Reading Native Son and Invisible Man, it seems unnervingly easy to forget about women entirely. The real characters, the real struggles, the real search for identity seems to be always with the men. Bigger and Clifton and the nameless narrator and Dr. Bledsoe are the ones who matter, while the women are at best homemakers and at worst just a tool to influence men. It’s the brotherhood, after all. The “Women Question” is just a way to get the narrator out of the way of the real issues.
So it’s kind of strange to start reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by a woman about a woman, and even stranger to see how in just the first seven chapters there are probably more women than in Native Son and Invisible Man combined. But it’s immediately obvious that the main character Janie Crawford is very different from every woman we’ve encountered so far this year, and it’s interesting to consider how her struggles to live in a racist society will compare to those of the male protagonists we’ve already read about.
In just the first few chapters, it’s clear how Janie’s life is dictated by both race and gender. She marries Logan Killicks not because she loves him, but because it’s her grandmother’s dying wish to protect Janie from being raped like so many other women in her family. Even after she leaves Killicks to marry Jody, who she thinks she loves, Jody just becomes more and more controlling to try and make her fit his vision of a perfect wife. And no matter what she does, the male gaze is always there to watch her, judge her body and make her into an object of competition between men.
It’s hard to say so early in the book what will happen to Janie over the course of her life, but it’s clear that although the challenges she faces will undoubtedly be similar to those in Invisible Man, being a woman will also heavily influence her struggles. And judging by the character of Janie as she walks into town in the beginning of the novel, she ends up far from the passive and insignificant female character so common in other novels.
That was a really good post, and I thought it was cool that you found a way to tie together Invisible Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God together. I understand that the post was focused on the experiences of Janie as a woman, but you also said her character was defined by her race. I think if you had added even just one example of how her race effects her character, the post could be stronger.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! It was short and straight to the point.
ReplyDeleteRalph Ellison is the master of irony: by neglecting to talk about "The Women Question" he suggests that women's role in promoting equality goes unnoticed, and that women's rights are not focused on enough by those envisioning social change, and thereby comments on the social question. Quite the paradox.
It is definitely a interesting contrast between Janie and the women in Invisible Man and Native son. Janie is a woman who not only draws attention, but seems to thrive in it. The characterization of women in the other novels, as you pointed out, is as side characters that don't add a lot to the table. In this case Janie covers the whole table and more.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! I too am looking forward to seeing how being a woman affects Janie's struggles over the course of a novel, and how her story is similar to and different from those of the narrator in Invisible Man and Bigger.
ReplyDeleteOne critique that we encountered was that it was good that Ellison did not attempt to write about women because that was a topic and life that he knew nothing about. Hurston's voice will be the first female voice we will add to our discussion for longer than 15 minutes on a Friday. It will be interesting to see what the class decides: Does Hurston have the authority to be the dominant female voice we study so far in this class? What is her narrative missing?
ReplyDeleteI think that the significance of adding Hurston's voice is clear and I'm excited to see what it will add to the class.
Janie struggles to fight through not only racism but, also sexism. It seems all men we have met in Hurston's novel have sexist views about the place of women in society. She is more confined than even black men, having less of a voice and less options in life. We see her start to break expectations in chapter 8-10 and become her own person. I think we will start to see her become a stronger and stronger character.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true. I love reading Their Eyes Were Watching God because of the change of perspective. It's so interesting to finally see how a black woman is affected by racism and sexism. As Noah said it seems like every man has a sexist view of women, except Teacake at the moment...
ReplyDeleteWell put Elizabeth! I think that the perspective of Janie is one that has been direly needed over the past two books, as it's giving us so many different view of the world and of interactions between people. I think that especially after the narrator in IM's interaction with women such as Sybil, it's vital for us to get the other side of the coin.
ReplyDeleteI really like the change to Their Eyes Were Watching God because it gives us a perspective that we haven't come across in this class yet: a black woman. She undoubtedly goes through a lot of the same struggles as the main characters in Native Son and Invisible Man, but there is a whole new level that she has to deal with being a woman.
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