Are Love Stories Ok
It’s odd to me that the question of whether Their Eyes Were Watching God is a love story is a way to determine whether it can serve as an empowering novel and whether it can be about Janie as an individual. When Janie has been with three men, learning different things from each relationship, the man she falls in love with absolutely speaks to her character. If the novel had ended on Jodie dying, I doubt that people would be saying that the novel is not about Janie but rather about her relationship with Jodie, since it would still follow her struggles in life. Tea Cake and Janie having a successful relationship doesn’t change that core theme, as is especially shown in the novel ending with her alone – the final note is not about their connection, but about what Janie is left with after all of her experiences that the book showed.
In class, the point that she saw memories of Tea Cake in her old house after he died was used as evidence for the story not being after her individual growth after all, but I disagree. Realistically portraying grief can make just as strong of a point as structuring the book like Richard Wright did in Native Son, prioritizing on-the-nose points over deep characters. Since Their Eyes Were Watching God is a creative work rather than a protest novel, its strengths lie in its ability to connect to readers emotionally through developed characters, humor, and realism, and taking that realism away to show Janie “being an individual” after the death of her beloved husband would in fact make the novel’s impact weaker.
Basically, I don’t think that having strong connections to others undermines your own self or your potential for development, and portrayal of all of Janie’s close relationships in Their Eyes Were Watching God, from her grandmother’s to her husbands’ to Pheoby’s, were commentary on her. As well as that, as was brought up in class, the end may be a moment in grief, but it still reflects how deep and knowledgeable she has become as a character – the fact that she now even has “her horizon” to pull in like a net, and “so much life” inside of it, shows that while she was married to Tea Cake she was gaining so much more experience than just that of her marriage.
This was a spot-on commentary on how the novel treats Janie's love story! I think that an important aspect of the novel that criticisms of it like Richard Wright's tend to miss is the way Hurston uses the love story she spins as a window into examining other themes. Ultimately, the novel posits that the point of Janie and Tea Cake's love story isn't that she finds the perfect man to complete her and becomes fulfilled, living happily ever after at his side. Instead, it's framed as an ephemeral adventure that Janie returns from with new wisdom about herself and the world, and Tea Cake's role becomes more one of a guide along this piece of Janie's journey to self-discovery.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that a love story can be a story about individual growth. As you say, Janie gains a lot from her relationship with Tea Cake, as he is really the first man who seems to care about Janie's happiness and comfort, and she gains a lot of new experiences while with him. Additionally, I think the novel maintains its position as a story about an individual person throughout, as the depiction of Janie's and Tea Cake's relationship is still almost entirely focuses Janie's love for Tea Cake and her own experiences in the relationship. However, I think their relationship can also be read as one that is not particularly empowering for Janie. While their relationship starts out pretty good for the most part, Tea Cake still ultimately is not a good partner, but Janie never really acknowledges this even after his death. I guess individuality and self-empowerment do not necessarily have to come hand-in-hand, but I think those two things are usually linked, so I can understand why some people read TEWWG and don't think of it as being particularly individualistic. But I also don't think that interpreting TEWWG as more focused on the relationship than Janie herself necessarily makes it a less readable novel anyway.
ReplyDeleteYes, I completely agree! I do wish for Janie's sake that she had grown in terms of being able to let go of her idealization of Tea Cake in the end as well. However, I do think that the novel can be about her and her experiences without the perfect outcome, and regardless whether Hurston saw the flaws within Tea Cake that we see, I think the fact that their relationship led to us being able to comment on what kind of person Janie ended up, shows that the book was successful in making enough of the book Janie-centered, not relationship-centered. Very good point though!
DeleteI agree with you that this novel can be about both Janie's growth as an individual, and her relationships with others. I think the fact that only about half of the book is dedicated to Janie's relationship with Tea Cake is strong evidence that there is a journey that she needs to go on as a person that neither starts nor ends with her relationship with him--as you mention.
ReplyDeleteI definitely see your point about Janie growing as a person through her relationships and I also believe that a novel can be both a love story and an empowering novel. However, I think that it is notable that the growth that Janie goes through in the novel is entirely revolving around the men in her life. In Tea Cake's case specifically, her new understanding of the world is completely reliant on Tea Cake showing her new things. After meeting Tea Cake, Janie has no agency other than telling Tea Cake essentially to do whatever he wants with her. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that Janie has not learned to make decisions as an individual at the end of the novel, especially with how much the ending still revolves around Tea Cake. I agree that turning the novel to be more focused on Janie as an individual at the ending would weaken its effect, but I don't think that that is justification for claiming the novel is about Janie's empowerment.
