Sunday, October 21, 2012
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?
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You raise some very important points here: Janie's independence does seem to hinge on there always being a new man strolling down the road (she's thwarted when it's Johnny Taylor, tall and lean, but the next two who come strolling down the road--Jody and Tea Cake--she goes with, and it's her physical beauty that attracts both). It's reasonable to assume that the degree of independence she enjoys does depend on her attractiveness, but I'd add that Hurston makes a point of that attractiveness being not ONLY physical. The most striking thing about our first glimpse of her, walking back into town at the start (end) of the novel, is the fact that she's walking tall and proud. Hers isn't a made-up or hair-dyed kind of beauty, and it is closely connected to her poise and self-possession.
ReplyDeleteIn a lot of ways, Janie's dilemma, at the very core, still reflects on the lives of women today. The whole idea of women being dependent on men, as outdated as it may seem, still is relevant in modern context. A lot of women, particularly disadvantaged women, latch on to men as a means of freedom or escape, in a way similar to Janie and her relationships. In the same vein, attractiveness still plays a huge role in society today, and more 'beautiful' women constantly receive benefits that their less attractive peers do not. However, relating back to the story, I definitely agree that while Janie's attractiveness plays a role in her story, her spunk, desire for independence, and confidence shape the majority of her character.
DeleteYou said that Janie is sometimes left "friendless because she left other women feeling insecure". In most instances in the story, that holds true. The one example I can think of when this isn't true is with Mrs. Turner. She specifically stays friends with Janie because of Janie's 'whiter' looks. This kind of "associative attractiveness" is still present in our society today too. Its kind of amazing, and kind of sad, how this topic transfers so well to the modern day.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly! Like I said in reply to Mr. Mitchell, a lot of the issues in Janie's life are perfectly at home in our reality. Many women today are still dependent on men, domestic abuse happens everyday, and attractive women will always get the better end of the stick in society. I think, much like how Harlem Renaissance writers shunned Hurston's novel because they were trying to hide the existence of these Southern blacks, we too, in our modern time act as if all these underlying problems don't exist. We like to project the image of a successful, savvy, independent woman, but in reality there are still many oppressed women that are living lives we choose to ignore.
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