Colors?

Before her death Baby Suggs announces to Denver and Sethe that "there was no bad luck in the world but white people" (122). Stamp Paid remembers that after being "tired out" from the damage of the white people, Baby Suggs thought about yellow, blue, and green because they are "harmless" things. He sees this as a defeat but years later, he understands how she felt when he finds the red ribbon of a murdered black girl. The meaning of "thinking about colors" isn't straightforward to me but in the context of Stamp Paid's recollection, the color red represents the dispossessed dead and murdered. The red light Paul D encounters in 124 connects to this, as does Stamp Paid's suspicion that the voices there are those belonging to "the people of the broken necks, of fire-cooked blood and black girls who had lost their ribbons" (208-213).
While Sethe remembers how Baby Suggs was "starved for color," she notices that the orange patches on the quilt are the only bright colors that exist in the house. She then recalls that the pink in Beloved's tombstone is the last color that she remembers acknowledging, and I think part of her inability to recognize color for so many years reflects her fear of making plans for the future. The damage of her past has scarred her heavily as her question "Would it be all right to go ahead and feel?" indicates (46). The last mention of the orange patches is made in relation to Beloved, who is attracted to the bright colors on the quilt. They potentially remind her of Sethe, given her attraction to her and object related to her. After Sethe realizes who Beloved is, they create colorful clothing for themselves (with blue stripes and yellow ribbons) but start ignoring Denver. The situation in 124 deteriorates as Sethe is fired from her job and becomes immersed with taking care of Beloved, even though their relationship with each other gets worse. Then at the end of the book Sethe is "lying under a quilt of merry colors" and has not left her bed for some time (319). Considering what Denver has said of her, she is no longer the person she used to be.
The references to the orange patches stood out to me and made me think about the other references and reactions to colors but I still don't know what it all could mean. It does strike me how orange is characterized as the only color in the house at the beginning of the story, and then near the end Sethe fills the house with colorful ribbons and bouquets as she stops working. In regards to that particular context, I wonder if the blues and yellows are connected to her trauma and how she represses her memories.

Exploring Gunnar's Celebrity

Gunnar discovers his identity quickly but isn't happy with how people react positively towards his talents. His poetry and basketball playing propels him to unusual heights of celebrity status but the adoration he receives makes him feel depressed. Gunnar's dissatisfaction could be linked to the patronizing quality of the crowd at the Shakespeare monologue contest, where the people there mocked Scoby by cheering for him. But I feel like this doesn't apply to the context of his fame, as the people around him aren't pitying him. Maybe it's the superficiality of some of the adoration that bothers him: people think they are like him but they're not because they haven't actually experienced the ghetto like he has. I think of this because of the reaction to Gunnar's poetry that's seen when he goes to his first college class, where everybody seems to be a huge fan of his work. Their praise of his poetry is an exaggerated, satirical portrayal of white people responding to a black artist's work, as one person says "I thought that if I mentioned a black poet, I wouldn't be taken seriously by the rest of the class." After Gunnar strips the students ask if they can keep his clothes because they'll be worth a lot someday, suggesting that they see him only as an entertainer while furthering the absurdity of the scene. However, this behavior doesn't represent all of Gunnar's fans as he has a massive following in the area he grew up in (which is where people started paying attention to him in the first place) and they don't say things like "I could welcome home an Ashanti warrior returned from the hunt with a fresh kill" (179).
During Gunnar's first organized basketball game, he notices how much control he has over the crowd's emotions, while caring little about winning the game himself. Despite that, he and Scoby become the "main attraction" in their school and in a sign of things to come, Scoby breaks down over the attention he's getting. Gunnar makes an observation that as a black person, he (and Scoby) "can't go back home and blithely disappear into the local populace. American society reels you back to the fold" (119). This idea ties into the rest of the novel as the adulation keeps growing to the point where Gunnar's influence is so profound that people are moved enough by what he says to end their lives. As his college class demonstrates, he can't get away from it.

Message in Their Eyes Were Watching God

One of Richard Wright's criticisms of Their Eyes Were Watching God was about how it didn't have an important message, stating that there's "no theme that lends itself to significant interpretation." However, I personally saw in Janie's final words to Phoeby an affirmation of some important ideas, one of which I think is summed up well with the lines "you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh" (192).

