Collie's Bestiary - Stormtiger

Synopsis

This is the story of Janie, a black beautiful woman in the 1930's. Told in flashback to a close female friend, she relates her childhood and three marriages. In doing so she also reveals the process of her growth as a human being.

Janie's three marriages are symbolic steps on her life path to maturity. Her first marriage to Logan Killicks (when she is but 16 years old) is an unhappy and loveless one arranged by her grandmother so Janie will be "owned" by a man who can care for her, so she will not be "available" for random rape. This empty relationship does not last long, as Janie reaches for love in her second marriage to the confident, wealthy, and far-traveled Joe Starks.

Joe takes her to Eatonville, the first all-black town ever. There he helps it grow and thrive with his money and his driving manner, becoming the well-respected, financially secure mayor. Despite being comfortable and well-cared for, Janie finds she is placed on a distancing pedestal by her new husband, who uses her as an ornament to his success rather than allowing her to become his partner. In spite of this she manages to safely tuck away her dream of true love, saving it for a life partner rather than losing it in the numbing emotional abuse of her daily life. Due to her inner strength (and her ability to hide her true self) she is even able to forgive her unforgiving husband on his deathbed, twenty years later.

As a woman of means, Janie is now able to pick and choose who her next partner will be, and this time she holds out for who she desires in a man. Eventually she falls in love with the charming Tea Cake, leaving Eatonville to be with him for the next year or so. While he is not perfect, he most closely matches her ideal partner, and she is as madly in love with him as he is with her. Unfortunately, while defending her from a dog they do not know is rabid, he is bitten. Despite her best efforts to care for Tea Cake, the rabies maddens him and she is tragically forced to shoot him in order to save herself.

After the white folks' trial and exoneration of her, Janie goes back home to Eatonville, where (on her arrival) her best friend Pheoby sits and hears the story of her life. The story closes with Janie sending Pheoby away, then experiencing a beautiful and euphoric vision of enlightenment similar to the one which opened her to sexual awareness.

Review

Much like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, this is a fascinating book of a very different time and place, in which the title left me wondering a bit bemusedly where I'd missed the connection. It's a lovely, lyrical story written in the common patois as was used in 1937. This made it occasionally hard for me to read when the characters were speaking, but also gave a rich feeling of verisimilitude.

The author's voice (as opposed to that of the protagonist) is quite grammatically correct for the time, of course; there's nothing "degrading" about it, despite the critical literary furor aroused by her using the local patois for her protagonists. As an individual and a novelist, she speaks like an anthropologist, which was her calling. She seems to feel (quite rightly, I believe) her primary duty is to represent accurately, not to project her personal dreams onto the culture.

This appeared to be the main issue Richard Wright, the most famous black author of the time, had against her. His public tirades against her works were based on his need to show the black man to the white man in the best possible light. Wright wrote straightforward, fiery tirades against white men's abuse of black men, in a time where it was becoming socially viable to do so.

I believe he felt his primary duty was to demonstrate that black people could be just as educated and cultured as white people. For Hurston to write of "degraded" blacks (Wright's term), just as they appeared in their own culture, using their own dialect, was to Wright a great betrayal of the black race. To him, Hurston pandered to white desires to see the black man as stereotypically and inherently less than the white man.

However, I'm not sure that's truly the case. Hurston's book is a delicate contestation, a subtle polemic against chauvinism delivered with a very light touch. So unobtrusive is her touch, in fact, I'm not even sure it is consciously written in -- it's easy to miss. Hurston quietly pointed out a far more difficult and contentious subject: the abuse of black women by men both white and black, due to the inequity of hierarchical power.

Furthermore she did so in a time where the very subject of abusive male hierarchy was, if recognized at all, considered simply part of the "natural order." As a single example, one white reviewer thought her story was amusing enough, but unlikely, since he had trouble believing black people could actually manage to create and run a thriving town without white assistance -- that wasn't how the black race worked.

In effect, Wright seems to virulently deny who blacks are or were, in order to blame whites for their condition -- where Hurston has no need to locate the black person within white culture, and finds pride in blackness itself. To Hurston, expecting blacks to aspire to whiteness was a "false picture that distorted," a capitulation to a white-originated theory of black inferiority due to their status as white victims. True freedom, she felt "was something internal. ... The man himself must make his own emancipation."

Today I find in Shelby Steele's determined economic individualism strong reminders of Hurston's fierce cultural independence, and denial of Wright's vision of black victimhood. Where Wright seemed to feel blacks had something to be ashamed of due to their not being "white behaving" enough, Hurston believed blacks are whole and complex in and of themselves -- they are not just "stunted" imitations of whites, and black lives are not "only defensive reactions to white actions."

