The Importance of Feeling for Characters
Their Eyes Were Watching God (TEWWG) made me feel many different ways. While I felt irritated and upset with Janie's past lovers, the most intense feelings I felt had to do with Janie and Tea Cake's love story. I felt like I was falling in love with Tea Cake like Janie was. I was so emotionally invested in the characters, that when Tea Cake was eventually killed by Janie, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Hurston's narrative was so beautiful and emotionally raw, that I felt like I knew Janie and what she had gone through.
I compared this to my feelings about Invisible Man and Native Son. In both of those novels, while Ellison did a great job in making his characters complex, I did not have the same kind of emotions while reading these books. They felt like analytical type books compared to Hurston's more raw and real writing. I think a big distinction that made me feel more attached to Hurston's characters was the way she depicted their accents, which made me feel like I was actually listening to Janie's story. While Invisible Man's narrator seemed to relay events in a sort of analytical way, Janie's story, by contrast, was told in a real way- her way.
So why do feelings matter? Why does it matter that I felt so strongly about Hurston's characters compared to Ellison's or Wright's? Well, I think this can be thought of in several ways.
Firstly, if we view African American literature from Wright's perspective, that is that all of it must be about Black American's struggle, then this novel actually works in that way. I believe that a huge part of racism is the fact that white people are apathetic to people of color. So in this way, Hurston's novel inadvertently serves as a way for White Americans to empathize with black people in a way they maybe have not before.
Secondly, the fact that I felt for the characters made the novel that much more important and memorable to me. Not only did I read a beautiful and raw love story, but I also learned about a part of black Southern culture that is frequently forgotten about (especially at the time- it was not written about before).
Finally, I think that this novel serves as a perfect reminder of the importance of love stories in 'serious' literature. Although it is a love story, and usually in love stories, there is an emotional weight to the characters and the situation, it is a lot more than that. Janie's story ends with her alone, not a happily ever after with Tea Cake as most stereotypical love stories would depict. I think this is because TEWWG is more than a love story. It is about a woman struggling with her sense of self, trying to find freedom and independence in a world that does not want to let her do so.
Love in this novel is portrayed as powerful and important. In this way, it is just as powerful and important as other aspects of novels we have read before.
I compared this to my feelings about Invisible Man and Native Son. In both of those novels, while Ellison did a great job in making his characters complex, I did not have the same kind of emotions while reading these books. They felt like analytical type books compared to Hurston's more raw and real writing. I think a big distinction that made me feel more attached to Hurston's characters was the way she depicted their accents, which made me feel like I was actually listening to Janie's story. While Invisible Man's narrator seemed to relay events in a sort of analytical way, Janie's story, by contrast, was told in a real way- her way.
So why do feelings matter? Why does it matter that I felt so strongly about Hurston's characters compared to Ellison's or Wright's? Well, I think this can be thought of in several ways.
Firstly, if we view African American literature from Wright's perspective, that is that all of it must be about Black American's struggle, then this novel actually works in that way. I believe that a huge part of racism is the fact that white people are apathetic to people of color. So in this way, Hurston's novel inadvertently serves as a way for White Americans to empathize with black people in a way they maybe have not before.
Secondly, the fact that I felt for the characters made the novel that much more important and memorable to me. Not only did I read a beautiful and raw love story, but I also learned about a part of black Southern culture that is frequently forgotten about (especially at the time- it was not written about before).
Finally, I think that this novel serves as a perfect reminder of the importance of love stories in 'serious' literature. Although it is a love story, and usually in love stories, there is an emotional weight to the characters and the situation, it is a lot more than that. Janie's story ends with her alone, not a happily ever after with Tea Cake as most stereotypical love stories would depict. I think this is because TEWWG is more than a love story. It is about a woman struggling with her sense of self, trying to find freedom and independence in a world that does not want to let her do so.
Love in this novel is portrayed as powerful and important. In this way, it is just as powerful and important as other aspects of novels we have read before.
I like that you say Hurston's novel serves as a "reminder of the importance of love stories in 'serious' literature," because this whole protest vs. "pale" literature debate tends to overlook the fact that a whole bunch of "serious" literature has always centered on love stories, declarations of love and devotion, or plots that move toward marriage as a satisfying and necessary denoument. A few years ago, someone in this class compared Hurston's novel to a Jane Austen novel--with its cycling through "suitors" and a female protagonist who is picky about who she is matched up with, and that made a lot of sense to me. In Austen, the marriage plots draw in a range of issues around gender, class, and privilege, and critics don't tend to dismiss them as "mere love stories." Again, though, we see this particular standard being applied to black authors--the subtext is that a *black* novel shouldn't concern itself with such triviality. But in many ways, Hurston's novel falls squarely within a long tradition of love as the focus of serious literature.
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