Their Eyes Were Watching God

While discussing the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in class specifically about the different interpretations about the end- I feel as though Janie is now at peace with her life. Having killed Teacake to protect herself, she yet knows that he loved her and will always want to be with her. From the beginning of the novel when in a relationship with Logan, it is clear that she did not want to be with him but was with him for the sake of her grandmother. Logan was not someone she genuinely loved and was expressed anger towards him especially when she walked out of their relationship without saying a word to him. When considering her relationship with Jody, she fell in love with his infatuation and his looks; however, as their relationship progressed her feelings towards him weakened. Jody was not a good husband to her because of his way of degrading her and belittling her self leaving her to split up with him as well. However, Teacake she genuinely loved and had feelings for despite his unhealthy background in which she was able to look past and also look beyond the small talk people gave to her about him being younger and poorer. In one of the last scenes where the setting flashes back to the porch with Pheoby, "There was a finished silence after that so that for the first time they could hear the wind picking at the pine trees." (Hurston, 192)- this scene paints a picture in my head where Janie is now content with her life and the ways things have ended up. Take in consideration one of the last lines from the novel: "He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace." (Hurston, 193). Though she may have wished Teacake was still with her, she was at peace knowing that their relationship with each other was true love. The hardships and sacrifices Janie had made, had shaped her into the person she is and brought her to happiness. As she pulls in her horizon, her request of finding the world is found within herself.

Double Standard Society

As read in the Handmaid's Tale, patriarchy is a factor that is clear and present in Gilead by promoting males as the most privilege. Comparing this factor of patriarchy to The Awakening, this issue is also present and very clear to recognize in Grand Isle. The society that Edna lives in portrays women as wives and mothers that are selfless and are able to put themselves last while putting others first. Though Edna is both a wife and a mother, she finds herself unhappy and wanting more leading her to leave her husband and kids behind. Reflecting on this matter, I see Edna as a woman that wants to be free and independent. However society then suggests that by wanting independence she is selfish and looked down upon. Edna is a test case of this chasing for freedom and independence and realizes she does not want to put herself last. 

Patriarchy plays a factor in this book because women are looked to be selfless and giving up their personal wants, needs and drives to please others first. Meanwhile, men are able to do what they want and when they want per say. For example if a man were in Edna's situation, things would be turned around completely causing a whole different reaction from society- a man leaving his wife and kids because of a midlife crisis is not looked down upon as bad as if a woman leaves her family. Such in The Awakening, Leonce is not in the picture as much because he is out traveling for work but that is okay because he is a male and does not have the standards of selfless that he must appeal to. I personally feel as though the rules  and the role Edna had to partake in because of society's standards led to her reactions and emotions. All she knows is this society's outlook on women but deep down inside she knows there is more for her. Edna's vision of what she wanted to be represents many women today but in the 1800's were not accepted as a fit women. 

Though in the 1800's society is quite different from 2014's society, there are still many similarities that are still standardized towards women. For example the same outlook applies to women that are a wife and/or mother to be selfless- to honor her husband and make her life revolve around her children and to never leave her family or else looked very badly upon. If we were to take Edna's story and travel it into today's society, I feel as though things would still be looked the somewhat the same upon her as being selfish and unfit because of her personal motives. And as seen in the 1800's as well patriarchal demands are still present in today's society because if a man were in Edna's situation- he would be looked down upon as well but not as much as a women would for leaving her family. 

The Color Purple- Religion Theme

In the Color Purple, Celie uses "Dear God" as her salutation to every letter. As told in the beginning of the novel, Mr. ___ told her not to tell anyone that he abused her but only God. Therefore, leading her letters to direct to the only person she could tell, God. However, though the subject of God is not nearly as discussed as other aspects- it is still a very interesting aspect to unfold. 

By being a black abused woman, Celie turned to write her letters to God as the one person she could tell everything to. However, it is not clear if she really does understand and value what/who God really is. That is until she finds out that Mr. ___ never gave her the letters Nettie had written her over the years. Outraged and angered at the fact that most of her life had been a lie, she starts to write letters to Nettie instead. As Shug addresses the change of salutations in the letters to Celie. Celie furiously replies, "...he give me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won't ever see again." (Walker, 192). Celie goes on by saying that God is just like the other men in her life. He possesses the same characteristics of all other men- trifling, forgetful and lowdown. 

