Since last Tuesday, I have treated the classroom as my safe zone. For a short while, I focus on the girls in front of me and what they need to learn. But sometimes the literature addresses our times in most unanticipated ways.

The seniors are studying fairy tales, the juniors are reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (generally loving Mr. Rochester), and the tenth graders are reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

Today students led discussion of Chapter 6. Chapter 6 is an odd chapter. It begins with a mule and ends with Janie standing up for herself. The mule is of course a symbol of people treated inhumanely and forced to work for the benefit of others.

Earlier in Chapter 2, Nanny calls African-American women the mules of the world, because black men forces them to carry the burden which the white men originally placed on the black men.

In Chapter 6, Jody buys Matt Bonner’s mule and frees it to roam until it dies. Janie praises Joe for his generosity, comparing him to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

He scarcely deserves that praise as my students were quick to point out, because he slaps Janie so hard her ear ring and he verbally abuses her. She stands still and he goes back to the store. My students talked about how strange that was — that he would just go back to the store. But then one remarked that he is going back to the place where he feels powerful and where there are lots of other men who feel they too can beat and abuse their women.

The students talked the final episode in the chapter when Mrs. Tony comes to the store to beg Jody to give her a little meat so she can feed her children. Jody gives her a tiny piece of meat and sends her on her way. The men who sit around watching begin to talk about how they would “kill her cemetery dead” or “break her or kill her” for her disrespect as a wife. The girls talked about how Jody likes being with these men, even though earlier he called them trashy, because they affirm his male power. The girls talked about how the men in the store normalized violence against women.

Then I called their attention to what Janie does. Janie breaks into the conversation and tells the men that they don’t know all God’s business:

Janie did what she had never done before, that is, thrust herself into the conversation. “Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised He was ’bout y’all turning out so smart after Him makin’ yuh different; and how surprised y’all is goin’ tuh be if you ever find out you don’t know half as much ’bout us as you think you do. It’s so easy to make yo’self out God Almighty when you ain’t got nothin’ tuh strain against but women and chickens.”

Hurston, Zora Neale (2009-03-17). Their Eyes Were Watching God (pp. 88-89). Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Kindle Edition.

The girls talked about how the men use women to make themselves feel more powerful and less helpless. The girls talked about how infuriating it was that women and chickens were equated. The girls observed that Janie assumes the voice of God to gather for herself authority in the face of their misogyny.

Then I asked them why Janie had decided to “thrust herself into the conversation.”

“To protect Mrs. Tony!”

“What does that say about what women should do?”

“Women need to stand up for each other!”

End of lesson.