I thought the book, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Hurston, was very enjoyable to read. There was so much happening in the story that I didn't want to put it down because I wanted to see what was going to happen next. When I first read the title I thought the book was going to be about issues with race, but race was not the central theme although these issues were present in the book. I thought "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was about Janie's quest to find out who she is, which is why the title shows spirituality. Throughout this book Janie achieves a strong sense of self and comes to appreciate her independence. The only thing that I didn't like about this book was Huston's continuous use of southern black dialect. I know that the dialect is an important part of the book, but after awhile I got tired of reading that kind of language.
The book starts off with a passage on page one that reads, "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly." In this passage Hurston is talking about gender differences, she is establishing a difference between men and women. To me, it sounds like Hurston is saying that men have dreams they never lose and will always follow, and that women don't have dreams they follow. Women just live their lives according to what they already have.
In the beginning of this book Janie's grandmother told Janie that she had to marry Logan even though their was no love present. When Janie told her grandmother that she wanted to marry for love and that she didn't love Logan, the grandmother didn't seem to care about that. I believe that the grandmother forced Janie to marry Logan out of love because she wanted to make sure that Janie was taken care of after she had passed away. The grandmother knew that Janie would be all alone, so she wanted to find someone to take care of her, giving her food, shelter, and protection. I think that the rape of her mother played a big role in the decision. The grandmother wanted to make sure nothing like that would ever happen to Janie. At first I thought to myself, "I would never marry someone I didn't love," but after I thought about it some more I realized that in that time period women didn't have a lot of opportunity, they needed a good man to provide for them. It's sad to think of love being absent from a marriage. I don't think I could ever be truly happy in a marriage if I had a man that was a good provider, but with the absence of love.
When Jody took Janie away from Logan I was so happy. Logan didn't seem like a bad guy and it seemed that he really cared for Janie, but Janie was unhappy with him because love was missing. I finally thought that Janie had found her true love with Jody, but quickly found out that I was wrong. Jody seemed to only care bout his work as a mayor, and would often alienate Janie from socializing with the people in their town. When Jody died, Janie didn't grieve over him. The last person she married in this book was a young guy named Tea Cake, and Janie had finally found the love she was seeking for with Tea Cake. Tea Cake is a very positive character, and the gender roles seem to stop with him. Janie is now equal with Tea Cake, and began to do things for the first time like hunting and playing games. He had given her the life that she had dreamed about and she loved him even after his death. "Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking" (193). I thought these sentences showed how much Janie truly cared for Tea Cake.
One of the issues of race that stuck in my mind was in chapter 16. Mrs. Turner didn't seem to like Tea Cake because of his dark black skin, and would constantly question Janie about why she was with him. On page 141 Mrs. Turner said, "If it wuzn't for so many black folks it wouldn't be no race problem. De white folks would take us in wid dem. De black ones is holdin' us back." Mrs. Turner is going against her own class of people just because she has white features. Another issue of race I noticed was in chapter 19, the court scene. The white people seemed to be with Janie, and the black people against her. I think that the black people were against her because it was a black man that was murdered and they were upset with Janie being found innocent. They thought that if she had killed a white man she would have been found guilty. On page 188, a paragraph described how Janie felt about being on trial. "It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding. If they made a verdict that she didn't want Tea Cake and wanted him dead, then that was a real sin and a shame. It was worst than murder." I took this as Janie being more concerned about what people thought of her than for being convicted of the murder. She wanted people to know that she truly loved Tea Cake and that she would never do anything to harm him. If she was convicted of killing Tea Cake because she wanted him dead, then she would have been thought of as never loving him or caring about him, and that was not what she wanted people to think. She wanted them to know her true feelings about Tea Cake.
I thought that the last few sentences were about Janie reflecting back on her life, "The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see."
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2 comments:
i agree that this book was about janies struggle to find out who she was. the first paragraph helped you to believe that, the struggle for janie to reach those dreams that were so far away on the horizon. i kind of felt it was to bad that through the whole book she only achieved things, and became more of who she was through other men. she went through other men to learn new things, accomplish her dreams and experience life. this may be due to the time period but i kind of would have liked it more if it was a story of her independence and making her strides in the world. i am woman here me roar kind of deal. it would have been more appropriat i think but this is probaly due to the time period.
i did not like her grandmother at all. she made me mad because she just was a weak character. she couldnt even take care of janie anymore, she would rather push her off into some loveless marraige so that he can take care of her. i feel like this is why janie has always lived through a man. her granmother taught her how, and taught her it was necessary.
I defenitly agree with you this wasnt about race, it was more like she was trying find herself. She went through many trials and tribulations. She was a strong women. She played the man role and the women role at the same time. She was the one to cook in the kitchen but she was strong and held her own. She was just like the all the women in the world she is just looking for love in all the wrong places.
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