While reading this I really enjoyed it. I just thought it was good, and I liked the story to it. It wasn't until after we had our class discussion that I really started thinking about the contradicts or the possibilities of it being a feminist novel. Although I could see how the book could be classified under a feminist novel it may not necessarily. There are also good masculine representations throughout the book as well as negative female representations. But, looking at it from the feminist side, I see Janie as a very strong, intelligent character that I liked.
Janie seemed to be always looking for more in her life and never really finding it. She was pushed aside by her first two husbands because she was a woman. A lot of this novel was focused on Janie's life while married to Jody and working in the store. That is when I really started to feel for Janie. I thought that she was going to be happy leaving Logan and I thought that Jody would make her feel good and treat her well. In his eyes he did do this. It seems like Jody was kind of proud of having Janie as his wife. She was young and beautiful and he could see other men's desires for her. He seemed to think of her more as a trophy wife. This also lead him to some jealousy. Because Janie had very unique and beautiful hair other's wanted to see it and touch it, but Jody felt that it was only for him. He made Janie hide the one thing that really made her stand out. Instead of treating her well, Jody seemed to have really drained Janie. She wasn't really allowed to speak her mind, he called her stupid/made her feel stupid often, he made her tie back her hair, and never really spent any quality time with her.
It seems that possibly at first Janie may have enjoyed her time with Jody. She flirted with him while she was married to Logan, and she left Logan for Jody. Unfortunately the happiness didn't last, and Hurston tells us that eventually they weren't intimate any more. It just seemed like Janie was kind of a robot that got punished when she went out of the "natural order" Jody had in mind for her. Even when Janie brought this to the attention of Jody he still didn't seem to get it, and was only bitter. Because he had made such a successful life for them financially and status wise he thought that Janie should have been happy. To him, he had given her all that money could buy and that any woman would love to be Janie. It wasn't just about the money to Janie though. She always wanted to know what love was like and if it was real, but she felt trapped in Jody's world of belittled women.
Once Janie found love with Tea Cake I really started to be happy for her. I liked how Hurston wrote about Janie using her older years when she was younger, and now that she was older she was younger at heart. I thought that was cute. The reader really sees how much Janie loves Tea Cake and Janie realizes what she had been missing out on in her previous marriages. I think that it's interesting how once Janie finds love she loses love for her grandmother. Now that she knows what her grandmother has kept from her she is angry. To Janie, love was important, not money, but to her grandmother, money was important. Perhaps the grandmother was just trying to do the best thing that she could for Janie and set her up for a good life, but she really caused Janie to waste a lot of time being miserable.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I noticed in your post the idea that Janie's happiness was almost dependent on other people. And I think that Hurston may have been commenting on how women of the time may have been relying on men for happiness. Through the novel Hurston may have been trying to convince the reader that women were greater than that. Women had the ability to be in charge of their won happiness.
I agree and until the discussion in class I didn't think about this novel as being a feminist novel with either. But thinking about it makes sense, Janie does what she wants even though for her time I don't think thats how things were done. Also on the different husbands and their views on what women should do and know. Like her first two husbands wouldn't let her do much. But then her last husband, Tea Cake wanted her to be able to do what he did, which incuded hunting and shooting.
I liked how in your intro you brought up the fact that there are positive and negative reinforcements of gender and race. I found Hurston to be incredibly ambivalent when discussing these topics. Ambivalent, but realistic-she doesn't want to generalize people too much, but does not ignore either the good or bad but writes about the world that she knows, good and bad.
Amanda,
I believe that Jody did pride in having Janie as if she were a possession though, not as a person or a respected individual. As Janie describes, she did not like being placed up on this “stool” for all to see and admire. Even though she was very good looking, she wanted people to know her for what she had on the inside, rather than what she had on the outside. She loved Tea Cake because he was the only one who did admire her for who she was as a person. He let her enjoy who she was, rather than making her act all proper. I know personally that if someone tried to make me act proper all the time and rather than being myself and doing anything fun, I would feel bored and restricted as she did. Even though Janie enjoyed Jody’s company at first, this is only because she believes that he is going to be fun and different than old Logan.
I, like you, enjoyed when Janie found love. It was when Janie finally goes through this period of self-discovery and finds herself. This accounts for Janie being “young at heart” as you described. I feel however, that she did not lose love for her grandmother. She just lost respect for her in a way, and disagreed with her thoughts and opinions. I also felt that this did not take place when she found love with Tea Cake, but it happened before then when Jody died. Janie had paralleled the two after his death and decided that she “hated” both of them. I feel that she did not truly hate them, but hated all that they stood for. I feel that her grandmother did not lie to Janie, she just merely told her all that she knew. She told Janie what she thought love was, for she did not know for herself. Nanny had never found love.
I don't think that Janie was going to be happy with any of the men in her life no matter what who they were until she knew what made her truely happy. I think the men in her life were probably pushing her to the side because they could tell she was unhappy. As for Jody and Janie I think Janie was in love with the idea of Jody more then she was with the actual person Jody.
I dont think Janie knew exactly what she wanted in a relationships. In the relationships she did have, I dont think she knew what she wanted, which was part of the reason for them not working out. I think the several relationships were learning experiences,which made her know what she was looking for. Also I think Tea Cake made her realize what she wanted in a man, which i think thats why they fell in love.
Post a Comment