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.
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.
This is a really interesting and accurate parallel between the two characters. I think to further expand on their developing sense of freedom would be to say that at these points in the novel we start to see the authors working their messages into the novel. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie finds happiness and freedom by finding a lover who doesn't constrict her, and in Invisible Man the narrator is starting to shake off social expectations of him. I think both of these tie in with the authors overall messages in each book.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely an original and insightful comparison, in terms of the characters both feeling a sudden independence from propriety and the presumed judgments of others. An important difference, of course, is that the narrator is embracing his own past, and the degree to which he does not want to feel ashamed of it in this northern context, whereas Janie is discovering a whole new version of herself. Her move to the "muck" has been "downwardly mobile," but here we see what a positive development that is for her character. And the yam epiphany turns out, unfortunately, to be rather fleeting in its effects, whereas Janie owns this "overalls" version of herself through Tea Cake's funeral and all the way back to Eatonville, where she wears it proudly in front of the porch-talkers.
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