Prodigal Daughters
by Staci Miller
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. It’s a story of forgiveness many of us in the Bible Belt have heard since childhood. An ungrateful son demands his inheritance from his father and then leaves to live an extravagant lifestyle. After the money is gone the son returns, repentant and famished, to a celebration on his behalf held by his generous father. With the story Jesus is trying to illustrate the unconditionally forgiving nature of God, but culturally the term “prodigal son” has come to mean something much different. When a person is referred to as the “prodigal son,” it means they are a person who has left a community and is welcomed back joyously.
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God begins with what looks like a prodigal son story, but what turns out to be something much different. When Janie returns to Eatonville she is mocked and ignored after her journey instead of the joyous celebration we expect. Only her one best friend, Pheoby, comes to her house with the desire to feed her When reading the opening scene of Their Eyes I couldn’t help but be reminded of Sula’s return to The Bottom in Toni Morrison’s Sula. When Sula returns she is initially treated as an incoming evil presence. Like Janie, Sula is also only welcomed by her best friend (who she then betrays), and then is left to live a generally solitary life in the house her grandmother lived in. What is different about the return of these women? What about their leaving causes their communities to disown them? Is it racially motivated, or is it because of their gender?
To answer the question about whether this difference is motivated by race or gender, I look back at Milkman in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Milkman leaves Michigan on a quest to find family gold. When he returns without gold but with the story of his family, he more or less falls right back into his place in the community (after a brief falling out with Pilate). He, like Janie, has left to seek adventure but is not met with the contempt Janie is. The idea seems to be that it is okay for black men to leave their communities and return, but not black women.
In Sula, Sula leaves for the noble cause of education, but also for adventure. She returns to her hometown, The Bottom, to the ominous sign of birds falling from the sky dead, which causes her to be branded a witch. Then when a young boy breaks his arm in her presence her label is solidified. What ties her rejection by the community to the rejection Janie receives is the common judge: the women in their community.
In the accounts of Eatonville before Janie leaves I couldn’t help but notice one missing perspective. There is almost no mention in the novel of Janie’s interaction with the women of the town except Pheoby. While we are told of female porch sitters who judge Janie when she walks back into town, it’s clear that those who sat on the porch of her store before she left were men. When Janie first arrives in Eatonville with her husband Joe we hear conversations between then men in the town about Janie’s looks and Joe’s initiative to incorporate a town. Joe stands on the porch and talks with them and won’t let Janie come outside in order to keep her separate from the men. When Janie meets Tea Cake and he asks her to play checkers she is taken aback because no man has ever respected her as an equal enough to ask her to play checkers. It is clear that Janie doesn’t have much interaction with the women in the community who may have accepted her as an equal had they been able to interact with her. By the time she is able to interact with who she chooses she has one female friend who ends up being her messenger from the other women in the town, filling Janie in on the gossip about her.
More common threads between Janie and Sula can be found in their looks and their sexual independence. Both Janie and Sula are described as beautiful and well dressed. Janie, however, is so beautiful that when she returns to Eatonville in a ragged shirt and overalls the men of the town can’t help but stare and the women notice. This acknowledgement of Janie’s beauty causes a stream of ill judgment towards her. The women sit on their porches and talk about how she has likely been cheated by her new lover that she left with and is returning a broken woman. As readers, we know this couldn’t be further from the truth, but in order to comfort their own insecurities the women on those porches have to go to the worst scenario first. Seeing that Janie is once again free of a man also reignites the fear in these women that she will steal their husbands. When Joe dies the women in the town want to see Janie off with a suitor as soon as possible (but of course not the young, attractive Tea Cake). Janie has her choice of any man she wants to be with and this fact scares the women of the town. Sula, too, is emotionally and sexually independent but lives a promiscuous lifestyle and welcoming any man into her arms who wishes to be there. The fears of these women are unfounded, neither Janie or Sula wishes to steal their husbands, but the insecurity caused by having little influence over their husbands causes the women in both communities to be on the defensive against these two women.
