A Work of Artifice

To me this poem was very straight forward about the oppression of women. Of course this poem made me think of Janie. The first thing you read of Their Eyes Were Watching God is a blatant slap in the face to the treatment of women. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” Why do women need to live imagined lives but can’t imagine their own ship? Later the book states about Janie “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” Women don’t have dreams only dreams that their children will fulfill their dreams.

This poem raise the chicken and the egg issue did women choose their pretty “pots” and give up their hopes and dreams first or did women decide to want the pots and empty lives because they were forced to? For most of history women have looked to man as protectors and providers. They felt lucky that they have someone to prune them and keep the 9 inches tall. Women have been taught to strive to find a good gardener no matter how sharp his gardening tools are, and do as he says. Nanny speaks of the relation between man and woman "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule ud de world so fur as Ah can see." No matter how many times a woman is torn down by a man she is still supposed to love him, and be great full. The hands we love to touch hit us the hardest.

Most classic story tales have damsels in distress and the prince always croons over them. That damsel is always so lucky to be saved. Even though men might be the problem women are a driving force. Women are their own and each others harshest critics. We find value through beauty and have high expiations of what beauty is. Not only do we need our hair in curlers we need to be dainty and graceful.

Women have been starved of knowledge for most of history. Even in some countries today women aren’t aloud to go to school. Our brains have been starved of knowledge and crippled with lies. Like the lie Janie believed that with love comes marriage. I watched a episode of Bewitched the other day and Samantha’s husband was trying to teach her to drive, and she told him “These new gadgets scare me!” even a empower female witch lied to the little girls of America.