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Their Eyes Were Watching God: The Narrator

The point of view in Their Eyes Were Watching God seems to be from an omniscient third-person narrator, who seems to be completely unconnected to everyone else in the story. The most basic and obvious interpretation of this would be that the narrator is detached from the story and only exists to provide the reader with information and descriptions on what is going on. This is generally the most "safe" and reasonable interpretation of any third person omniscient narrator in a story. However, I believe that it goes deeper than this. I believe that the narrator is supposed to be a representation of Janie, most likely being an aged-up Janie reflecting on her past. The "omniscient" aspect of the narrator could be explained by her understanding the full story later on in life as she looks back on it. This would make sense because as far as I can remember, the narrator never says or does anything that would be impossible for Janie to either figure out or hear from people ...

The Significance of Dana's Arm

At the beginning of Kindred , we are thrust into a confusing situation with Dana explaining that she lost her arm on her last trip. Obviously, this does not make sense at first, but by the end of the book we see the events leading up to the loss of her arm. But the question remains of why she lost her arm, both from a narrative perspective and from a story perspective. In class, we talked about how Butler herself said that she had Dana lose her arm because she couldn't come back whole from an experience in that time period. It needed to have some sort of permanent mark on her character, and she decided to represent this by her losing a limb. However, I believe that there is another interpretation. Her losing the part of her arm that was grabbed by Rufus represents her cutting off part of her past/bloodline. Throughout the entire story, she has had a kinder view of Rufus because he is her ancestor and because she has seen him grow up. But when she decides to kill him, she is putting...

Mumbo Jumbo: History, Fiction, or Mythology?

In class, we discussed whether the alternate history presented in Mumbo Jumbo was historical, fictional, or mythological in nature. I personally think that it existed in between all three of these categories. The usage of Egyptian mythology and historical/religious settings and characters makes it so that placing Chapter 52 and Chapter 52 in a definitive category difficult. Some people may say that it is easy to say that it is not historical because none of these events have been documented or have any basis in reality as far as we know. However, under a postmodernist interpretation - specifically either Maza or Doctorow - one can argue that these chapters represent their own view of history. Maza would say that the lack of evidence does not disprove it, but rather makes this as a valid alternative account of historical events. On the other hand, Doctorow would say that the "fictional" nature of the characters and events does not make it less real, pointing towards the fund...

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