Women & men

I think this is why there are so few whites in Their Eyes Were Watching God, in fact. The real issue isn't white abuse of blacks, at least for Janie. Raised with white children, such that she didn't even realize initially she was black, and living in an all-black town as she did, for her whites were almost beside the point. The true point of contention is the painful lack of agency black women have, when both white men and black consider black women their property, and where even white women can, in jealous fits of rage, turn against their black sisters to blame the victim.

There are several instances of this male/female double standard in Hurston's book. Janie herself is both the daughter and granddaughter of raped women. Indeed, in the broadest sense abuse of black women is portrayed as something that just happens, and as a woman there isn't really anything you can do about it. Rape, living in fear of white violence, flight from intended murder or slavery, domestic violence -- all appear to be just something you lived with, for most black women of the time.

A more direct example of the gender-based double standard is given when Tea Cake, Janie's third husband, steals $200 from her and vanishes without warning for almost 24 hours. Janie has good reason to be frightened and furious, and to attempt to beat Tea Cake on his return. Not only did she think she'd been shamefully jilted, but he'd taken all her available money for a bus ticket back home. Tea Cake, however, keeps her from hitting him during her furious tirade, and soothes her with sex and promises of getting the money back for her through gambling.

That he does keep his promise does little to alleviate her initial tearful terror, however -- and that he returns with knife wounds does nothing to sooth her either. Later and more painfully, when it is Tea Cake who (without basis) fears abandonment, he beats Janie so as to leave visible bruises, in order to publicly establish his ownership of Janie. She cries but doesn't fight back -- she just forgives him. Worse, he is publicly admired as a "good" husband for how he "handled" Janie -- despite her having done nothing to give him any basis for his fears!

This is, unfortunately, the best-case scenario of how Janie can relate to a man -- Tea Cake is the only man she actually loves, who actually sees her as a person rather than as a beautiful ornament. Indeed, even he sees her as a testament to his virility, even as he also does his best to love her. Other men are insincere, verbally abusive, conniving, possessive, or completely oblivious to her as a person rather than simply as a pretty wife, useful piece of property, or income source.

That's pretty much how men relate to Janie. To perceive the double standard, we should now look at how Janie relates to women as well -- for example, her best friend or her grandmother.

Janie's best friend is the person to whom the story is narrated, and is one of only three women who have much to say in the story. Curiously, while she defends Janie against the other jealous townsfolk, it's clear Janie so abruptly left the town to be with Tea Cake that she didn't even warn her best friend.

Further, apparently Janie never communicated with her best friend in the past two years of her absence, and closes her narrative by telling her friend to inform the other townsfolk of what happened only if she wished to -- Janie doesn't really care either way. I found that an odd form of friendship, but then I can't say what I'd be like in Janie's shoes.

So perhaps Janie has a better relationship with her grandmother, Nanny? As we find out in the story, her grandmother was raped repeatedly as a slave by her white master, threatened with death by the plantation owner's furiously jealous wife for having a "white" baby, and fled to raise her child in safety. When the girl-child was 17 she was kidnaped, beaten, and raped repeatedly for a day by the schoolteacher, who then abandoned his victim and fled the territory.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Janie's grandmother consequently believes the best way for a black woman to stay safe is to marry a well-to-do man as soon as possible, so as to be well-kept, and so as to not be "fair game" for any passing man.

Thinking about this later, Janie admits to herself she "hated" the now-deceased Nanny for doing what she thought was best and marrying Janie off in a loveless but well-provided-for marriage. Janie feels nothing but love for the deceased Tea Cake, however, despite his occasional poor use of her.

Why the double standard for the behavior of men and women? At least her grandmother had both some personal evidence for her beliefs, and no self-benefiting motives -- and yet it is only Tea Cake whom Janie forgives. Sadly, as an integrated member of her culture, Janie can't even see there's a double standard present, let alone that it harms her to abet and live by it.

Blackness & whiteness

White people seemed almost incidental to the story, like mythological spirits or forces of nature, like the hurricane which ends up being the beginning of the end of Tea Cake. They pass through, they are fickle and unstoppable, thoughtlessly damaging, carelessly abusive... and then they're gone, and the mere mortals must pick up the pieces and carry on with their lives, regardless of the damage done. The few helpful whites are in effect faceless, appearing and vanishing without much introduction or warning.

The woman who helped Janie's mother raise her granddaughter, the colonel who donated land to the establishment of the town for black people, the doctor who tried to cure Tea Cake -- despite their best efforts they don't have the ability to really improve the lives of the black people they try to help. It is by personal efforts alone that black people prosper, and it's all too easy for that to be damaged by white carelessness or indifference.