Both Janie and Sula wish to be welcomed into their communities as active members, but both are held on to as outsiders because of the jealousy of others. Both of these women have real value that could be utilized by their communities, Sula has a college education and Janie has life and work experience most women around her couldn’t imagine, but instead that value is stifled because of their independence. When the women of the communities found little they could rule over, they chose to band together to rule over the strongest among them.
by Staci Miller
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. It’s a story of forgiveness many of us in the Bible Belt have heard since childhood. An ungrateful son demands his inheritance from his father and then leaves to live an extravagant lifestyle. After the money is gone the son returns, repentant and famished, to a celebration on his behalf held by his generous father. With the story Jesus is trying to illustrate the unconditionally forgiving nature of God, but culturally the term “prodigal son” has come to mean something much different. When a person is referred to as the “prodigal son,” it means they are a person who has left a community and is welcomed back joyously.
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God begins with what looks like a prodigal son story, but what turns out to be something much different. When Janie returns to Eatonville she is mocked and ignored after her journey instead of the joyous celebration we expect. Only her one best friend, Pheoby, comes to her house with the desire to feed her When reading the opening scene of Their Eyes I couldn’t help but be reminded of Sula’s return to The Bottom in Toni Morrison’s Sula. When Sula returns she is initially treated as an incoming evil presence. Like Janie, Sula is also only welcomed by her best friend (who she then betrays), and then is left to live a generally solitary life in the house her grandmother lived in. What is different about the return of these women? What about their leaving causes their communities to disown them? Is it racially motivated, or is it because of their gender?
To answer the question about whether this difference is motivated by race or gender, I look back at Milkman in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Milkman leaves Michigan on a quest to find family gold. When he returns without gold but with the story of his family, he more or less falls right back into his place in the community (after a brief falling out with Pilate). He, like Janie, has left to seek adventure but is not met with the contempt Janie is. The idea seems to be that it is okay for black men to leave their communities and return, but not black women.
In Sula, Sula leaves for the noble cause of education, but also for adventure. She returns to her hometown, The Bottom, to the ominous sign of birds falling from the sky dead, which causes her to be branded a witch. Then when a young boy breaks his arm in her presence her label is solidified. What ties her rejection by the community to the rejection Janie receives is the common judge: the women in their community.
In the accounts of Eatonville before Janie leaves I couldn’t help but notice one missing perspective. There is almost no mention in the novel of Janie’s interaction with the women of the town except Pheoby. While we are told of female porch sitters who judge Janie when she walks back into town, it’s clear that those who sat on the porch of her store before she left were men. When Janie first arrives in Eatonville with her husband Joe we hear conversations between then men in the town about Janie’s looks and Joe’s initiative to incorporate a town. Joe stands on the porch and talks with them and won’t let Janie come outside in order to keep her separate from the men. When Janie meets Tea Cake and he asks her to play checkers she is taken aback because no man has ever respected her as an equal enough to ask her to play checkers. It is clear that Janie doesn’t have much interaction with the women in the community who may have accepted her as an equal had they been able to interact with her. By the time she is able to interact with who she chooses she has one female friend who ends up being her messenger from the other women in the town, filling Janie in on the gossip about her.
More common threads between Janie and Sula can be found in their looks and their sexual independence. Both Janie and Sula are described as beautiful and well dressed. Janie, however, is so beautiful that when she returns to Eatonville in a ragged shirt and overalls the men of the town can’t help but stare and the women notice. This acknowledgement of Janie’s beauty causes a stream of ill judgment towards her. The women sit on their porches and talk about how she has likely been cheated by her new lover that she left with and is returning a broken woman. As readers, we know this couldn’t be further from the truth, but in order to comfort their own insecurities the women on those porches have to go to the worst scenario first. Seeing that Janie is once again free of a man also reignites the fear in these women that she will steal their husbands. When Joe dies the women in the town want to see Janie off with a suitor as soon as possible (but of course not the young, attractive Tea Cake). Janie has her choice of any man she wants to be with and this fact scares the women of the town. Sula, too, is emotionally and sexually independent but lives a promiscuous lifestyle and welcoming any man into her arms who wishes to be there. The fears of these women are unfounded, neither Janie or Sula wishes to steal their husbands, but the insecurity caused by having little influence over their husbands causes the women in both communities to be on the defensive against these two women.
Both Janie and Sula wish to be welcomed into their communities as active members, but both are held on to as outsiders because of the jealousy of others. Both of these women have real value that could be utilized by their communities, Sula has a college education and Janie has life and work experience most women around her couldn’t imagine, but instead that value is stifled because of their independence. When the women of the communities found little they could rule over, they chose to band together to rule over the strongest among them.