Stormy weather
The hurricane arc in Their Eyes Were Watching God is a wholly unique part of the book. All of a sudden, our mostly down-to-earth story about self-fulfillment turns into a feet-to-the-pavement battle with nature reminiscent of the chaotic disasters in Invisible Man. While I at first found the hurricane to kind of come out of nowhere, after looking into it further, it is actually Janie's final test towards total self-acceptance.
First of all, there's Tea Cake's unwise response to the hurricane. When people in the muck start leaving for fear of being swept away, Tea Cake decides he and Janie will stay, as he doesn't see the hurricane as a threat. This boldfaced opinion is a representation of Tea Cake's fatal flaw; sly confidence and a delusion of power in the face of things he absolutely cannot control. The same trait that caused him to hit Janie is what keeps her and Tea Cake in the town, even as the water rises. Eventually, they too realize that they won't be able to survive staying, so they begin to swim.
The swimming scene is a particular kind of fever dream. Janie swims past wreckage and dead bodies, seeing the full effect of the hurricane that Tea Cake was so quick to dismiss at first. It finalizes with Janie being swept into rough water and having to hold onto a cow for stability, leading to Tea Cake being bit by a rabid dog.
Let's talk about all that. Nature has always been a central part of Janie's self-discovery; the entire catalyst for her wanting true love was watching a natural occurrence and realizing how beautiful it could be. So in a way, it's quite fitting for this hurricane to be Janie's final hurdle-- nature brought these men into her life, and nature can take them out, too. I mean, let's just think about how Tea Cake even got bit. There was a rabid dog standing on a cow that Janie had to grab onto to save herself. It's so out there that it feels almost comical. But again, nature has always been part of Janie's life; nature is her driving force, her savior, her destructor, all at once.
The hurricane is a cataclysmic metaphor for everything Janie has had to endure throughout the book. The hurricane is not there because it wants Janie dead; the hurricane is not there because it wants a rabid dog on a swimming cow to bite Tea Cake. The hurricane is simply a separate force all its own, causing havoc but lacking malicious intent, simply there to cause chaos. It is representative of all the verbal assaults leveled at Janie throughout her life; the gossipers on the porch, the sexist men who walk around with blinders on, and every person in Janie's life who didn't listen to her wants and needs simply because they did not care. Janie cannot fight the hurricane; she simply has to endure it.
Awesome post, omg! I don't know where to begin so I'll just list off a couple of points that resonated with me. First of all, I like your synthesis of Tea Cake's flaws that ties together his violence toward Janie and the decision to wait out the hurricane - it articulates this *vibe* we get from Tea Cake from the very start, his youthfulness and boldness and perhaps naivety. Secondly, I found the (truthful) description of the swimming scene as a "fever dream" funny because, well, we've had to deal with a lot of that earlier in this class, as you mentioned. The last paragraph also gave me pause. If the hurricane is a metaphor for everything Janie endured, and it is "simply a separate force all its own," does that mean that the other hardships Janie went through are each separate / isolated incidents? On the one hand, that might counteract feminist arguments about the systemic nature of some of Janie's troubles. But on the other hand, I see the connection you drew of people and things simply being indifferent to Janie's wants and needs.
ReplyDeleteWow, I've never really thought about the hurricane in that way before, but now I realize that it is representative of Tea Cake's flaw and Janie's story. I also thought the hurricane thing was kind of out of the blue. It turns out, this is another one of Hurston's genius written scenes to encapsulate everything the book is supposed to represent. This was a really interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThis was a super intriguing post! I think that tying the hurricane to the huge, unavoidable force of fate in the story makes a lot of sense, and I think that the scene that the title comes from, where Tea Cake, Janie, and Motor Boat are hunkered down together in the house, waiting for their fate to befall them, "their eyes watching Gd," especially conveys that. And it hadn't occurred to me before, but your description of Tea Cake's confidence that he has control over fate as his fatal flaw is dead-on—I think it adds an extra layer of meaning to the detail that he's an expert gambler, and even that he and Motor Boat stay up through the night gambling right before the storm hits.
ReplyDeleteReally really interesting post!!! I think it's definitely true that nature has been present throughout the book, but this hurricane scene seems to be Hurston's way of explicitly showing its effects. I think you're definitely right that the intense nature just goes to show how much is out of Janie's control. It could even be a hint to the fact that a lot of her rights as a women are suppressed.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree, the hurricane portion of the book feel like a completely different universe from the one that the rest of the story takes place in. Hurston really transforms the familiar setting of Florida into a crazy fight for the character's lives. You point about Janie's character especially rang true for me, and I hadn't really thought about it that way before.
ReplyDeleteI love your points! I hadn't thought about nature as a driving force, but I definitely agree as it led Janie to her next chapter in life every time. Even in her relationship with Tea Cake, there were struggles and abusive behaviors, as well as a strange power dynamic between Janie and Tea Cake. The title, "Their Eyes Were Watching God", hints at this as well. Nature, a force bigger than us all, controls the plot of the novel, so their eyes could be watching how God controls nature and how nature controls them.
ReplyDelete