kill her husband in cold blood. Yet they are personally enraged by the fact that a wife rose up against her husband and did him harm. It could be argued that these men looked at Janie’s case and figured if she could do this, any of their wives could have the agency to rise up against them. I think this thought frightens them. I do not think it is murder they fear, but the fact that their wives could be independent enough to act against them. They fear female agency, and want to suppress it.
“‘Cause Tea Cake ain’t no Jody Starks, and if he tried tuh be, it would be uh complete flommuck. But de minute Ah marries ‘im everybody is gointuh be makin’ comparisons. So us is goin’ off somewhere and start all over in Tea Cake’s way. Dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles. Dis is uh love game. Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine” (114).
ReplyDelete“In the few days to live before she went to Logan Killicks and his often-mentioned sixty acres, Janie asked inside of herself and out. She was back and forth to the pear tree continuously wondering and thinking. Finally out of Nanny’s talk and her own conjectures she made a sort of comfort for herself. Yes, she woud love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so. Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore” (21).
Janie’s love interests certainly reflect the time of her life she’s going through. For instance, when she is young and, undoubtedly, naive, she marries Logan Killicks thinking love could come after marriage. She lives her life adjusted to Nanny’s rules, falsely assuming the older generation has everything figured out. On her third time around, being with Tea Cake, she takes matters into her own hands, proclaiming it is time for her to live according to her own rules. I’m very interested in the relationships between the men of Janie’s life. They reflect where she is at in her own life. For instance, she probably would have wanted to be with a man like Tea Cake to start, but she played by different rules. She gets a second start.
In her relationships with Logan and Jody, Janie is submissive. She isn’t allowed to express her voice and spends a great deal of time holding back. With Tea Cake, she expresses herself. She has grown and is more receptive to people around her. What does this say about the way that the world changes? Was younger Janie ahead of her time in relationship dynamics? In what ways do generational gaps play into our own lives?
"Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah’m uh featured woman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves" (142).
ReplyDelete"Look at they hair, when you can't tell no other way. And don't lemme ketch none uh y'all dumpin' white folks, and don't be wastin' no boxes on colored. They's too hard tuh git holt of right now" (171).
The racism in these passages is more apparent than in others, but its brutality is still incredibly telling. In the first, Mrs. Turner is complaining about other black folks, even though she is one, just not as "dark" as those like Tea Cake. Yikes. She complains that her features are not like those of the people she is prejudiced against, and wonders why "dey" won't give her her own class, even if it's not as a white woman. "Dey" (they), as well, must be white folks, as it's approval she is looking for, to be considered less dark than her neighbors, like Tea Cake.
Even after the horrifying incident of the flood, something done by nature, there is no spiritual unifying of black people and white people. White people get to be buried in boxes, while black people are to be put all together in the ground. Though slavery is illegal at this point, prejudice is still so high that black men are plucked, much like Tea Cake is, to do the burying, while the white men supervise. And they must take the time to decipher who is who. They don't have the supposed resources to take care of both white and black people, but they refuse the possibility of equal death.
“Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an altar to the unattainable- Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise -a heaven of straight-haired, thin lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs.” (145)
ReplyDelete“Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her.”
“She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.”
“Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.”
“Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please.” (189)
These two passages focus much on the outward appearance of the characters in the book. This shows the significant difference in how men and women and whether they were either black or white were treated. The first passage shows the level of importance that people put on having Caucasian features especially if they were a mixed race like Janie and Mrs. Turner. The desirable features were those of the white people because they were treated better than those who were black. The other passage also shows this because the men that were talking say that the only reason Janie got away with shooting Tea Cake was because of how she looked and also because she is a woman. There is much emphasis on both appearance and gender and this seems to be the deciding factor on how a person is treated or looked upon in society as well as the court system.
"'Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think...'" (24)
ReplyDelete"She couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom-- a pear tree blossom in the spring" (106)
The novel follows Janie's search for love, symbolized by the repeated images of the pear tree as a female sexual symbol and the pollinating bee as a male sexual symbol. In the first quote, Janie attempts to explain to Nanny why she does not love her first husband, Logan Killicks. Her first two marriages, her failed marriages, are to older men who do not understand women. They do not satisfy her "pear tree". She does find love (second quote) with Tea Cake, who is much younger than her, handsome and devoted to her. She sees him as her other half, the person to complete her equation, the only one who can satisfy her after her previous disastrous marriages. Janie has finally broken society's mold of what love looks like. Tea Cake fits the description of someone who Nanny may not have approved of, but Janie is both attracted to him and loves him romantically. In these two qualifications, she fulfills the tree/bee metaphor and defies expectations to be with the man she wants to be with rather than a man society dictates she be with.
