The Logan Question

There can be a lot of different opinions about what Janie should have done regarding her relationship with Logan in Their Eyes Were Watching God. It all started because her grandmother, Nanny, who wanted the best for her, but in the end Janie doesn't stick with him, utilizing her own skills of judgment. It is understandable that Nanny wanted Janie to have a husband like Logan in the first place, he is stable and wealthy. This sort of future would be favorable, and Nanny is so adamant about securing the future because she has a bad history herself. When she was still in slavery, she was raped by her master and then chastised and beaten for "her actions" by the master's wife. She had no say or free will in the happenings, and it boiled down to just a pretty miserable life for a while. In her direction of caring for Janie, she doesn't want spoiled history to be repeated, so it is for good reason that she insists Logan becoming a part of the family. 

Even though I do trust in the judgement of Nanny, I also have a sympathetic side towards Janie and her choices. She is obviously just getting her bearings on life as a developing young woman, so I think it is actually healthy for her to find independence in what she does. The downside is that she just doesn't have the wealth in experience that Nanny has to make her choices. What I find admirable in Janie is that she is slightly aware of this fact. On the outside, she really wants to go forward and do anything and everything, but she is not ignorant. She has the sense to give Nanny's opinions a thought, so she successfully finds a balance in her actions. On one hand, she goes forward and kisses Johnny Taylor -- a moment when she got to experiment with the pleasures she wanted; yet on the other hand, when Nanny scolds her for what she has done, there is not a trace of resentment. Superficially she has the attitude of wanting to do whatever, but the narrator does reveal that the kiss had been reduce to the feeling of a "manure pile after a rain." This admission is key, because it shows readers that she is not rash in her sexual exploration, she is purely trying to find what is ideal and true to her love. If Nanny says that something is wrong, she takes some real consideration as to whether or not that could be right, and in the case of the kiss, she almost agrees. 

An even stronger case of how Janie is open-minded to Nanny even if she doesn't always follow through in action, and why I find her a favorable character, is the way she deals with the Logan question itself. From the start, Janie never wants to be with Logan, but somehow, the marriage goes through. How could Janie approve (even if it is only partial approval)? She puts an honest and hopeful faith into the future and that it will work out. She hates Logan in every way -- his appearance and demeanor -- but she finds a way to try things out. The narrator of TEWWG points out that she thought that in the end she would find love. To me, that kind of love experiment is just plain risky. But the point is, she trust what her grandmother says and attempts the new life. Not too long after, we find out that she feels that finding love will be impossible, the reason why she ultimately leaves Logan, but there should be a certain amount of respect for the amount that she tried to make things work by obeying Nanny originally, no matter how reluctant she was. 

After spending a little time with Logan, Janie moves on to marry Jody right away, a mercurial quality that sends a lot of criticism her way. The way I see things, it is pretty sad how the direction of her life turns towards disappointment with Jody once she marries him. Some may say that she deserved the hardships and such for not fully listening to Nanny, but to this I have to disagree. It is not a deserved fate for her, just a necessary one. What I mean is that this is where the aspect of her individuality comes into play. To fully realize her own identity, she had to make her own choices. And remember, she wan't making moves on the whim, she tried Nanny's way first. The strong independent spirit of Janie is only put into a real context if the reader considers her nature of obedience as well. It is appropriate for Janie to have thoughts about the pear tree, and finding a love and life that suits her best is a search she has the right to take. 

In the end (after Jody is gone), Janie is finally able to let down her hair and express herself with her braid. But to get to this stage, she first learned the hard way what the realities of life are by living with the constantly worsening Jody. She made her decision, and faced consequences for it, but all after making an obedient move. So another question that arises is whether or not the original decision to marry Logan and live her life with him would have saved her trouble anyways. As their marriage progressed, he starting making her work more and more. That experience alludes to a not so easy life that may not have been that different from the arguments she had to endure with Jody. The key difference between the two situations is that one was made out of an independent decision, a healthy move that allowed her to actually develop. The themes of experienced wisdom and youthful curiosity contrast sharply and expose the ways Janie develops as a strong woman through a chain of experience in love. 

