Janie Without the Beauty?

Along the same lines as one of my earlier posts, I'm going back to the point about the importance of appearances in our society. As I was reading Their Eyes Were Watching God I was always visualizing Janie in my head because the vivid descriptions of her, starting even from the very beginning, really struck me. I made a note of it and realized that Janie's physical appearance is almost sort of crucial to the heart of her story. From the very beginning of chapter one we get a very clear description of her, one that tells of an unconventional beauty, almost intimidating in its magnitude. Most significant is her hair, a symbol for her sensuality and deeply feminine nature. When we are first introduced to Janie we see her in tattered overalls, yet her beauty is still obvious enough to spark jealousy among the other women. Much like lighter skin (which Janie also has because of her mixed ancestry), straighter, finer hair was preferred to kinkier, coarser hair because of its similarity to Caucasian hair. Janie's hair is described to be long, straight, and thick. It was something she took pride in, and something that attracted others to her. It was so coveted, that Jody, during their marriage, had even required Janie to always keep her hair hidden away from the eyes of other men, mostly in an attempt to control her. Janie's beauty proves to be both a boon and a burden to her thoroughout the story. Her kind of pretty makes it so that she gets chances in life that other women may not have, after all, how many 40 something women can find true love from attractive men in their twenties *after* two failed marriages? While Janie draws a lot of her personality from her physical self, because she is so aware of her beauty, she also has a huge drive for independence. As she learns to wield the gift of beauty, Janie discovers that, at times, being beautiful is a huge obstacle. She is spoiled or assumed to be spoiled, stemming from an early age because of how she is treated by white people (who tended to favor 'whiter' looking blacks), she is assumed to have an air of superiority (as seen by the villagers who assume that she is haughty because of her looks), and often times friendless because she left other women feeling insecure. Janie learns that by looking a certain way, she will always be labeled and placed into categories that aren't representative of her. As I read more of the story, I realize that one of Janie's major struggles is coming to terms with her outward appearance and learning to use it in a way so that her actual self can shine through. With that thought, I imagined how completely different this story would've been if Janie had been plain looking. Would there be a Jody to rescue her from Logan, or rather, would there even be a Logan at all?

Sympathy for the Hopeless Romantic

Though long overdue, I wanted to comment on the dynamic of Nanny and Janie on the matter of marriage. Janie, being 17 when she is first married, is in a kind of situation that I could obviously never relate to, but can have some serious sympathy for. Janie is in many ways a hopeless romantic. She wants love, the kind that blossoms under pear trees, in a world where sometimes love has no practical place. I think, if I were an older reader, coming in with a much more cynical perspective on life I'd have a harder time sympathizing with Janie, but right now, I find her all too relatable. I think idealized expectations of love are kind of a rite of passage for teenage girls, whether we admit to it or not. Janie is impulsive, aware of her sexuality, and deeply connected with her emotions. Because her emotions are such direct influences on her, she can't stay still in a position where she isn't satisfied, physically or emotionally. On the other hand, Nanny, too,  is well justified in her opposition. Born and raised a slave, with her only daughter being the product of a painful rape, love is trivial, and basically inconsequential. In Nanny's perspective Logan Killicks represents an ideal, something that she could have only dreamt of when she was Janie's age. To have the opportunity, as a woman, to be able to marry into such financial stability was something as valuable to Nanny as love must have seemed to Janie.

This situation is deeply affected by the generational gap between the two characters that prevent them from understanding the others' point of view. In a lot of ways I see parallels of this situation between myself, my cousins and my own grandmother. I won't go into details, but my grandmother was forced into an arranged marriage at the age of 14, and like Nanny, love was never a reality for her. She had children because society expected her to, and struggled to raise her children single-handedly after her husband's sudden, and premature death. Though I respect her in a lot of ways, I also see that her mentality is skewed and stuck in an earlier time. This became especially evident to me when I saw her try to end the engagement between my cousin and her long time boyfriend only because of the interracial nature of their relationship. Different people will always have different priorities in life, but I realize now, that given context, most people are justified in their beliefs.

Visibility vs. Identity?

We had a really intense conversation in class today, and Sierra brought up the point of visibility (or invisibility) vs. identity. I didn't really get to finish up my comment today, and I had loads still left to say. I think visibility and a sense of identity are two completely different ideas. After reading this whole, harrowing account of the narrator's self discovery, I can say that as a reader, I understand the narrator on a much deeper level than other characters in the novel do. But, I still can't ever say that I understand him completely. We almost always try to understand other people by comparing ourselves to them, by placing ourselves inside of their situations, and by seeing how closely our reactions correlate with theirs. We all do this to an extent subconsciously, but when there is a huge discrepancy between our actions and those of another, it becomes increasingly difficult to see past the differences. I can say that at least in real life no one ever really fully understands another human being on the level that they understand themselves. I've known my best friend for a long time now, and most of the time I like to think I know exactly what she's like, but sometimes when I pause to think, I realize that there are lots of things that I don't really know about her at all. And that's okay, because I think that's how things are supposed to be. The only thing we can do is learn to accept that there will always be parts of us that will remain invisible to others because we all think and feel in different ways.
At the end of the novel, the narrator finally comes to terms with his state of invisibility, but more importantly he has learned to understand his inner identity. All people are products of society to a certain degree. I am a product of society, a product of my environment, and a product of the expectations that I have grown up with. I can think that I am a certain person, but I also know that if I was placed in a set of completely different circumstances, I may as well have been a completely different person. We like to believe that there are parts of us that remain constant, and those are the parts that are hidden deep away. Ellison's theory of self discovery is effective, I think. The only way we can really uncover the deepest parts of ourselves is by rejecting outside influences that surround us. None of us have to go down underground into a hole, but at some point in our lives we need to understand ourselves and realize that our own values, and our own perceptions of ourselves are more important than the labels that other people put on us. You don't have to be 'visible' to be at a state of self understanding.