The Tragedy of Individual Struggle in Jonah S Gourd Vine

Taylor 1

Terrell Taylor

11/14/10

Dr. Richards

Hurston Critical Essay

The Tragedy of Individual Struggle in Jonah’s Gourd Vine

As a modernist text, Zora Neale Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine takes place within two worlds; one of these worlds is a carnal and physical world of tradition, represented favorably in the plantation community in the beginning of the novel. The other world is that of the ideal, abstract, and modern order, where religious and “civilized” structure imposes itself, and positions itself above the former physical world. The story can be discussed as a violent interaction between these worlds, where the modern civilized world demonizes the carnal as sinful. John Pearson is the site of this conflict, and his journey explores the struggle of Southern African American communities, in their attempt to achieve agency and selfhood. Anthony Wilson illustrates that the plantation community embodies a sensual and physically manifested understanding of both nature and divinity that does not create a sharp and dichotomized distinction between the two, and posits this understanding as intuitive to the point where words and articulation cannot capture it (67-8). The civilized world in the novel is introduced with the Orthodox Church community of Lucy Ann Potts, where the power of language to interpret and explain becomes paramount, and the physical and sexual reality of John is to be denounced. The interaction of these worlds opens the space for John to pursue preaching, where for a short while, he is able to merge these two worlds, and exist in a powerful and agency filled space; following the tradition of the modern tragedy, John is not allowed to remain in this space of agency, between worlds, and ultimately falls into prey to the demonized sins of the carnal world.

I argue that Jonah’s Gourd Vine presents the conflict between the carnal primitive world and the ideal modern world in line with a Lacanian conception of the imaginary and symbolic orders; specifically I contend that the novel explores the distinction and conflicts between these worlds, ultimately presenting the two as incommensurable, and locating the modern tragedy (within the novel, symbolized in John’s death) as the result of this incommensurability. This argument draws from Wilson’s “The Music of God, Man, and Beast: Spirituality and Modernity in Jonah's Gourd Vine” for its clear analysis of the modern and traditional worlds through the images of music, religion, and culture. Additionally, the Lacanian readings of the symbolic and imaginary with respect to Modernity and Modernism can be credited to Doreen Fowler’s “Matricide and the Mother’s Revenge: As I Lay Dying.”

John Pearson’s time in the plantation communitycarries a positive tone, as John experience success in his work, begins to learn to read, and is away from the negativity of his father. Wilson looks specifically to the celebrations in the plantation community, with the “stunning evocation of traditional African survivals in African American culture, embodied in the music of the drum” (67). According to Wilson, this connection between the African culture and the plantation culture should be emphasized for its eroticism as “the sacred music that the community creates celebrates the physical; it comes directly from their bodies, with no intermediary instruments or other artifacts interposed between the worshipper and prayer” (68). Additionally, the African elements within the celebration are intrinsically erotic, as the values within the songs are meant to educate and emphasize sexuality (Wilson 68). As such Wilson argues that “At this stage, then, John’s theology carries with it no conception of adulterous sin. His sexuality is central, not antithetical, to his identity and membership in the community” (68). This identification of John as sexual becomes a problem when Lucy appears, as even the mention of the word bottom caries a stigma of improper and raunchy (Wilson 70-1).

This presence of sexuality is easily connected with Lacan’s imaginary order, where the physical and concrete are everywhere, and the verbal and abstract are absent. Fowler describes the imaginary order as a distancing from verbal and tangible formations of reality. Fowler explains that “to enter the realm of the symbolic, the child must become aware of difference….a sign has meaning only because of its difference from other signs” (317). Fowler refers specifically to Addie Bundren within As I Lay Dying, and her connection with her children that is not one that becomes clear with articulation, bur refers to an emotive connection that is intuited rather than explained. Within the plantation community, specifically in the celebrations, the connection between the lives of the people, the natural and the divine is not articulated. Rather, Wilson argues that “John’s plantation community makes music that is all drums and rhythm. Its lyrics are wholly subordinate to the transcendent rhythms that invoke an intuitive connection to community and to deity” (70). Both of these textual scenes rely on more individualized, concrete, and emotional ways of knowing and being as opposed to the structured and oppressive, and arguably modern, ways of representing existence.

The entrance of Lucy is described by Wilson in terms of transition to a modern world. Wilson argues that “Despite her abiding religious faith, Lucy in many ways signifies modernity. Hurston aligns her early on with education and financial success, and at their first meeting she shames John for the apparent backwardness of the life he has led” (68). The material culture of the plantation and of John’s upbringing become an object of critique; Wilson particularly discusses the issue of shoes, as John is ashamed for being barefoot. Lucy marks a new understanding of spirituality for John as well, as their relation develops mostly within the church. Along with this movement in terms of religion, John also begins to rigorously pursue literacy. The literary pursuits that once seemed appropriate to present in a woman’s presence, become vulgar and disgusting for Lucy. The Church, in tandem with Lucy, mark a point where John experiences “a crucial and ultimately tragic bifurcation begins in his understanding of his physical and spiritual selves” (Wilson 68).