An Additional Perspective

I thought that viewing the documentary on Ralph Ellison was extremely valuable. It gave more insight into what type of a person he was, and how that influenced his work. First off, I saw a lot of how his childhood and upbringing influenced him to be a writer at all. The documentary stated that he had a “painful childhood” which was caused by race issues, as expected. His parents made a conscious effort to keep that to a minimum by not residing in the deep south of Alabama or the sort, but avoiding racial issues, of course, was nearly impossible no matter what. Though his mother taught him to live with his chin up in any circumstance, and to be an ambitious young man looking for the bright side in every situation. Furthermore, his mother had to be independent and really strong herself, because Ellison’s dad died when he was young. When his dad was alive, he did express that he wanted Ellison to be a poet, so in a sense he did get his wish. So the combination of his dad’s vision for Ellison’s future, and the drive to be a great person instilled in him by his mother led Ellison to become ambitious indeed. A thought comes to my mind when I think of how Ellison lived a troubled childhood and then went on to become a successful novelist – there is a recurring theme of successful people having rough upbringings. The theory is that a hard life early on creates a drive to bounce back and prove you worth and value as a person. And there are many great examples to support this idea: Albert Einstein, Jim Carrey, Adolf Hitler, Stephen Colbert and countless others. Raph Ellison may have had some of this as a part of his life, naturally learning to survive and excel in the world because of a rocky beginning. For him specifically, success meant to find an identity and express that journey through a voice in literature. He was focused in having a defined public voice to convey what he thought was important in the human experience. According to the documentary, this is the way he put it (with some of his buddies), “we pretended like segregation did not exist so that it could not limit our horizons.”

Since our introduction to Ralph Ellison and then the documentary in class was through Invisible Man, I was naturally thinking about what the connections were between Ellison’s personal life and the novel. It didn’t take long to recognize the numerous similarities that exist between him and the narrator. He actually has quite a bit in common, which make Invisible Man sort of autobiographical. In terms of plot and life storyline, there is a lot of overlap between the two men. As forward-thinking people, they both are granted scholarships to college, something that makes them ecstatic and encourages their growth as people. Once at college, a lot of exploring is done, but then at some point before they finish and graduate, they head off north. There, they work various jobs, wading their way through new environments and trying to find their place as African-Americans. Ellison definitely faced racism in the latter part of his life too. At least the documentary revealed one instance of these occurrences. The original university that Ellison was supposed to attend was Oklahoma University, however, race riots delayed his enrollment and eventually the scholarship he received sent him all the way to Tuskegee Institute. These similarities in life events align the two men in the readers mind, and it makes sense to then look at their goals and ideologies. Both attempt to find some sense of identity, and Ellison as a black writer reflects his own strides towards enlightenment by writing out the process in Invisible Man. As the novel progresses, he makes aware the idea that all people should look for their identity and place in their context. To do so, there is a particular attitude to adopt according to Ellison’s illustration throughout the book. This mindset is to not care what stereotypes people have and want to place on you. In transformations such as the pork chops and grits scene to the yam scene, the narrator rebels against the shying away from stereotypes. If he likes something, then he will eat it, and nobody can tell him who he is or what he can do. By the type of person the documentary made Ellison appear as, it seems like he himself lived by these concepts – a further connection to the narrator. Ellison wore clothes that differentiated him, and he called himself a “Negro” which set him apart. His actions and thoughts were defiant, showing that he was on a genuine life search for his own identity, not waiting for others to call him out the way they may have wanted.

Another aspect of the documentary that I found particularly fascinating was the look at other novels that Ellison worked on during his career and the practices he had with studying and copying Hemingway. Both of these parts of his life were interesting since they gave a broader picture of who he was as a person and writer. One of the mentioned novels that caught my attention was King of the Bingo Game. In this work, the main character struggles to find a way to help his sick family members, and finally attempts to do so through winning money by playing bingo. As the documentary points out, Ellison is playing with the metaphor that his life is based on chance, and so is the game, which determines what his life will be. This highly symbolic context is similar to the style of Ellison in Invisible Man where he has several scenes such as the battle royal and paint factory scenes in which symbolism is so straightforward and vivid. Another thought that came to my mind was the similarity of theme this novel has with Native Son, which pushes the idea that the fate of a black man is almost predetermined, but also fickle. The chance of bingo and Bigger just waiting for an accident/major crime to occur both critique the idea of injustice for African-Americans in society. A final ponderance I found from thinking over the novel about bingo is that the only source I had for reflecting on it other than a few lines of summary was the film version on screen. To me, the intensity and emotion in the protagonist was clear to me through the documentary’s portrayal, and this actually relates to the scenes done on Invisible Man in the film. I found that my imagination from reading the novel were freshened by the proposed depiction of Ellison’s text. For one, I appreciated the exaggerated quality of the grandfather. It was almost eerie, which is the feeling I got when reading his warning and also his involvement in the narrator’s dream. There was an accurate weight to his influential qualities. The narrator on the other hand I had a few qualms with. It seemed as if he was actually toned down too much. It would be good for scenes near the end when he is obviously further matured, but the problem is that a lot of the scenes are from earlier on. I suppose that the prologue was adequately acted out then, but places like the battle royal, I envisioned more of an eager naïveté that defines his character for much of the novel. So those were a bunch of thoughts stemming from what I thought about King of the Bingo Game, one of the many thought-provoking novels brought up in the film.