It is that very carelessness which probably accounts for Tea Cake's fear of hospitals, which proves to be part of his undoing. I suspect this is also the reason Hurston mentions the trial almost in passing. Many readers (including several mentioned in the introduction and closing article) feel she robs Janie of agency in that scene, demoting the newly self-aware Janie to voiceless, acted-upon, passive object once again.

I believe the opposite is true -- it is the whites who have insisted on holding their trial of Janie who have been robbed of voice, and therefore consequently agency as well. I feel the unimportance attributed to the trial clearly demonstrated how little power the white people actually had over the grieving Janie. Her voice was saved for those who truly cared about her, for those who shared her life, her joys, and her pain.

I think this is also why the whole story is told in flashback to a friend. Like any life traveler, Janie has wandered far both emotionally and physically. The longest journey finishes at home, and now she has found her inner Self she is home again: where the heart is, comfortably fed and relaxing with a friend in the cooling dusk of the day. It is a perfect environment for anyone to review their life's gains and griefs, and to end with grace and dignity.

Song of Songs

That almost poetic lyricism extends through the book, blooming quietly in unexpected places. For example, Janie's sensuously imaginative awakening to the promise of future love and sexuality is one of the most languidly elegant I've read in a long while. It reminded me of the dreamy Biblical Song of Songs:

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the 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. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.

It is the search for that breathless promise of beauty and joy which drives much of Janie's life, in fact. Just as Hurston saw herself as "a midwife participating in the birth of a body of folklore," of "alternative modes of perceiving reality," so does Janie participate in the birth of her new vision, her new Self. She can be subverted by the desires and anxieties of others, she can be trapped for years in waiting -- but still she seeks, because she must.

That she does finally discover her true love is a quiet and unexpected joy in the book, as black women in 1937 (and unfortunately in many locales even today) certainly had little to no expectation of ever achieving self-sufficiency or respect. That she loses her love but gains enlightenment is a poignant reminder of our common humanity.

Indeed, Hurston gives a sad tribute to those who cannot or will not succeed in their self-imposed life quests when she speaks of Mrs. Turner. The only other woman given voice in the story, it is she who accidentally inspires Janie's beating at the hands of Tea Cake. Her particular issue is described in painful, lyrical prose:

Anyone who looked more white folksish than herself [Mrs. Turner] was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness. Like the pecking-order in a chicken yard. Insensate cruelty to those you can whip, and groveling submission to those you can't.

Once having set up her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped.

Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable -- Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise -- a heaven of straighthaired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs. The physical impossibilities in no way injured faith. That was the mystery and mysteries are the chores of gods. Beyond her faith was a fanaticism to defend the altars of her god.

I cannot help but think of Wright's diatribes against Hurston when I read these paragraphs. Is he determinedly trying to chastise his self-created and uncaring god(s) for creating him? Is he surprised they require blood, considering the power he has handed them?

How much healthier, if not happier, is it to realize the thoughtless fickleness of self-created gods, and to turn away from them entirely in order to be who one truly is? This, I think, was Hurston's goal in the end. Whether she succeeded personally I cannot say, but she has certainly done so posthumously.

Reader Comments

12.16.05: Greg's thoughts

(and my replies)

I remembered having read this book long ago, back in high school, I believe. I barely remembered it, save for some of the names involved, and so therefore your in-depth review was welcome, reminding me of the story and its issues. Sadly, it did not awaken any remembered thoughts about the story, back when we were reading and writing about it in class.

While I have little so say about the story itself, there are some thoughts that crop up as a result of your words. I have read quite a bit, in passing, in regards to the casual cruelty of the past, particularly in regards to women. There was much of it in the Dark and Middle Ages in Europe, but also as recently as the last couple centuries of American history. There was one piece which I glommed from photocopies of an article I was making at work, in regards to how the casual rape of black women (both during and after slavery) not only affected the mindset of black men and women, but also white women, as an implicit threat that they too could be treated as badly and as inhumanely (the author put it better than I did, and if I can find the article and pass it on, I will).

Yes, please! I would be fascinated to read that article.

My point (and I do have one), is that for all that rape is still an issue today, in Modern America (never mind other parts of the world, where society has different standards), I have to wonder and ask: has it gotten better? It would seem to me that it has, as rape is no longer a casual aspect of society. It's no longer as accepted as it was, publicly or privately. But of course, this is from an outsider looking in. As much as I appreciate that men can be raped, by both women and men, it is still primarily a crime perpetrated by men against women. And therefore, as someone from the outside of the issue, looking in, I realize that I couldn't possibly expect to self-actualize the clear and present danger of rape in my mind. So therefore, I ask this question of you. Is it better than it was, in regards to sexual violence being perpetrated against women?