 I take this to mean that you need to live life in order to understand it, and nobody else can do this for you. Janie's past experiences, which form the narrative of the novel, all back up this idea. As a teenager, Janie realized that she wanted to experience the world and find love and connection with other people, but her grandmother made her live under her narrow perspective of what life has to offer by arranging her marriage with Logan. "Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon–for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you–and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her" (89). Janie left Logan for Jody, but in their marriage she was instead confined by Jody telling her to live under his expectations of what a mayor's wife should be. Janie feels unfulfilled, wanting to take part in the conversations on the porch of the store but unable to do so because of Jody's insistence that she keep to herself.
When Janie starts spending time with Tea Cake, she tries out new things that she hadn't done before like playing checkers and shooting with guns. She doesn't have to stay off on the side when she lives on the muck with him, both working in the fields and taking part in social gatherings. When she returns to Eatonville after his death, she is in grief but her words to Jane makes her seem wiser and fulfilled. Her house, which she previously disliked being in, "tasted fresh again." 

The presence of the townspeople gossiping about Janie's return can be likened to the critics that faulted Hurston for writing the way she did. Janie's response is to let them talk, as she herself knows that whatever they say doesn't change what she has learned about living. 

Janie and Jody

The narrative switches between Janie and Jody's points of view during chapters 5 and 8, in which their poor relationship is clearly established. Janie is relegated to a life in the store, submitting to her husband's demands that she be quiet and stay in her place. She feels unfulfilled with her role as "Mrs. Mayor," expressing that "Ah feels lak Ah'm jus' makin' time," yet in Jody's mind she should be happy with her position. "Here he was just pouring honor all over her, building a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the world and here she pouting over it!" (46, 62).

Jody is heavily invested in image, as his goal to be a leader is one of the first things he talks about with Janie. Once he accomplishes that goal he makes sure Janie lives up to his ideals of a model wife, telling her she has to stay home from events such as the mule's funeral because it's not a place for a woman of her status to be. Jody also looks down on the townspeople, saying he wishes they would "git mo' business in 'em and not spend so much time on foolishness" (62). However, he's still so concerned about what they think of him that he fears that there is "nothing to do in life anymore" when they agree with what Janie says about him and see that he's being hypocritical (80).

It also seems that Jody wants Janie to entirely belong to him, to have no action or idea that's unique to her; what makes me think of this is the scene where he hears Janie commenting on the poor treatment of the mule, then sends her away to fetch his shoes while he buys the mule and sets it free. The people of the town respect him for doing that, and it seems like he's benefiting from something he didn't completely think of himself. Janie says a few words about it, mentioning how it's an idea "tain't everybody would have thought of" and comparing him to Abraham Lincoln (58). By likening his freeing a mule to freeing slaves, I wonder if Janie is actually undermining Jody's achievement through her praise. He doesn't seem to notice.

more development

The narrator has realized that who he is as a person, his identity and experiences, aren't recognized by the Brotherhood. "Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men" (508). Even the people he was trying to reach with the Brotherhood don't see him, as evidenced by his journey through the city while in disguise. Those scenes of him being mistaken for Rinehart are pivotal for his development because they solidify his invisibility but also lets him see the benefits of being unrecognized. He discovers that this Rinehart character lives through different identities that seem paradoxical to each other; he exists as a gambler to some and as a reverend to others.The narrator has this revelation about Rinehart after reading the line "Let there be light" in the church that Rinehart apparently works at, which ties into the enduring theme of light and dark but also potentially serves as a throwback to the yam scene (498). During that scene, the narrator had a revelation about his identity that was spurred by a reconnection with his past, declaring to himself "I am what I am" and affirming that he doesn't need to fake who he is and what he feels (265-266). Later on in the church, he hears a prayer that he says he hadn't heard since leaving campus, and is mistaken for Reverend Rinehart shortly after and his perception of identity changes yet again (496). When that previously occurred, the narrator afterwards got involved with the Brotherhood, which he eventually became disillusioned with. Since the events in his life are a "boomerang," this feeling of possibility he currently has could reverse and be shattered by another disillusioning experience.

