Blog #20: Their Eyes Were Watching God Socratic Discussion #2 "Three Tasks"

Task 1: THE BILDUNGSROMAN

Janie’s arranged marriage

Janie marries Jody

Saved by Teacake

Task 2:

THEME: Identity

	POEM: BLACK WALNUT   TREE	THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
Who are you?	“...we could sell the black walnut tree to the lumberman, and pay off the mortgage.” “What my mother and I both know   is that we'd crawl with shame   in the emptiness we'd made   in our own and our fathers' backyard.” They are worried that if they sell the tree, the yard will seem ‘empty’ and disappoint the father’s hard work to make the yard beautiful, but if they don’t do something, the tree will ruin their home.	“Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat’s one of de hold-backs of slavery. But nothing can’t stop you from wishin’. You can’t beat nobody down so low till you can rob ‘em of they will. Ah didn’t want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow and Ah didn’t want mah daughter used dat way neither. It sho wasn’t mah will for things to happen lak they did. Ah even hated de way you was born. But, all de same Ah said thank God, Ah got another chance-Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ah’d take a broom and a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her.” (16)   Slavery, obviously, is confining. Nanny was born into it and It kept her from fulfilling her dreams and taking action to bring black women more respect. However, though slavery physically shackled her, Nanny claims that it couldn’t chain up a person’s will and wishes. She wants the best for Janie.
What are you going to do?	“So the black walnut tree swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit, and, month after month, the whip crack of the mortgage.” In the end they decided to keep the tree after dreaming of her [Mary Oliver’s] father’s work of the orchards they had planted. Oliver explains what she and her mother both know, “that we’d crawl with shame/ in the emptiness we’d made,” since it was a family effort to make something beautiful. Thus, the tree remains where it is despite the future problems it may cause.	“Janie pulled back a long time because he [Joe] did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance.” (29)   Joe’s entire philosophy on life is to discount God and take your fate into your hands. He believes that men make their destinies. Joe represents the "far horizon...” change and chance" because he believes in striking out, full of ambition and making your way in the world.

 

The theme I have chosen goes with theme of Identity in The Black Walnut Tree and TEWWG. The theme of identity helps us understand who we are and what we are going to do. For example when Luke Skywalker discovers he is a Jedi, he begins his journey to understand the ways of the Force and bring balance to the galaxy. In The Black Walnut Tree, the mother and daughter are in a difficult choice of whether or not to remove the black walnut tree from their yard. They say “...we could sell the black walnut tree to the lumberman, and pay off the mortgage.” But, “we'd [mother and daughter] crawl with shame   in the emptiness we'd made   in our own and our fathers' backyard.” They are worried that if they sell the tree, the yard will seem ‘empty’ and disappoint the father’s hard work to make the yard beautiful, but if they don’t do something, the tree will ruin their home. In the end “...the black walnut tree swings through another year of sun and leaping winds...” they decided to keep the tree after Oliver dreams of her father’s work on the orchards they had planted. In TEWWG, “[Nanny] was born back due in slavery so it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be- But nothing can’t stop you from wishin’. Ah didn’t want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow and Ah didn’t want mah daughter used dat way neither.” Nanny was only a slave to others and slavery kept her from fulfilling her dreams and taking action to bring black women more respect. However, even though slavery physically shackled her, a person’s will and wishes can’t be shackled. She wants the best for Janie, when she chose her to be married to Logan Killicks. Janie obliged, but soon after, Nanny has passed on, and Janie questions whether or not love is real.

Task 3: HAMLET COMPARISON/CONTRAST

	Hamlet	Their Eyes Were Watching God
How are Polonious and Nanny similar/different in how they treat their dependents?	“Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister, and keep you in the rear of your affection, out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the moon: virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes: the canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, and in the morn and liquid dew of youth contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then; best safety lies in fear: Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. (1.3.3)	“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!” (2.11).

 

Even though both sorties take place in different timelines and places, the treatment of women in both stories are similar. Hamlet and Ophelia's love for each other confuses me, though love in Denmark is but a mere rumor in the upper-class during those times. Despite Ophelia being a grown woman, she is still warned of the dangers of going along with these temptations by her brother and father. When Laertes insists that Ophelia should fear premarital sex because a "deflowered" woman is seen as damaged goods that no man will want to marry. This speech is also full of vivid innuendo, as when he compares intercourse to a "canker" worm invading and injuring a delicate flower before its buds, or "buttons," have had time to open (1.3.3). Then Polonius enters the scene and discusses what she wants cannot happen due her upper-class status. “I do know, when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter, giving more light than heat, extinct in both, even in their promise, as it is a-making, you must not take for fire.” (1.3.4)Polonius agrees with Ophelia’s brother that her love for Hamlet will ‘damage’ her so to speak. In TEWWG, it’s almost the same thing with Janie and her pear tree. “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!” (2.11) to naïve little Janie. The penetration of the bee into the bloom is a "love embrace" whose "ecstatic shiver" creates a "creaming in every blossom and a frothing of delight." This experience, ironically, both seems to take Janie’s virginity by introducing her to sexual intercourse, and also preserve her innocence by building such a romantic ideal for her future lovers to live up to. Janie wanted so much from her future love, Nanny was worried about Janie’s well-being and forced her into an arranged marriage with Logan. Simply because Nanny tells her so, Janie assumes that marriage entails love. She assumes that after she marries Logan, she will magically wake up one day and love him. Some might read this as a defense mechanism, something to help her justify the obvious unfairness of being forced to marry someone she doesn’t love. However, when love does not come after three months, Janie begins to doubt whether or not the love she wants is real.