Starting in chapter 15 we are introduced to a seemingly unlikeable and nasty character, Mrs. Taylor. Mrs. Taylor, a mixed woman, has characteristics of both a black woman, and a white woman. She is also an exceedingly proud woman and holds the steadfast view that black people are inferior to white people, and as a result of her partial "whiteness" she too is superior to fully black people. For this reason she is very friendly towards Janie, who even more than Mrs. Taylor has certain resemblances to a white person. Mrs. Taylor does not create a likable character for herself. Certainly Tea Cake harbors an intense dislike for her, saying to Janie, "Ah hates dat woman lak poison. Keep her from round dis house. her look like a white woman" (143).
As I kept reading through her various remarks to Janie I certainly started to dislike her more and more until I came across the passage on 144-145 that explained why Mrs. Taylor continued to seek Janie's friendship even after Janie scorns her; "She felt honored by Janie's acquaintance and she quickly forgave and forgot snubs in order to keep it. Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those who were more negroid than herself" (144). the passage then goes on to describe Mrs. Taylor's infatuation with white skin as being akin to that of religious fervor; "Mrs. Turner like all other believers had built an alter to the unattainable--Caucasian characteristics for all" (145). At this point I was honestly starting to feel sorry for Mrs. Taylor. Living a life where no one really accepts you, and you always seek the impossible seems like an unpleasant existence indeed.
It then occurred to me reading this passage that perhaps Hurston meant for her readers to feel a certain sense of pity for Mrs. Taylor. Perhaps what Hurston really wants to show in this character is the ridiculousness of white supremacy, and what it's influence can make people into. By showing Mrs. Taylor as such a deluded and miserable person it says to me that this is her social commentary on white suppression of blacks, a topic somewhat scarce in this book. This, at least, is how I will choose to interpret the existence of Mrs. Taylor.
I think there's something to this idea. Mrs. Taylor's bitter self-hatred does seem both irrational and, paradoxically, racist. Hurston brings out the fact that America's obsession with skin tone (and degrees of light and darkness, a particular obsession in the South) messes with people's heads.
ReplyDeleteWe might point out, though, that she gives her protagonist these same kind of quasi-caucasian features in a way that marks her as "special," but Janie herself doesn't seem to put much stock in these distinctions, and she is clearly uncomfortable both with Taylor's praise of her and her unkind words about Tea Cake.
That's a good point, but perhaps this is her way of further saying that the idea of white supremacy is so ridiculous. Mrs. Taylor who holds skin color above all else is ostracized and hated by the community because of the way she acts. In comparison Janie thinks nothing of it and certainly doesn't hold herself above anyone else because of it. As opposed to Mrs. Taylor Janie is widely accepted and for the most part liked in the community. I'd read this as Hurston's message that what determines your worth as a human is not the color of your skin, but how you act towards yourself and others. Come to think of it it's too bad I didn't think of this while I was writing my post...
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