The narrator experiments with "being Rinehart" by giving the Brotherhood what they want to see while following his own plans. He intends to subvert them but given the statement "I am what I am," is he really being any different than they are? He goes along with their ignorance in order to hurt them but he is doing this at the expense of "the people." Also, the narrator invites Sybil over because he wants her to act a certain way for him and that backfires. During that disturbing scene the narrator thinks to himself "Such games were for Rinehart, not me" (523).

No Longer Afraid

The explosion at Liberty Paints has placed the narrator in the hospital; the factory hospital, to be exact. And in a vague resemblance to a superhero's origin story, he comes out of the accident a changed man. It's here that the tone of the prologue starts to trickle back into the narrative, as the narrator begins talking to people in a different manner, an example being when he asks the official that's discharging him if he knows who Mr. Norton is and laughs when he says he doesn't. As the narrator realizes after this exchange, there is no longer a fear of authority figures that keeps him from speaking out. This is because he now knows that since "there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid."

With this lack of inhibition, the next chapter sees the narrator start speaking to the riled up crowd gathered around the evicted elderly couple, one of whom had been struck by the sheriff overseeing the eviction. In his speech, the narrator repeatedly tells the crowd that they are a "law-abiding people," says that the couple's belongings are junk so they should be allowed to pray in their old home because religion is all they have. This scene initially confused me a bit, since I was unsure of what the narrator's intentions were for this speech; was he trying to defuse the situation or escalate it? Rereading a few parts, it appears that he himself was unsure of what to do, because in regards to the prospect of violence, he "both wanted it and feared the consequences, was outraged and angered...yet surged with fear" (275). However, he was not afraid of people being hurt but afraid of "what the sight of violence might release in me." After rereading I think I see that the speech was intended to use the old couple's belongings to point out what little the black people have, or what little direction they have, even though they've been law-abiding; he implies that more action needs to be taken so that they aren't dispossessed. I'm not completely sure, but I do know that the narrator's proactivity demonstrates his changed behavior. Following the impromptu speech, the crowd attacks the sheriff, who shoots back at them, but he's overpowered and beaten up. The narrator then calls for everyone to take the furniture back inside, but more police eventually arrive, which is when the narrator decides he should leave. These events wouldn't have happened if the narrator hadn't taken the initiative to speak up, which is something he wouldn't have done when he still had college officials to impress. And what he says is the opposite of what they'd like their students to believe.

Dreams and stuff

Invisible Man's prologue introduces us to a markedly different style of writing than the naturalism seen in Native Son. It's a first person narrative that makes the writing feel a bit more intimate than an omnipresent third person narrator, and has more of an "unreal" tone with all the metaphors and peculiar descriptions. Class on Tuesday helped me to elucidate my thoughts on how to describe the tone of the novel although now I feel like I'm just repeating what was said there. Anyways, I felt that the tone was dreamlike in the sense that what's being established doesn't seem concrete. We know this person lives in a basement and has many lightbulbs but the complete picture of this guy's current situation is fuzzy around the edges. The narrator is telling the reader about himself but also isn't revealing that much at the same time.
So I thought that the style of the prologue would continue throughout the book but it changes in Chapter 1 and gets more focused. Yet the allusions to dreams still continue, and in a book that is founded on symbolism it makes sense it has a dream-like atmosphere, since people tend to look for the deeper meaning of dreams. Also something subjective I want to note is that the feeling of a dream lingers after one wakes up but trying to translate what you remember of the experience into words isn't always possible. Usually depictions of dreams in writing kind of annoy me because they're too cohesive and straightforward rather than being fragmented. I think the dreams (and hallucination?) that have been described in this novel so far have been an okay mix of relevance and randomness, most notably the one Jim Trueblood had with details like birds coming out of the bed and a tunnel inside a grandfather clock. The white woman in the dream is trying to prevent Trueblood from getting into the clock by grabbing and holding onto him, which scares him because he's afraid of touching a white woman. The taboo nature of this scene is the only thing I can connect to what's happening outside of the dream but there's probably more symbolism that can be gleaned...