Understanding Celie's point of view and her lost of faith, it may be clear that Celie might have never known the real meaning of God or faith. She was instructed not to tell anyone her secrets about Mr. ___ but God, leaving her to never fully grasp the idea of religion. How could God make sense to me during my struggles?- Celie might ask, could be the reason why she started to write letters to Nettie instead. 

The main point I thought that stood out to me was Shug's reaction to Celie's furious reply of why she does not address God anymore: "The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit." (Walker, 195). Shug's outlook on God could be looked as a pantheistic point of view of religion, meaning that the universe and everything within composes as God. This really interested me because I do not personally put myself into an organized religion until now. The way Shug tells Celie her point of view and how to view God is very touching and inspirational. I can relate to Celie in the moving to more religious aspect. As Celie sees God as genderless and race-less and more of a universe being that wants all beings to enjoy every aspect of life, I began to connect my point of view with this one. As the story begins with Celie barely knowing the true aspect of God- she ends her last letter with a new salutation, "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God." (Walker, 285). Leaving her with a better understanding of her new outlook on faith. I chose to write about this topic because it was very touching and meaningful. With being an unreligious person, I began to connect with a faith- pantheism- and for once, I felt like I belonged to a religion that I fully understood and agreed with. Walker does a very nice way of including different themes in her story without being blunt and straight forward about them. 

Literary Context: Kindred by Octavia Butler

Reproducing Time, Reproducing History: Love and Black Feminist Sentimentality in Octavia Butler's Kindred by Linh U. Hua focuses on specifically Alice and Dana. Hua starts out by focusing specifically on a passage from Kindred:

. . . I turned to say good-bye to Alice, called her name once. She was beating a pair of Rufus's pants, and she kept beating them with no break in her rhythm to indicate that she had heard me.

"Alice!" I called louder.

She did not turn, did not stop her beating and beadng of those pants, though I was certain' now that she heard me. . . . "Good-bye, Alice," I said, this time not expecting any answer. There was none. (Butler, 185).

Hua makes importance on the way Alice lacks engagement to Dana which can be viewed as a host of antilock and antifeminist tendencies that are present in contemporary liberal analysis. Hua believes that this passage is the most sentimental of scenes and also the most problematic. "...the scene's interpretation and impact within the text and among scholars replays a host of antilock, antifeminist tendencies that continue to embed themselves in contemporary liberal analysis." (Hua, 391). Speculative time and the literary and culture production of violence in abolitionist literature in the nineteenth century helps better understand the moments of radicalization during this scene. Speculative time is the interaction between whiteness and future that is shaped through slave trade- overall it is, "the material transformation of temporal experience". (Hua, 391). Hua essay establishes the affective refusal rather than incapacity by looking at black feminist sentimentality. Black feminist sentimentality is the way we naturally look at history, intimacy and love in a sentimental way. Hua continues to analyze Kindred through the setting as a basis for antiblack and antifeminist ideology. Therefore, Dana's miscommunication with Alice during the scene solidifies Alice's miscommunication as a two-dimensionality in continuity of this investment in speculative time.

Hua breaks her analysis into three sections: Speculative Time: History and Sentimentality, Temporal Ethics: History as Alibi and Critical Time: Black Feminist Sentimentality. The first section, Speculative Time: History and Sentimentality expresses the relationship between Alice and Dana as the core of black feminist politics due to the promises and obstructions off alliance of black feminist sentimentality. As Dana leaves Alice, it demonstrates the unethical sentimentalism of romance dealing with patriarchal lineage and the promises of speculative time meaning that Dana must side with Rufus to keep her lineage alive. Dana must naturalize the violence and stand the violence towards Alice to reinforce her future. The second section, Temporal Ethics: History as Alibi introduces a classic narrative of Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Fredereick Douglass's Narrative of the Life which are classified as the genre of sentimental fiction. Kindred can be categorized as a neo-slave narrative. Hua touches base on the questioning by black feminists about how racist capitalist securities in the future shape our perception of history by violence acted upon Afro-American women and also Afro-American people in general. The third section, Critical Time: Black Feminist Sentimentality, deals with the actions of Dana that are considered as "undetectable moments of radical black feminist agency that rewrite hierarchical models of love and sentimentality, crucial acts of rebellion performed by Alice and Nigel that change the meaning and story of Kindred." (Hua, 400). The politics of black feminist sentimentality gestures our understanding of critical time in a political and personal sense while also viewing the myth of speculative time that underscores the origins of trade and enslavement of Afro-Americans. Hua main point of this article is to help us understand our attachment to history in a sentimental view and also see how violence is produced in the critical present like it was in the critical time of antebellum Maryland. By understanding Alice's role in Kindred we are able to overlook and overwrite a demonstration "..of a critical kind of love that is black, feminist, and ethically sentimental." (Hua, 404). 

