I'm loving Their Eyes Were
Watching God so far. I'm
looking forward to seeing where the plot will go, but right now I am enchanted
by the characters. Unlike Invisible
Man, this book starts off with a greater coming-of-age theme for the
protagonist. Ellison skips over his narrator's transition from child to man,
instead focusing in great detail on the narrator's growth as an adult. Although
Hurston covers a broader range of years and with much less detail than Ellison
gives his protagonist, both succeed at creating very relatable and dynamic
characters. Thanks to the strength of their characters, the two authors are
able to use their protagonists as powerful mediums for a discussion on many
different topics, including African-American rights, coming-of-age, and coming
to understand society.
There are many similarities between the last two books that we've
read in class. Both novels follow a similar flashback style and frame
narrative. At the very least, there is a prologue in each, the book being told
as a story describing that person's life. Both of the protagonists grow over
the course of the book from naive and idealistic teenagers through to
responsible middle-age adults. The powerful retelling of their personal lives
lets the reader follow their growth and change over the span of multiple
decades. Making the narrative even more compelling, there are similarities
between each of the protagonists and their author, reinforcing the feeling of
reality each novel provides.
The greatest difference I've seen so far is the conflict that the
two characters face during their lifetimes. The invisible man has many
different challenging experiences that, as a whole, result in him growing out
of his naive youth and instead applying his ambition and skills towards
independently set goals. The narrator is a very analytical character, often
caught up in deep subconscious arguments about his own life. His core beliefs change little over the course of the novel, but with more experience he grows to understand what he believed in from the start. Although Ellison's way of depicting character growth is different from Hurtson's, both authors wrote their protagonists extremely well.
Hurston focuses on a much more personal discussion than Ellison.
For one, we actually know who we are reading about, making it easier to
sympathize with Janie. Another big difference stems from the two slightly
different frame narrative setups that Invisible
Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God have. Ellison's invisible man
wrote the story we see as an autobiographical book, so his internal dialogue
fit in well with his actions. Janie is telling the story of her life to a
friend, so the reader has a comparatively superficial view of that book.
Instead of focusing on particular events in her life, Janie is defined by a
series of relationships. She goes from Johnny Taylor to Logan Killicks to Joe
Starks and to Tea Cake, her own persona changing depending on her relationship
with those men. Even when her relationships aren't up to par, the reader has confidence in the positive resolution of Janie's story thanks to the frame narrative of the novel.
I look forward to seeing if the similarities between the two novels continue!