Two thoughts:
1) A common tactic in college classes seeking to demonstrate the social differences between the sexes is to ask each sex what they most fear from the other sex. Most often men fear emotional humiliation from women, and it is sad to say that does still happen. What most women fear from men, however, is not something as simple as mental anguish -- it's being violently attacked and raped.
I consider this a damning indictment on our society -- that even today women fear for their very safety from the men who frequently wish to claim the right to own or rule.
2) Rape is not a casual aspect of our society as far as general open acceptance any longer, true. In a way, though, it has simply gone 'underground.' For example, the general societal perception of a rapist is a stranger out in the darkness attacking a woman who is wearing "provocative" clothing and walking someplace she "shouldn't be."
Looking at actual data on rapists, however, tells a very different story. Nine times out of ten, the woman knows the rapist: they are brothers, fathers, boyfriends, uncles, authority figures -- the very people she should be able to trust. Worse, because they are not the almost mythic "stranger in the dark," they often feel they are perfectly justified in their actions. Their excuses are creepily self-absolving, self-righteous, and self-centered: "She came on to me" (an actual quote from a pedophile speaking of a 3 year old child), "She didn't say no" (usually said in situations where the woman is unconscious and cannot speak), "She said no, but I knew she really wanted it," etc.
What point am I making here? Simple: as far as I know, rape isn't better or worse now than it was previously. It still is -- it's still accepted and perpetrated and allowed. Until men -- all men -- accept that it's their responsibility to police themselves, and it is never okay to force yourself on anyone, rape will still be quietly accepted, societally -- and that means socially things aren't yet right.

My second thought, is trying to understand this concept you speak of sexual awakening, that Huston seems to touch on in her work. As adult as I am, with my own experiences being myriad and unusual, I somehow don't feel like I can look on this 'sexual awakening' with the same kind of wonder that the passage you quote seems to elucidate. Is it because I'm more cynical, less romantic, and possibly more perverse than I used to be?

I'm not suggesting that sex cannot be a thing of beauty and joy, but the poetry of the passage you suggest (which brings to mind some of Walt Whitman's own poetry on the subject, actually), it makes it seem that the fact that I cannot fully empathize with these images makes me more hollow than the ones that wrote these words. So therefore I ask: what are your own thoughts this? Does it match at all with your own experiences, or the experiences of others that you might know?

Greg, please don't feel you must be hollow in comparison to others. The passage I quoted was written by an artist whose palette is words -- just because you would not describe a personal sexual awakening in that way does not make yours any less meaningful. Further, Hurston lived in a time where sex wasn't mentioned in polite conversation, so she wanted to very strongly imply sex without actually mentioning the taboo words; voluptuous metaphor was the order of the day for that sort of writing. Nowadays writing of such an awakening would likely be much clearer and more direct, but not necessarily any less lovely or arousing to read.
As to your specific questions, I confess when I was much younger, lyrical passages like this often left me cold. I was far more direct and had little patience for passionate digressions in the straightforward pursuit of sexual love. I suspect a point comes in the lives of many, though, where the initial shocking richness of sex pales somewhat due to familiarity. It is at that point, I think, that people may have enough metaphoric breath to look around and start seeing beauty in associated imagery as well as the act itself. Does that explanation help any? ;)

Finally, as a capstone, I wanted to add that for some odd reason, the movie 'Made in America' (starring Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg) had some references to this very book (something I've yet to understand the reason why): one of the main characters is named 'Zora', and her boyfriend (played by Will Smith) is named 'Tea Cake'. To be clear, the movie does not in any way mirror the events of Huston's work, and so therefore the seemingly deliberate naming of the characters is unusual, but noteworthy. (Whoopi Goldberg plays 'Zora's mother, and runs a bookstore, so perhaps it's implied Whoopi's character named her daughter after the author, but that does nothing to explain Smith's character's name.)

I have not seen the movie Made in America, so I cannot really speculate meaningfully on why the references were there. It's entirely possible they were included simply as a tribute to an unjustly-long-forgotten black female author.

Thanks for another insightful review.

Thank you! -both for the thought-provoking feedback, and for the lovely compliment. I'm so pleased to hear you liked the review!

12.16.05: Garet's thoughts

(and my replies)

I read Their Eyes Were Watching God for my AP English class during my senior year of high school. It was incredible, and I loved every page of it. It's one of the few novels I've ever had to read that ended up being a pleasure!

Oh, I'm glad to hear you liked it! I rather enjoyed it too, both just from the perspective of the story, and what the book included about the author -- very interesting. BTW, may I include your comment here in with the other comments which go on the web page below the article itself?

By all means include it! Their Eyes Were Watching God is on my list of wonderful books. Believe me, my list of bad literature is exponentially longer than my list of good literature. Heh.