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely a good point, and I don't think that writing a character reliant on others takes it outside of the category of commentary on that character. Having Janie still thinking about Tea Cake in the end, is a reflection of her /and/ their relationship, not just their relationship. As well as that, I think that, while it was of course possible, expecting a novel meant to represent the womens' experience in that time to not be heavily focused on those womens' relationships with men is unrealistic. I would be kind of disappointed if a great deal of a book meant to address gender issues of the time portrayed a woman independent of men, since I would only gain a small and rare fraction of the actual female experience.
DeleteI agree with you that Their Eyes Were Watching God works as a creative novel, and should not be criticized as a protest novel. I did find it interesting as I read the novel to see her find her individuality as she fell in love with new people. The significance of Janie ending the novel alone also speaks to me and what lies ahead for her, after the lessons learned through her relationships and her life.
ReplyDeleteStefania, this is definitely true. I feel like we would be less likely to say that the main character is centering their life around love interests if it was a man instead of a woman. Janie is simply learning from her experiences, which happen to be with men. Her journey isn't dependent on them.
ReplyDeleteThis!! Imagine John Crawford has three marriages and eventually a happy one, and is very invested and dependent on his partners in all three. (ok now I'm imagining too much and the analogy is breaking...)
DeleteEssentially I think your analogy emphasizes Stefania's point which I agree with, which is that a love story is not mutually exclusive with a story of individual empowerment. Go Janie! (You can still love Tea Cake <3 )
Nice writing, but I'm slightly confused on what the title means. On one hand it could be questioning whether love stories in general are flawed or broken in some way. But on the other hand it could be asking whether love stories are appropriate to be included in AAL. I guess it is up to interpretation!
ReplyDeleteI really, really love your blog post and you make so many excellent points throughout! I especially like the idea you discussed at the end about those last scenes, as she feels the grief, we also do see her alone, in this place of power and control (she’s able to pull in that horizon), and full of life, which I thought was a great ending and showed Janie’s character development. We see her journey basically just begin with Johnny Taylor at the beginning (Nanny saying specifically that Janie has “become a woman” after that moment), so the beginning of her story was fully defined by the men around her. But, in the end, I feel that we see her much more independent, and as you mention, she feels grief which is completely expected, but she also seems okay with being alone. Her narrative is no longer defined by those around her and any of her husbands, and it seems like her past was simply building her strength for the future and helping her figure out what life is and why defining your own path, independently, is the most exciting.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds terrible to say haha, but I’m almost glad (?) that Tea Cake was gone at the end and Janie could be on her own-- it seems like a much more powerful ending than Janie spending the rest of her life with Tea Cake (though his death was incredibly sad for me too). It takes power to go through grief, but it takes even more strength to accept it and almost use it to “power yourself” for the future.
Amazing blog post and analysis!! Thank you!
I definitely agree! I don't think that personal empowerment and having romantic relationships have to be mutually exclusive. Yes, Janie formed a strong connection with Tea Cake and was heavily impacted by his death--but this doesn't mean that her whole life was centered around him. Love is just a part of life, and it didn't hinder her from growing as a person. I think you covered these points perfectly in this post.
ReplyDeleteI love this post, it completely encapsulates my thoughts on the novel that I wasn't able to put into words myself. Is the novel not supposed to show Janie's relationships with men, when they're literally her husbands and the people she spends the most time with in various points of her life? It's not like the novel doesn't depict other relationships, like you pointed out - we see Janie and her grandmother, Janie and Phoeby, kind of Janie with Mrs. Turner. The book shows all kinds of relationships, both female-female and female-male, because relationships are a natural and key part of life. We also get to see Janie alone and introspective at times, because that's also a natural part of life. As you said, trying to cut any part of that out would seem obvious and disjointed, leaving a glaring hole in the novel Hurston crafted.
ReplyDeleteHi Stefania, this is an interesting take on the novel and you raised some questions that I have been wondering as well. In relation to the title of this blog post, I believe that a love story can be exemplary of a woman building upon her view of herself and those around her, as well as maturing and learning to herself as others love her, whether it be in a platonic or romantic sense. However, I have trouble labeling this novel as a "love story" because of the troubling relationship and marriage of Janie and Tea Cake. While this is definitely considered a feminist piece given the time period in which the novel was set in, it is difficult to view it as feminist and a love story through a modern lens. I wish that throughout the latter half of the novel, we were able to see more of Janie's true thoughts and opinions regarding her relationship with Tea Cake and his abuse of her. If we had a chance to see Janie reflecting on her marriage with Tea Cake to be one that is more bittersweet, I would be more enticed to say that Janie had great character growth. It is disappointing in the end for Janie to think that anyone besides herself is her horizon. I appreciate, though, your mentioning of the analysis of this novel compared to that of a protest novel.
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