Alice Lou
Ms. Nava
Honors Am. Lit, Period 4
7 April 2017
Race, Gender, Relationships
American Minister and author Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Life is a blend of laughter and tears, a combination of rain and sunshine.” Zora Neale Hurston, in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, illustrates the complex dynamics of African American life, portraying the political and gender inequality present even in an increasingly progressive world. Journalist Robert Wright critiques Hurston’s novel in his review “Between Laughter and Tears,” arguing that Hurston’s story lacks a theme, claiming that she simply continues the tradition forced upon Negroes of living between “laughter and tears” and uses it to entertain “white folks.” While laughter and tears …show more content…
While racism is a motif explored in the novel, Hurston’s focus lies on Janie’s personal experiences and relationships, which Wright fails to consider in his search for a theme. Throughout the novel, Janie searches for romantic fulfillment and an ideal relationship, as symbolized by a pear tree and the way its “thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight” (Hurston 11). In each of her romantic relationships, Janie seeks both the love portrayed by the pear tree and her individual freedom, constantly struggling to find a balance between the two concepts. In her first relationship, farmer Logan Killicks gave Janie a large amount of freedom by not actively controlling her but no love; the absence of love in her relationship causes her to leave with another man, Jody Starks. The wealthy, controlling, and power-hungry Jody deprived Janie of both love and freedom because of his superiority complex, constantly exercising his control over her to make her feel inferior. Jody’s death frees Janie from the oppressive chains of their relationship, allowing her to begin a new …show more content…
In his review,” Wright argues that Hurston’s characters “swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears” (Wright). However, Hurston does not simply illustrate her African American characters as experiencing these two extremes; instead she illustrates her main characters experiencing the huge spectrum of emotions between joy and sadness. The mixing of laughter and sadness is typified by Janie’s complex relationship with Tea Cake – although their relationship is supposedly ideal, it is imbalanced and filled with inconsistencies. For instance, there is an unequal distribution of trust in Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship. When Tea Cake was insecure, he whipped Janie to reassure himself of his possession over her and “slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (Hurston 140). Tea Cake beats Janie to establish his dominance and her dedication, but when Janie shows concern over Tea Cake and Nukie, a girl who flirts with Tea Cake in the fields, Tea Cake did not have to “prove” his faithfulness, highlighting the one-sided power structure of their relationship. Even though Janie loves Tea Cake, their relationship is neither purely happy or purely sad: it contains both positive and negative
Ms. Nava
Honors Am. Lit, Period 4
7 April 2017
Race, Gender, Relationships
American Minister and author Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Life is a blend of laughter and tears, a combination of rain and sunshine.” Zora Neale Hurston, in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, illustrates the complex dynamics of African American life, portraying the political and gender inequality present even in an increasingly progressive world. Journalist Robert Wright critiques Hurston’s novel in his review “Between Laughter and Tears,” arguing that Hurston’s story lacks a theme, claiming that she simply continues the tradition forced upon Negroes of living between “laughter and tears” and uses it to entertain “white folks.” While laughter and tears …show more content…
While racism is a motif explored in the novel, Hurston’s focus lies on Janie’s personal experiences and relationships, which Wright fails to consider in his search for a theme. Throughout the novel, Janie searches for romantic fulfillment and an ideal relationship, as symbolized by a pear tree and the way its “thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight” (Hurston 11). In each of her romantic relationships, Janie seeks both the love portrayed by the pear tree and her individual freedom, constantly struggling to find a balance between the two concepts. In her first relationship, farmer Logan Killicks gave Janie a large amount of freedom by not actively controlling her but no love; the absence of love in her relationship causes her to leave with another man, Jody Starks. The wealthy, controlling, and power-hungry Jody deprived Janie of both love and freedom because of his superiority complex, constantly exercising his control over her to make her feel inferior. Jody’s death frees Janie from the oppressive chains of their relationship, allowing her to begin a new …show more content…
In his review,” Wright argues that Hurston’s characters “swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears” (Wright). However, Hurston does not simply illustrate her African American characters as experiencing these two extremes; instead she illustrates her main characters experiencing the huge spectrum of emotions between joy and sadness. The mixing of laughter and sadness is typified by Janie’s complex relationship with Tea Cake – although their relationship is supposedly ideal, it is imbalanced and filled with inconsistencies. For instance, there is an unequal distribution of trust in Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship. When Tea Cake was insecure, he whipped Janie to reassure himself of his possession over her and “slapped her around a bit to show he was boss” (Hurston 140). Tea Cake beats Janie to establish his dominance and her dedication, but when Janie shows concern over Tea Cake and Nukie, a girl who flirts with Tea Cake in the fields, Tea Cake did not have to “prove” his faithfulness, highlighting the one-sided power structure of their relationship. Even though Janie loves Tea Cake, their relationship is neither purely happy or purely sad: it contains both positive and negative