Independence

"Sometimes Janie would think of the old days in the big white house and the store and laugh to herself. What if Eatonville could see her now in her blue denim overalls and heavy shoes? The crows of people around her and a dice game on her floor! She was sorry for her friends back there and scornful of the others." (134)

This segment from Their Eyes Were Watching God reminded me of the scene in Invisible Man where the narrator is eating a yam:

"It was exhilarating. I no longer had to worry about who saw me or about what was proper. To hell with all that, and as sweet as the yam actually, it became like nectar with the thought. I only someone who had known me at school or at home would come along and see me now. How shocked they'd be! I'd push them into a side street and smear their faces with the peel." (264) 

In both scenes, the protagonists remark on their current situation. Both realize that what they are doing would not be considered "proper," and yet they do it anyways. In the Invisible Man's case, he gains a sort of freedom in eating the yam, and is also inspired. This yam is a connection to his heritage. This connection allows him to understand the elderly evicted couple he comes across and lets him make a rousing speech from the heart. In Janie's case, she realizes how free how society's expectations she is. To me this scene represents how much better this marriage with Tea Cake is than her previous marriage. Compared to the previous ones, Janie is a lot more free and able to do what she wants. The scene also reinforces how independent Janie is, as she disregards what is and is not "proper."

By the end of Invisible Man, and up to where we are in Their Eyes Were Watching God, both protagonists gain a better understanding of their freedoms and independence. The narrator of Invisible Man does this by completely isolating himself from society to understand his identity. Janie does this by seeking true love and by following her own expectations, not society's.

True Love

I feel like sometimes we treat Janie a lot older than she really is. She is about our age, or a bit older. She is still a young girl, her head filled with these ideas about love. Even after getting married to Logan, she seems to accept it for a little while believing that love will come from marriage. Once she realizes love is not happening and meets a seemingly much more eligible Joe Starks, she runs off. Not surprising. Joe Starks also does not end up meeting her expectations, though she does stick around. In this way, I feel she has matured. Perhaps she was taking her grandmother's advice seriously. Despite her relationship with Jody, she is still living quite comfortably. Once she is finally free from Jody, it makes sense why she moves on to Tea Cake. In her experimentation with love, she has been to the middle and the high (in terms of status). Where is there to go but the bottom? And so she goes to Tea Cake. Being much younger than her, Tea Cake makes Janie  herself feel young. She becomes once more that young girl still trying to find true love. Just like with Logan and Jody, she feels that she has found true love with Tea Cake. Despite suspicions from people like Phoeby, who feel he might be after her money, Janie stays with him. Perhaps she stays with him because she wants to find out whether he is true love. I haven't read much farther than this, but if Tea Cake does not work out, then maybe that is where she will stop with her idealistic view of love. One last thing--Janie mentions to Phoeby that she is selling the store and is going to "start all over in Tea Cake's way" (114). This might explain why we saw Janie in working clothes at the beginning of the novel.

Use of the Vernacular

Recently, we've discussed Hurston's use of black vernacular in her novel. She writes in two voices: the narration in standard English and the dialogue in vernacular. This juxtaposition is not so much of a contrast as a comparison. The narration has a calm, flowing, and passionate voice, allowing for a smooth reading for the text. The dialogue is lyrical and adds character to the book. While it may take a while to easily understand the dialogue, once you get into it the novel is all the more enjoyable. Putting the dialogue and narration next to other brings out their unique qualities.
I found Hurston's use of black vernacular similar to Sterling Brown's in "Strong Men." I am not sure of the time period (perhaps during the Black is Beautiful Movement), but many African American writers started using black dialect in their literary works to show that it was not some crude, backward speech--there was an inherent beauty in it. Perhaps this is why Hurston and Brown used dialect in their works.
This also reminded me, surprisingly, of the Divine Comedy, written in the early 1300s by the Italian Dante Alighieri. During this time is was standard to written all scholarly and great works in Latin, the language of learning. However, Dante chose to write his epic poem in Italian, specifically the Tuscan dialect, to show that one could create a great work out of a "common" language. His work actually helped establish this Tuscan dialect as the standard Italian language. Like Dante, Hurston and Brown wrote in the black vernacular to show its beauty.