Passages from Their Eyes Were Watching God
ReplyDelete"Then two men tried to pick a fight with one another, so Tea Cake said they had to kiss and make up. They didn’t want to do it. They’d rather go to jail, but everybody else liked the idea, so they made ‘em do it. Afterwards, both of them spit and gagged and wiped their mouths with the back of their hands. One went outside and chewed a little grass like a sick dog, he said to keep it from killing him." (123)
"Janie made a move to seize Nunkie but the girl fled. So she took out behind her over the humped-up cane rows. But Nunkie did not mean to be caught. So Janie went on home. The sight of the fields and the other happy people was too much for her that day. She walked slowly and thoughtfully to the quarters. It wasn’t long before Tea Cake found her and tried to talk. She cut him short with a blow and they fought from one room to the other, Janie trying to beat him, and Tea Cake kept holding her wrists and wherever he could to keep her from going too far." (137)
These two passages show the vast differences in the gender during Their Eyes Were Watching God. Regardless of race, gender separated society on quite a stark dividing line. Women are not only considered the weaker gender but are defined by their relationship to men. This is why marriage is such a big deal; women can only gain power through marriage to powerful or ambitious men. When women show any traditional male characteristics – ambition, intelligence, and authority – they are stigmatized as too masculine and, thus, unattractive. Men, on the other hand, are expected to always be dominant. Male characters prove to their peers that they are real men by showing their wives who’s "boss". Throughout the novel, there are many instances of how men and women are treated vastly differently, and only so much of it can be chalked up to the times. Janie and Tea Cake have these different gender roles that they must fall into, and when they stray from them, there is always some price to pay.
"She thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of a man. Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered. Perhaps she'd better look. She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again. Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see, and opened up the window and cried, "Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah husband is gone from me." (87)
ReplyDelete"Now, dat's how everything wuz Pheoby, jus' lak Ah told yuh. So Ah'm back home agin and Ah'm satisfied tuh be heah. Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. Dis house ain't so absent of things lak it used tuh be befo' Tea Cake came along. It's full uh thoughts, 'specially dat bedroom.
Ah know all dem sitters-and-talkers gointuh worry they guts into fiddle strings till dhey find out whut we been talkin' 'bout. Dat's all right, Pheoby, tell 'em. Dey gointuh make 'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore."
"Lawd!" Pheoby breathed out heavily, "Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus' listenin' tuh you, Janie. Ah ain't satisfied wid mahself no mo'. Ah means tuh make Sam take me fishin' wid him after this. Nobody better not criticize yuh in mah hearin'." (192)
As much as Janie had been focused on finding love with another person, the primary focus of Janie's "quest" was essentially finding self-love and living her life on her own terms until she felt fulfilled. For Janie's entire life, people around her told her what to do, how to live her life, and how to use her own voice. Her grandmother did this, Logan Killicks did this, and Jody Starks did this as well. On the other hand, Tea Cake filled both aspects of Janie's desires. He provided the love she wanted from a man, but he is also symbolic for Janie finding herself, living her life on her own terms, and learning how to love herself, with and without a man in her life.
"Dat 'oman ain't so awfully pretty no how when yuh take de second look at her. Ah had to sorta pass by de house on de way back and seen her good. 'Tain't nothin' to her 'ceptin' dat long hair" (38)
ReplyDelete"Whut make her keep her hair tied up lak some ole 'oman round de store? Nobody couldn't git me tuh tie no rag on mah head if Ah had hair lak dat." " Maybe he make her do it. Maybe he skeered some de rest of us mens might touch it round dat store. It sho is uh hidden mystery tuh me." (50)
"Why, Tea Cake? Whut good do combin' mah hair do you? It's mah comfortable, not yourn." " It's mine too. Ah ain't been sleepin' so good for more'n uh week cause Ah been wishin' so bad tuh git mah hands in yo' hair. It's so pretty. It feels jus' lak underneath uh dove's wing next to mah face." (103).
Janie's hair is one of the most talked about things in this novel, especially by men. It symbolizes her sexual power as a woman. However, the men in the town only value her for this power, they cannot see her as attractive beyond her hair, her raw sexual power. Jody is scared of this power, which is why he makes her tie it back around other men. He is afraid of her using her sexuality and beauty to usurp his own masculine power and ego that he uses to keep hold over the town. Finally, Tea Cake is the only one who is fully able to access the beauty of her hair, to fully connect with her sexuality as a woman. Other men only see her hair to see her hair/sexuality for their own benefit, to admire from afar or fear. Tea Cake is the only man in Janie's life to truly appreciate her hair and herself as a woman, as he goes on to describe the beauty of her eyes and lips.
“Mrs. Turner was almost screaming in fanatical earnestness by now. Janie was dumb and bewildered before and she clucked sympathetically and wished she knew what to say. It was so evident that Mrs. Turner took black folk as a personal affront to herself.
ReplyDelete‘Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah’m uh featured woman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves’” (166).
