Response to a Response

So here we are at the end of another book. I enjoyed Their Eyes Were Watching God very much, which is possibly why I don't agree with Wright's criticism of the novel. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to wright/format this post, so bear with me.

One of Wright's main criticisms of the novel was the lack of theme, causing the novel as a whole to not have any significance and just become a book for "a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy." Huston's book is not a politically charged protest novel that outwardly addresses racial struggles (and I guess that's what Wright didn't like about it), but I don't think this means it lacks significance. This may not be correct, but I feel like Their Eyes Were Watching God not being specifically about race in a way made it be more about race. That was confusing so I will try to explain. I saw the book as a story for everyone. It's not meant for only one race, unlike Native Son. The content of Native Son seems to isolate it, which makes me think that Their Eyes Were Watching God is more effective when handling racial barriers because it promotes equality. 

Something I like about Hurston's book is the subtlety of the themes (which we talked about in class today) that don't slap you in the face and force you to think in a certain way, but rather allow you to form your own ideas throughout Janie's story. To me, this is better than Wright's method of establishing a theme because throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God, I found myself just noticing things like gender and race.

Lastly, we talked about this in class as well, but I think Wright's is a bit hypocritical when saying Hurston promotes stereotypes. I don't think I will elaborate on this too much because it's something we already discussed, but I think that Native Son and the character of Bigger Thomas showcase negative stereotypes more so than Hurston.

Or maybe I'm just biased.

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Pear Trees?

We talked in class today about how Janie's relationships and I thought I would try to organize a few of my thoughts. (they probably won't be organized)

Someone said today that Janie's experience with the pear tree translated into her thoughts about relationships, which I thought was interesting. I've thought about it a bit, and I see the relation. I think her grandmother pushing her into her first marriage definitely affected her as well, and these two things together caused her to have more...unconventional (?) thoughts about marriage and relationships and that kind of stuff.

I wonder what would have happened if Janie had stayed with Logan. She clearly wasn't happy with her marriage, but very shortly after she meets Joe, she leaves with him, and then quickly starts becoming unhappy with their marriage. Her ideals and hopes for love seem to blind her into leaving Logan and going with Joe. I feel bad for Logan because he wants Janie to love him but he basically embodies everything she isn't looking for, since the land and the mule don't appeal to her. I suppose if she had stayed with him, she just would have remained unhappy. At least going with Joe gave her a short lived sense of freedom? Also I think she's going against her grandmother's wishes for her, and I kind of understand her reasoning, but I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Maybe her opinions about love are too romanticized, which is a burden? I don't know, but at this point I just want to meet Tea Cake.

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Final/Initial Thoughts

Those 500 pages of Invisible Man went by faster than I expected. Probably because I kept telling myself I would write a post about the book, and now we've finished it. Oops. 

I very much enjoyed the narrator's story and I think Ellison's writing style is very interesting. At times, I felt like there was too much symbolism, though I like how it all fit together and reinforced the theme of invisibility. Interpreting the lines became easier (kind of) and I got more used to trying to find a deeper meaning. I especially liked the first part of the book, I  enjoyed reading the narrator's story and background, however the ending seemed to be a bit rushed. He's in a cab, and then Ras is on a horse trying to kill him, and while escaping finds himself in a hole. It was interesting seeing how all of the narrator's experiences led him to his 1,369 lightbulbs, but the ending wasn't quite what I expected. With this being said, I still very much enjoyed Invisible Man (I wish we knew what happened to the narrator after the book ended, or his name, but those are smaller thoughts). 

I just finished reading the first three chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God and it's pretty different from Ellison. I kind of like the vernacular dialogue that Hurston used, which I find a bit strange because I'm usually not a big fan. I'm pretty excited to read more of the book because I'm finding Janie's story very easy to read and intriguing (also the name Tea Cake is cool).

Maybe I'll like this book more than the other two. But then again, the book has only just started though, so maybe my opinions will change.

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