Hua, Linh U. "Reproducing Time, Reproducing History: Love And Black Feminist Sentimentality In Octavia Butler's "Kindred.." African American Review 44.3 (2011): 391-407. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.

Time Travel, Violence and the Impacts on Relationship illustrates how time travel has an affect on her relationship with others and also how violence during her time in antebellum Maryland has affected these relationships. The author states his opinion about how he believes that time travel has affected Dana's relationship with her husband, Kevin, and how violence in the past and present affect her relationships in both Pasadena and Maryland. In the beginning, Dana's time travel confuses herself and Kevin and also worries him that she is going back into the past. When Kevin begins to time travel that is when their relationship starts to become hectic. The author focuses on their response from being away from each other in the past as separate people and also their response from their distance away from each other. 

Time travel occurs when Dana is in danger. By attending to back in the past when Rufus is in danger, she begins to form a relationship with him but that is soon destroyed when violent acts by Rufus are taken upon Dana. Another act of violence that is portrayed in Kindred is the scene when Dana cuts herself- an act that will send her to time travel to the present. "Since violence is a key factor to time travel it can be an essential factor to Dana’s relationships in determining the time period she is present in, in order to decide how she is going to portray herself in those relationships with the people she is around." (Kindredmania). The author also states that these are key factors when trying to understand the characters and their motives. Violence and time travel are essential when understanding Dana's relationship with those when in the past and present. Overall, I agree with this analysis of Kindred because I do feel like violence and time travel are important factors in Kindred. Time travel affected Dana and Kevin's relationship by allowing them to encounter history that they were never apart of. Because of Kevin's privilege of being a white male, it in a way influences his way to look at Dana as not his wife but an Afro-American slave woman. There are many other examples of how their relationship with each other changed and was affected by antebellum Maryland. 

"Literary Analysis." Kindred. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. <http://kindredmania.wordpress.com/literar-analysis/>.

I believe that the scholars analysis is the strongest interpretation due to many sources that were cited throughout the essay. However, it was the least engaging. I found it very hard to read and follow due to the particular voice and the audience it was directed towards that would be more familiar with the language being used. I understood some of what the Hua was saying but most of it, was unfamiliar to me because I am not particularly known to read scholarly articles by those that are recognizable in this field. The scholarly analysis is the supported the best due to the 18 pages of sources that were cited. Some of these sources were from Ashraf H. A., Darlene Clark Hine, Barbara Smith, Adam McKible and many others including their literature works. Whereas the website article had no other sources cited except for one from Kindred. I do fully agree with the website analysis because it was easily accessible to read and understand. I do believe that violence and time travel, as stated before, are key themes in this book. 

Patriarchy in The Handmaid's Tale

It is clear that patriarchy is present in Gilead. As males are promoted as the most privileged. Male privilege, male domination, male identified and male centered are all expressed and for taken in Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale. To better understand patriarchy in The Handmaids Tale, I will define each term. Male privilege is the way that males have advantages without trying. As Dr. J mentioned in class the example of a female and male walking alone at night is different between the two sexes. While males may not be approached by other males while walking alone at night, females have a disadvantage of being known to getting raped or approached by other males while walking alone at night. Male dominated refers to the positions and authorities that are generally held by men. As we see in the United States today the president and the governor are both held by male positions. Male identified refers to values that men possess that are seen as good. Such as the ability to earn money, hold public office, assertiveness, competition and logic. Male centered refers to men in lives are the center of attention and their stories are more important than women stories. For example, movies usually have a male protagonist. If a women is the main character in a movie, the male is usually the storyline.