Mrs. Turner does not like how she is treated under her black identity, and feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. She feels like a new race should be created in order for her to fit in better. Janie doesn’t mind her identity at this point. Because she went on a journey to find herself, she has accepted how things are at the time and is more in touch with herself unlike Mrs. Turner. This quote shows the struggle with identity and how Janie has grown.
“’Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her.’
‘She didn’t kill no white man, did she? Well, long as she don’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many niggers as she please.’
‘Yeah, de nigger women kin kill up all de mens dey wants tuh, but you bet’ not kill one uh dem. De white folks will sho hang yuh if yuh do.’
‘Well, you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please.’” (222).
This quote goes on to show how although Janie was a black woman, she had “white features” and was treated better than some of the black women. This touches on both race and gender to, stating how black women and white men are the most free. It also discusses how Janie wasn’t punished terribly for shooting Tea Cake because she was a black woman with white features. Because of how she looked, she was treated differently than others.
"This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn't seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was. He never told her how often he had seen the other men figuratively wallowing in it as she went about things in the store . . . She was there in the store for him to look at, not those others" (55).
ReplyDelete"She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there" (87).
Janie's hair kerchief is a symbol of her constraints in her marriage with Joe Starks through his views of how she should behave as a woman. She is limited to working in the store and is almost objectified; Joe believes she should only be for his enjoyment, and his insecurities make him more controlling and he begins to try to control everything about Janie down to her physical appearance. After Joe's death, Janie has a revelation at the mirror, taking a good look at herself for the first time since marrying Joe. The ripping off of the kerchief is symbolic of Janie's new freedom: she no longer has to live under the control of her husband and can embrace who she is as a woman.
The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman(25).
ReplyDeleteI feel as if her relationship with the men she dealt with made her confidence grow because she learned something from each man, due to them bringing something different to the table. For Teacake, he respected her enough to allow her her space and to look to her as a women.
Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable - Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her down from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake its alters (145).
The relations between black and white and how hatred depicted their relationship.
"It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on.But it was night,it stayed night.Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands...they sat in company with others in other shanties, their eyes straining cruel walls and their souls asking if He ment to measure their puny might against His.They seemed to be staring at the dark,but their eyes were watching God"
ReplyDeletePromlems can be detached during the day, people get distracted or push their problems away. Yet in the dark there is no one but your self to look back on those problems and really think about them and if you are the only one to answer to those problems then you are the only one to fix those problems. And if you can't fix them the only one to answer is God.
People have so much faith, even with their problems, I wonder how they didn't give up even after praying so much without any physical evidence? Can God fix any problems that people themselves have physically created for themselves. Or can God fix any natural problems that have occured? If people fixed their own problems during the day and stopped wondering about them at night would there even be problems?
"When they were alone Tea Cake wanted to put his head in Janie’s lap and tell her how he felt and let her mama him in her sweet way." (211)
ReplyDelete"Janie, us got tuh git outa dis house and outa dis man’s town. Ah don’t mean tuh work lak dat no mo’."
"Naw, naw, Tea Cake. Less stay right in heah until it’s all over. If dey can’t see yuh, dey can’t bother yuh."
(197).
Explanation: Both of these passages cast Janie in the feminine role. While Teacake clearly loves Janie he is still holding her back simply because they play different gender roles to each other. In both these passages Janie is not herself, she is passive or motherly and therefore lets herself be defined by Teacake.
9. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 2-28-16
ReplyDelete“It was so easy to be hopeful in the day when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands” (Hurston Ch. 18, p. 158).
“Well, she thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in its eyes had killed her after all. She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned then and there and been done. But to kill her through Tea Cake was too much to bear. Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.” (Hurston Ch. 19, p. 178)
I am fascinated by the darkness that runs through this book. In the beginning, the narrator tells that Phoebe and Janie “sat there in the fresh young darkness close together.” I saw some of the symbolic reading when I first read that, but now I see it even more. The darkness grew heavier and darker as the story went on. Knowing all of the things this darkness could represent, I am curious which things it actually does.
I find “Evening Sun” to be a strange name for Tea Cake. Is it because he “whip[s]” (147) Janie? Does he help bring on the darkness? Or he just trying to escape it like Janie? Or maybe both?
This darkness that creeps behind them and then rushes like the lake at them I think is representative of more than one intangible element of society. Everything – maybe not everything but a good majority of things – can be in this darkness: the want to harm each others, inequality, racism (that one is questionable for me in this particular case), lack of education, poverty, all of the unfair parts of society come crashing over Janie and Tea Cake. And it literally bites Tea Cake in the face and kills him. The fact that Janie is the one who is beaten multiple times, yet she is the one to survive . . . she is the bottom of the food chain. She is what’s left when the strong fighters like Tea Cake are torn down. Janie is the underdog.