The documentary was something that I definitely thought added a lot to experiencing Invisible Man, and I look forward to viewing the film on Zora Neale Hurston and how that will inform my reflection on Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

Let the Eagle Fly

One of my favorite poems from our poetry reading days has been “America” by Henry Dumas. It really is short and sweet, compact with a lot of meaning to glean once reading it. This poem is inherently open to a lot of interpretation because of all the metaphorical language within, and so I thought I would chip in and give my personal thoughts surrounding the poem.

America  by Henry Dumas

If an eagle be imprisoned

On the back of a coin

And the coin is tossed into the sky,

That coin will spin,

That coin will flutter,

But the eagle will never fly.

Right off the bat, I want to lay down the metaphorical elements and their connections. I take the eagle to be the people of America, and the coin to be the nation itself. The eagle operates on two levels, because it is the people as a whole, and also the subset of people that are considered minorities – people that are oppressed in society. This dual possibility is available because the eagle is a patriotic symbol that generally is inclusive about all the people in our country, and the starting word “if” shows that a portion of these people are in not so good situations. And to be even pickier, Dumas specifically illustrates using “an eagle.” He does not say “the eagles,” he says “an eagle.” In other words, he makes it clear that we are one people, unified and identified as American all together.

The central metaphor of the poem is that of the coin representing the country as a whole. So the coin tossed into the air is, figuratively speaking, America going through time, thriving as a nation in some way. Dumas then brilliantly connects the already mentioned eagle, people of America, to this core metaphor that the poem revolves around. In the second to the last line, he uses the word “flutter” to describe the coin in motion. “That coin will spin, That coin will flutter.” In my mind, I usually associate the word flutter with a bird’s motion, not much else. So this interesting word choice is a move meant to transition the reader into thinking that the coin behaves like the bird. The coin is the bird. Dumas is saying that the people are the nation. One makes up the other, and concurrently is what defines it. By using the word flutter, he produces an eloquent and smooth transition that brings the message full circle, and lets the significance of the poem sink in. There is one eagle and one coin, and they are the same.

There are many angles Dumas could have taken, but he chose to use a coin to illustrate what he is trying to say. It is a powerful choice that makes a lot of sense if you consider that a coin tossed into the air always has an arc. There is time in which it flies up in the air, but then also one where it sails down to the ground. In the poem, all that is mentioned about the coin itself is that it is tossed into the air, the first half of its travels. So it is important to note that this is only the beginning of its travels; it is implied that this journey of the coin also has an end in which it will plummet to the ground. While he leaves the imagery of the coin open ended, he follows by saying that the eagle will never fly, once again going back to the idea that the coin and eagle are equivalent. And the reason why the eagle can’t fly is because it is imprisoned. These lines all culminate in the point that the nation can’t go on, it will plummet to the ground if the people who compose the nation, who are the nation, are restrained by oppression and imprisonment. America kills its own flight and trajectory through the air by imposing restraints on itself.

It is pretty justifiable to say that the people who are referred to as imprisoned in this poem are African-Americans. The word choice of “imprisoned” evokes connections in the readers mind of when black people were actually slaves, and so it puts a weight on the sense of hard times they have to go through because of America’s set up. Basically, the poem is a protest poem. It is pointing out the oppression in society, however, it doesn’t do it in a Native Son manner. In that novel, the whole technique was dependent on shocking scenes and plain exposure to how the country is messed up. Everywhere you look there is trouble and it is not right. In “America,” on the other hand, there is a comment on society, a strong comment, but still not a "complaint." There is no boiling anger present in the voice Dumas uses in sharp contrast to what can be seen with Wright at times. Rather, the attitude is very matter of fact, proclaiming that the ideas presented need to be accepted, but not in a noisy way. If anything, the poem is more related to Invisible Man, which appeals in an intellectual battle of protest. There is a challenge to society, but it is not quite as direct and emotional as Native Son. I am not saying that the poem doesn’t call for change, it definitely does, just in a milder yet arguably more effective way. All of this creates a poem that is purely a cool declaration of injustice intertwined with complex undertones. Speaking technically, I think the cause for this effect is partly the conciseness and brevity of the poem, but also the fact that it is an announcement and not a demand. Dumas pulls this off by starting “If an eagle...” almost like an introduction to a logical argument. There is an air of confidence that he is bringing a message into clearer definition.