This phase, when contrasted with plantation community, holds clear elements of the symbolic realm. Delineations manifest that separate the spiritual from the physical. Within these separations, rules and boundaries become rigid. Sexuality and anything that draws from the presence of the concrete, real and physical body “becomes something to conceal and to contain” (Wilson 68). To keep with Wilson’s analysis of song, the music of the Church “is treble rather than bass, and centers on words and notes rather than on rhythms” (70). This parallels removal of the emotive, physical and concrete (bass) and the replacement of the intelligible, ideal, and abstract (words). The bifurcation that begins is symptomatic of the crisis of modernity in a larger sense. The world that John knows is not accepted by the dominant one, and his life and his values are demonized by totalizing and narrow ideals of the church; consequently, anything that is not the value of the church (salvation, heaven, escape from the sinful physical world) is denounced (becomes a part of that sinful world).

Hurston creates a moment where the modern crisis can be resolved. Wilson illustrates that “John’s sermons, intensely rhythmic and lyrical, represent not so much a transition from the ‘music of God’ to the ‘music of man’ as a divinely inspired marriage of the two, evoking John’s own marriage to Lucy” (72). John’s sermons are attempts to bridge the worlds, combining the best of both, and ultimately become greater than any entity that exclusively hails from either. John’s sermons not only empower him within the community, but also protect him from the consequences of his sin as “time after time, as his sins threaten to bring him exile, his sermons, preached by Lucy’s advice, cause the community to rally behind him and his deacons to bear him up” (Wilson, 72.) What is intrinsic to the power of the sermon is Lucy, as she “becomes John’s muse, granting him access to a new sphere of spirituality that blends with the old” (Wilson 71).

Fowler might liken this to the replacement of Addie by her children, with various objects that then gain the power of the imaginary. Fowler explains Lacan’s theory that “to enter the realm of the symbolic, the child must renounce his/her desire for the mother and generate substitutes for her that are permissible within the Law of the Father” (320). For John, the imaginary space of the plantation is filled with the substitute of Lucy, who as his wife, is permitted by the oppressive structure of the church. What should be noted is that, like the fish, the horse, and the coffin, Lucy is rendered as an object. This is necessary for it to be an object with symbolic power comparable to that of the imaginary realm; this object must be entirely knowable and able of being appropriated to a particular meaning and status, both of which, are characteristics that are beneath a respected and dignified human being. As such, the resolution to the modern crisis of alienation requires the dehumanization of Lucy, as evident in the way that John violates the marriage in his adultery, and is violent towards Lucy in moments where she tries to advise him. At the same time however, John yearns for full autonomy, and wants to be free to see other women; as such when Lucy dies “feels freed from any religious guilt his sexual trysts might have carried: ‘There was no more sin. Just a free man having his will of women’ (136)” (Wilson 73).

This hybrid space ultimately fails once Lucy dies. John thus loses his stable connection to the imaginary. Now, the sexual and sensual power of the plantation community is denounced by the civilized order of the church community. Instead of connecting sexuality with the musical celebrations of the plantation, sexuality is now connected with the train, as it “provides the most explicit link between John’s sexuality and an animalistic lack of control” (Wilson 73) and enabled him to be unfaithful to Lucy. The train is a tense, frightening, and isolated symbol of the physical and sexual; most notably, it contains no connection to the ideals of nature or divinity. It can only be understood as pure, uncultured, and tasteless sexual lust. Thus sex, which is something that John identifies with, is demonized as simply vile and evil. As such, his death from the train is to be understood as his submission to lust that ultimately destroys him. What is lost permanently is any way of accessing sexuality in a way that does not deviate from an empowering and valued divinity.

Hurston’s attempt to resolve the crisis of modern alienation and despair fails. With the totalizing and bifurcated expressions of modernity; any attempt to wed the two relies on a symbolic ordering that will inevitably betray the project of hybridization. As such, Hurston’s novel is a modern tragedy, as it reveals that the struggle for self-agency and the production of one’s own values, will always fail because of the reliance of symbolic ordering.

Works Cited

Fowler, Doreen. “Matricide and the Mother's Revenge: As I Lay Dying.” As I Lay Dying: A Norton Critical Edition. Wells Street, London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2010. 315-28.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Jonah's Gourd Vine. Modern Classics edition. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008.

Wilson, Anthony. “The Music of God, Man, and Beast: Spirituality and Modernity in Jonah's Gourd Vine.” The Southern Literary Journal 35.3 (2003): 64-78.