This is Water and TEWWG

Considering our discussion, how could Wallace’s theory apply to Their Eyes Were Watching God?

In what ways could this novel specifically develop empathy and emotional intelligence, as well as contribute to the self-awareness of the reader?
Challenge yourself to make connections to Hurston’s purpose in how she crafts Janie’s journey of self-discovery “tuh de horizon and back”.


Wallace implies the impact of empathy on an individual’s surrounding members of society with just his grocery shopping scenario; which almost any human being would experience in their normal routine. This enables the reader of the commencement speech to gain an epiphany that they aren’t the only human beings going through the same corporate lifestyle and this was something I had realized too while reading both This is Water and Their Eyes Were Watching God. In terms of the novel, I personally connected with Janie’s relationship with her grandmother, Nanny and the protagonist’s change of behaviour towards Nanny before and after her death. Although this evoked a general sense of empathy towards Nanny, because of her life journey, Janie’s character doesn’t show the indebtedness towards her grandmother for bringing her up. Although this could be criticized, Janie’s perspective was understandable for me because like Wallace said in his speech, it is our default setting to believe that we are the center of the universe, and everything else is just in the way. Similarly, Janie would’ve automatically considered Nanny simply as a person who obstructed her from her journey towards finding herself and her true love. For her personal quest, she doesn’t hesitate leaving her first husband nor the second one (after his death) but in the end when she does reach the Horizon and find Tea Cake, her quest is completed and she has returned home, back from the horizon, with the memories of her true love and this was her self-centered goal without reflecting over her grandmother’s effort in raising her. Not to be blamed, but “the obvious and important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about” and this is what Janie did to satisfy her quest, in Hurston’s novel.

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Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 5, 2018 at 11:26 PM

    Cool idea! I actually connected [This is Water] and [The Eyes Were Watching God] by detailed explanation of protagonist's emotion and Janie's change of her idea of "successful life" from marriage with a successful guy to be in a true love as the time goes in the novel. And I think this is where it connects to developing empathy and [This is Water], because as Janie's mood shifts as time flows, readers are able to eventually synchronize their emotion into Janie's emotion, whether or not they were born or raised in the similar surroundings or culture or race that Janie experienced. Well done!

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