The Handmaid's Tale illustrates male privilege, male domination, male identified, male centered- patriarchy- throughout the book in the city of Gilead. The obsession of control is another big issue that is portrayed in the book. We see the obsession of control when the men are announced to take all money from the women. As Ofred looks back when the new rule takes place, she is bothered that Luke does not seem startled at the new rule. This is a showing of how Gilead is becoming male dominated by letting the males of the family become in control of the money they possess.

Male centered is shown when the Commander expresses to Ofred that sexuality to men mattered. As he says "The problem wasn't only with women, he says. The main problem was men. There was nothing for them anymore..... It's not enough, he says. It's too abstract. I mean there was nothing for them to do with women." (Atwood, 210). Commander expresses that men were being turned off by marriages and sex because it was too easy to get sex. Therefore, the rules of Gilead switched so that men could participate in sex with arranged Handmaid's rather than their Wife's.

The first ceremonial prayer that is presented on page 90 to 91, illustrates men being in control and leading the service. As the Commander clears his throat indicates that it is time for the women to stop praying. Another example of male control in the ceremonial prayer is the sign-off, when the Commander stands up the women are then dismissed. The ceremonial prayer is an example of both male domination, how the Commander is in control of what happens in the service and his actions are praised and followed by the women. The prayer also indicates male privilege, without the Commander trying to be in control- he is because he was born male which leads to such advantages.

The stories are women are often seen as not as important when compared to stories of men. This example is shown in the Historical Notes when Professor Pieixoto tells Ofred's narration of her life story of Gilead. While reading the excerpt on page 310, he says that he wishes he had found different information rather than cassette tapes of female perspective of Gilead. As the story is a powerful one telling the future how Gilead was ran from Ofred's perspective, the chairmen simply dismiss her story- derogatory because she is female. Thus leads that the future has not changed and they have not learned anything from Gilead.

The examples that I have expressed from The Handmaid's Tale are all problems that we deal with in the twenty-first century rather we realize it or not. We see today that males are privileged simply because they can live on their family's name and can reproduce by giving sperm. As the Commander is in control of women, the President can be seen as the Commander. The president in the United States is male and controls the whole country. We have not yet had a female president but rather we pick males every election to control us and our country. Though many notice that male patriarchy is present in today's society, we have not made any changes to change this type of society. I believe that Margaret Atwood's purpose on writing this book was to show that the events presented in the novel are relatable to past events that have occurred. We close a blind eye around us- we, as women, need to pay attention to what is happening round us and not look away because it is simply not happening to us. Though we pretend to learn from the past, we overall do not because we keep doing things that have been practiced in the past such as women seen as sub-important when compared to men.

Katniss Everdeen, Not Your Average Teenage Girl.

While reading the Hunger Games, it was a clear distinction that the main character, Katniss, was not your average girl that movies and books usually portray teenage females to be. The entertainment world has categorized teenage females to be "prissy", obsessed with shopping and boys, and vulnerable. However, Suzanne Collins does not fit Katniss in this category of your average teenage girl. Katniss is portrayed as a fighter, strong boned, and independent. Stated in the beginning of the book, Katniss seems to be in control at her house while her sister looks up to her and her mother is still mourning of the death of her husband. So from the very beginning of the book, we are introduced to Katniss as a independent survivalist that hunts for her family to keep food on the table.

The point that I would like to discuss in this post is the way the media and publicly narrows us, teenage females, how to act by worrying about the way we look, dress and act. Meanwhile, Collins distributes her main character as anything but your average 21st century teenager. Katniss shows her strength in the Hunger Games by being an incredible hunter of animals, showing her skills by shooting an apple in a judge's mouth with an arrow and the list of events where her strength is prevailed goes on. Collins also promotes Katniss to be anything but "boy crazy". Though, Katniss expressed her slight interest in Gale it is not a prime factor that some authors may include in other books. The shows that I have watched portray girls to be concerned with boys and concerned with how they portray themselves around boys. However, Katniss is only herself when she is around Gale, which interested me because that is a different characteristic that has not been apparent in the public. 

Suzanne Collins does a superb job on displaying a different side of a teenage female. She exposed characteristics of Katniss that are different and "unnormal" from what we are portrayed to in public. Hunger Games shows that not all female teenagers need to be looked as "girly", "prissy" "stuck-up", but can also be viewed as a surrealist, independent, growing up young lady.