All You Need Is Love (Maybe)

While the authors of all three novels we have finished reading in class thus far have contained criticism for one another and varied in their approaches, I think it can be said that all of them have a significant focus on the self discovery of the protagonist (perhaps most centrally in Invisible Man). It seems to me, however, that Native Son and Invisible Man are both more existentialist novels, emphasizing/exploring more the significance of an amount of individual agency and will in determining one's own identity. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, was criticized for a lack of  "message" and "thought" and described as "cloaked in that facile sensuality" by Richard Wright; Hurston suggests that ultimately it is the individual will that lets one discover more of one's self but it is the basis beneath a journey that requires an idealistic faith, most notably in another person, that is, finding true love.

It is easy to dismiss this suggestion immediately, label it as "facile" as Wright does, and I admit I felt this way initially and can still see some of where Wright is coming from -- not because I believe her material is invalid but because I think she could go into greater depth with what she already has in order to bring out the complexity of her story. Janie's peace of mind at the end of the novel still seems a bit fabricated and impossible but this book has led me to question my easy dismissal of what I assume is idealism and think about where the balance is between being too idealistic and too skeptic (or maybe even a defeatist). I don't think we can ever really be sure what realism encompasses because we are all basing the definition of that off of our own limited experiences.

Notably, Wright and Ellison both portray women as mostly inconsequential characters, a means to an end but of no equal importance to the protagonists. While a lot of this is a misguided perception of women, it is also due to their belief that finding your sense of self comes from feelings and realizations within, a solipsistic view. Bigger can be viewed as the antithesis of Janie.

Yet in thinking about this, I can see how "love" may even be discreetly necessary to Bigger and the narrator. If love can be perceived as genuinely connecting with others -- which is often so rare even among who we call friends -- then we can see why it was so difficult for Bigger and the narrator to have a sense of identity. Bigger never really understood the people in his life and the narrator is forever realizing how he has no genuine connection with those he deems significant in his life. If they weren't born into a society that forced them into a disadvantage to connect with certain people, might it have been easier for them to understand themselves? Ellison makes it clear that it takes a certain amount of awareness of the outside world in order to be self aware so it makes sense to me that understanding someone else might be essential to self awareness. Paradoxically, it is the realization of their disconnection from others that makes Bigger and the narrator get closer to the truth, in other words, a realization of the lack of "love". Significantly, the narrator ultimately cannot stay underground, resolves to attempt to connect, even if it is impossible because he is ultimately unsatisfied, just as Bigger is not completely enlightened. In depicting Janie's complete peace, Hurston might not be depicting common reality exactly but suggesting the possibility of reality and the potential/significance of connection, an argument that solipsism may be constructed from defeatism.

Doubt still remains with me however because while I see how love might be extremely valuable to
self awareness and getting closer to enlightenment; I'm still hesitant to believe one can really get there. Since one deprived of love can manage to get closer to enlightenment in their disillusionment, perhaps it is possible for them to reach the same amount of truth as another person aided by love yet lacking in other realizations. I guess what I'm trying to say is that just as the coming-down-to- reality of disillusionment is not enough, the yearning-towards-reality of love might also be insufficient.