Josh Wilk Blog 1

I had previously read this book years ago in high school and at the end had several questions about Janie's character and the choices she made because of it. After reading it again now and discussing it in this class, I feel that most of those questions can be answered or at least analyzed much better. The first being why did Hurston choose to write a story about a woman who for the most of the novel is ruled by various people and ideas when she could have been writing something similar to the Harlem Renaissance group? My view is that for one she wasn't a part of that group and may have not wanted to be. The book was a way to capture history through fiction (like Mules and Men) so as to make sure past events could not happen. While others highlighted the future, Eyes helped to highlight both past and present thinking of the people living around that time and place. And the character of Janie was a way to show how people (or maybe just women I'm not sure on that issue) were being pulled in both directions and forced to choose. It was either to remain where blacks had been for a long time or to try to advance themselves into a new world. It was a choice of continuing to plow the field or attempt to plow through the social obstacles of becoming modern.
The rest of my questions involved Janie's choices in the book and for the most part my opinion has stayed the same. Though I can understand the strains of her situation (philosophically) at each major plot point, the fact that she shows backbone then immediately goes back to a lower standing puts me in the unwanted but needed position of saying that Hurston wants the reader to only pity or cheer Janie on the face of the story. At the beginning, she is under Nanna, rebels from Nanna, then she is under Joe. Rebels from Joe, falls under Teacake (I say this because of the instances where Janie's sex forces her into a lower role: the single beating Teacake MUST give her and her jealousy of Teacake and Nunkie). And then almost miraculously she is free at the end and fully "awakened" by her experiences. This is a problem for me as she is only free because all those who restrained her forced her into a corner so she had to rebel and also because they are dead. The fact that Teacake had to save her in flood takes away from Janie's modernizing and simply turns the book into flowery descriptions with fantasy elements with a unique use of language, people, and location. In the end I think that Hurston put some good points on a larger scale to be seen but inadvertently or not brought some other bad points into the light as well.