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.

What if we were all the same race?

Lara had commented, "All of these instances of present-day racism make me wonder if there is a way to for this to stop. How can our society enforce equal treatment of black and white people? As you said, we have come a long way in terms of racial equality, but there is still lots of room for progress." on one of my previous blog posts, and it really got me thinking for a while. I replied to her comment, but realized I still had loads more to say, and so here I am blogging about it. Personally I think it's an inherent human characteristic to judge others based on outward traits and physical attributes beyond one's control. Our society, and all the societies that preceded ours, place such a huge emphasis on appearance that its hard for us to not give it any importance. But who defines beauty? Scientists say that symmetric, even features make people beautiful. But then why do cultural perceptions of beauty differ? Why can't we all see past beauty and judge people based on merit and morality? Why do first impressions, mostly visual, make such an impact about what we think of a person? Would it be any different if we were all the same race? There is tons of speculation about how, after years and years of interracial mixing, a new dominant human race will take over, and that eventually all people would look the same, we'd all be beige. But even if we were all the same race, I think its just biologically built into our nature to find ways to group others. None of us want to be grouped or typed, but we have no problem doing it to others. Most of the time we don't realize we're doing it, or that by doing it, we don't realize that we're doing anything 'wrong'. I don't think, as an entire species, we'll ever come to a point of absolute equality. Just like in ways how women and men are essentially equal nowadays, there are still differences that set us apart. I mean, women still like chivalry, but doesn't that go against the whole 'we want to be completely equal' idea? Either way you look at it there isn't really a fix all kind of solution. Maybe it's race and religion today, but it can easily be shoe size and hair color in the future.

On the Turning Up of Unidentified Black Female Corpses

While I was leading the poetry discussion last Friday about On the Turning Up of Unidentified Black Female Corpses by Toi Derricotte, I brought up a point about racism in social justice today, and I specifically mentioned a special case about a 17 year old girl named Phylicia. Since we were pressed for time I didn't get to elaborate on the case more, but Phylicia Barnes had been an honors student from Baltimore who was getting ready to graduate and looking forward to attending university. She was also pretty, which apparently impacts whether or not a case gets substantial media coverage. Unfortunately for her, she was also African American, which was a point that hindered her case more than helped her. There was no reason for her to run away, no leads, no one with motives, it was just an extremely puzzling case, and it needed a lot of attention, but didn't get too much at all. One Baltimore police offer even explicitly said that Phylicia's murder may have received more attention if she had been white. Ultimately Phylicia's sister's ex-boyfriend was found guilty of the murder, a man that Phylicia had exchanged over 500 texts with, and who she had been called a 'little sister' by. How she was murdered, how the police got the lead, and even why a protective big brother like figure chose to murder her, are still mysteries that police refuse to disclose. Sometimes we like to think we've come a long way, and we honestly have, it's great to see how much progress we have made, but other times it feels like some things haven't changed at all. I guess that's what keep people going.

Big Fish and Invisible Men

This might be the strangest comparison ever, but while reading Invisible Man, especially the first chapter, I was strongly reminded of Tim Burton's Big Fish, (which I later found out was actually based on a book). If you haven't seen Big Fish, then you might be confused by my oversimplified summary of it, but you should definitely add it to your list of movies to watch. These two stories are too different to have much in common at all, but what really struck me as similar between the two was the skewed sense of reality that both protagonists held. The first chapter of Invisible Man started of realistically enough, in fact, though the grandfather's parting words were confusing, and even appalling, it never stuck out to me as unbelievable. As I got deeper into the chapter, namely the 'battle royale' bit, I had a hard time absorbing the information that was being thrown at me, and almost couldn't believe that any of it was real. I had to reread it a bunch of times to actually take in what I was looking at, and I was still left with mixed feelings because I couldn't quite believe half the things that took place. As I contemplated the veracity of the narrator, I remembered how I had the same feelings while watching Big Fish. Big Fish starts off with some background information about the strained relationship between a father and his son. They reluctantly reconcile when the elderly father falls ill. We then find out that the main conflict between the two was because the father, Edward Bloom, constantly told fantastically, tall tales about his life that he adamantly argued were true. I won't go into details, but some of his stories involved wild giants living in caves and conjoined singing twins. Throughout the movie I was on the same page as the son, I didn't believe any of the old man's stories, but seeing him continue to enthusiastically tell his tales, while literally laying on his deathbed definitely generated some sympathy. At the end, Edward dies, and while attending his father's funeral, the son comes across some of Edward's estranged friends. Among them, he recognizes a 7'6 tall man as the so called giant, and a pair of normal, twin women as the conjoined twins. The son then realizes that while his father's stories weren't entirely true, they were exaggerated versions of real life events. In the same way, I think, especially since we're reading about the narrator from a point earlier in his life, many of the stories we come across might actually be exaggerated variants of real incidents. Why they are exaggerated, and even if they are exaggerated is still a mystery that I hope we'll be able to solve as the story goes on.