How would Molina read this Depression era novel by Zora Neale Hurston? (See previous post.) Well, she would be captivated by the poetic style and the mythic themes of fertility; the quest for love, power, and identity; the flood; death; transformation; and redemption. She would grieve over Janie's tragic love stories and joyfully celebrate her personal odyssey to freedom and restoration to community.
Perhaps, too, she would note the ironies and contradictions embedded in Janie's mythic quest, asking whether they are universal to the human condition. Is the human yearning for love and belonging always in conflict with the desire for power and freedom, as they seem to be in Janie's case?
As a child of rape whose mother has disappeared, Janie is raised by her grandmother, symbolically orphaned, as the mythic hero often is. Nanny instills Janie with a sense of special destiny, again following the pattern of the traditional quest hero. Janie's special destiny is to redeem her grandmother's (and all her African-American fore-mothers') tragic past in slavery. Unlike the typical male hero, who would set off as an individual in search of his boon, Janie pursues her quest through marriage, inheriting Joe's money and property when he dies. With her new found independence, Janie is free to fall in love and marry the much younger Tea Cake, with whom she finds happiness until he asserts his own independence and control over her. Her life with Tea Cake becomes a struggle between love and power, from which Janie is finally released when Tea Cake dies. In the end she is restored to freedom and community, as she returns to her home place, alone but spiritually connected to Tea Cake's memory, serving as a model for other women who seek both love and freedom.
Would Molina note that Janie's achievement of power and freedom is dependent upon the death of her husbands? Must love be sacrificed in order to achieve one's fulfillment as an individual? Must power and freedom be sacrificed to achieve love and belonging? Does Janie's redemption of slave history require the death of love? Is this struggle between power and freedom as an individual on the one hand and love and belonging on the other an inescapable condition of human experience?
The contradiction is somewhat reconciled by Janie's return to her community of Eatonville. However, though she is welcomed by her friend Phoeby, it is an open question as to how she will be received by the rest of the townspeople.
Perhaps, too, Molina would be mortified by the fact that Janie plays a role in the death of both Joe and Tea Cake. While on his deathbed, Joe actually breathes his last in the midst of a nasty verbal fight with Janie. Later, Janie kills Tea Cake in self-defense when he is attacking her in a maddened state after contracting rabies from a dog bite. Is Janie a determined but innocent victim who overcomes adversity through her own self-assertion, or is she a symbolic murderer who must kill her lovers in order to free herself?
The title of the novel comes from a description of the monster storm that floods out a community in the Everglades and leads to Tea Cake's fatal dog bite. It refers to those who are at the mercy of the elements during the storm, suggesting a kind of fatalism, as humans succumb to the power of nature. However, the novel is also about the human quest for freedom, love, power, and community--self-determination, not fatalism. We are left, though, with a strong sense of what self-determination costs in lives and loves. (See next post.)
No comments:
Post a Comment