The first sentence of the chapter really set the tone for what is to come. It talks about the dreams of men and how they compare to the dreams of women. It talks about how a man’s wish is “Ships at a distance” and the ability to achieve the wish depends on luck and do not depend on hard work. Some men’s dreams come with the tide while others never come and only bait the man into believe the dream is possible. The meaning of this passage seems to be that men focus more on tangible object or ideals (ships) as dreams. Which in comparison to the wishes of women is very different. It is directly expressed that the for women “The dream is the truth.” Everything that the women do is in order to achieve truth, they can block out specific memories and act and do what they think will find them the truth. This very different compared to the male dream, women actively work to achieve it as compared to just wait for the “tide” to bring it to them. Also women are much more interested in the fundamental understanding of what is happening as compared to men who are only trying to reach a position or objective.
These ideas of dreams are clearly reflected when the mysterious woman walks past the porch. The women who are sitting on the bench begin to critique the woman's appearance. “What she doin’ coming back here in dem overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on? In this case the women see the overalls to be an example of lower class and it allows them to raise themselves and feel more important than the women, perhaps to find true in their social standing. On the contrary the men on the porch see the overalls and find a sexual nature in what the women is wearing. “The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets;” the men sexualized the women and made her into a “ship” which they wish would reach their shore. The absolute contrast of what the women pay attention to compared to what the men find important is interesting and telling about the roles of gender, throughout the book. If not for Pheoby, the mysterious women’s friend the people on the porch would continue to “examine” what the mysterious women means to them and how what they see in her can be used to achieve their dreams, either bringing in their ships or helping them find the truth.
I think you have an interesting idea here. The first scene of Their Eyes Were Watching God sets up definite gender roles for the society that book is set in. I think the idea that women in the book set to achieve truth and greater understanding is interesting, but am not sure how it continues in the rest of the book. However, I am interested to see if this theme recurs. Clearly other themes you discuss continue such as the importance of a woman's appearance which is evident in how Joe parades around and displays Janie.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of men in this book seeing women, Janie in particular, as a sexual object has definitely come up many times already and I am sure that it will continue to come up throughout the rest of the book. Especially in her "Joe Starks Era", Janie experienced a lot of sexism, even from Joe. An example of this is him making her tie her hair up so that other men wouldn't be attracted to her - he viewed her as property that he had control over rather than another person.
ReplyDeleteI definitely found the first page of the novel interesting because of how it generalized the thoughts of men and women. The most fascinating part of the generalization was how the author made those ideas come true when Janie walks down the street. You did well to point that out, and you saw how the women only saw the flaws. A random side note is that I feel Janie saw men in a similar way to the first page. She thought they were all the same, and then Teacake came along and treated her differently which surprised Janie. It seems that maybe the generalizations aren't true and Janie is the first to realize.
ReplyDelete