Due to the split narration style of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we’ll often get multiple different perspectives to Janie’s story. However, in Chapter 17, much of the perspective we get is solely from the narrator and the people of the Muck and Tea Cake in their dialogue. Due to the fact that Janie experiences domestic violence for no good reason, it was incredibly odd that we never got even a glance into what she thought or felt in result of that.
Supposedly, this is because of the novel’s highly romantic nature. On the opening page the narrator says “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” (Hurston 1). Maybe we don’t get Janie’s view because she’s chosen to forget that part of her relationship with Tea Cake? That’s not the only time he’s unfairly and unjustly treated her, but perhaps the good times outweighed the bad because Janie refused to acknowledge those wrongs fully.
After watching the documentary, Hurston’s formative principle of rejecting victimhood shined a new light on Janie’s story, especially as a woman. Unfortunately, domestic violence was too often part of women’s experiences in early 20th century America. Janie ultimately wants to live her life without wasting time on grievances. However, she also ends up seeming to not question something incredibly problematic. Perhaps she doesn’t want to misrepresent her own experience and viewpoint without being able to respond to her interlocutor actively, just as Janie tells her trustworthy and understanding friend Phoeby her story so she may pass it on when Janie can’t.
I do think Janie doesn't like to focus on the bad things as much, as at the end she chooses to remember her times with Tea Cake rather than grieve over his loss. Maybe Janie didn't think to focus on Tea Cake hitting her because it was a normal thing at the time, so why complain about something that happens to everyone, especially because Tea Cake only did this once while other women probably got beat more often? (though i believe this kind of thinking is pretty problematic)
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to pin down exactly whose perspective is reflected in this controversial passage--at times it even seems like Hurston the author is stepping in to make excuses for Tea Cake ("No brutal beating at all. He just slapped her around a little bit"). It's possible, perhaps, to read all of this as a reflection more or less of what Janie tells Phoeby (so she doesn't *dwell* on this scene, as you say, but she does mention it with a bit of a shrug, as part of the larger story about Mrs. Turner). We can contrast this "it wasn't really a big deal, he just wanted to send a message" to the way she (Janie) narrates Joe's domestic violence earlier, where it's a clear breaking point in their relationship, after which nothing is the same again ("something fell off the shelf inside her"). We get no "inside" to Janie here, as you say. And it is hard to attribute all of this to Janie's pov alone, as we later get scenes where Tea Cake is talking with the other men about the "message" he's apparently sent to Janie's would-be suitor.
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