“The Woman Question” is just for appearances
When the narrator is assigned to “The Woman Question,” we have a new opportunity to see what he is really like alone. His geographical location of moving to a new city along with his distance from members of The Brotherhood allows us to see a new aspect of him, especially in terms of sexuality.
After giving his first lecture on this “Woman Question,” it is clear the narrator is proud of his work and takes the flood of follow up questions from people as evidence for his success. Though, I think his immediate attention following his lecture is actually because he is being sexualized by his audience. As we discussed in class, the narrator is a bit of a celebrity downtown -- he is recognized by plenty of people on his way to the lecture. Although the narrator does not recognize his sexual appeal at the beginning of the lecture, he seems to recognize it subconsciously as he thinks that the woman who approaches him after the lecture was “acting a symbolic role of life and feminine fertility (409).” In his first interactions with her, he already subconsciously sees her as a sexual object, no matter how hard he tries to fight that urge in the coming scenes. Though, the woman reciprocates these objectifying thoughts as she asks him vague questions about The Brotherhood just to get his attention: “I have economic security and leisure, but what is that, really, when so much is wrong with the world (410)?” With these abstract questions, she is using the Brotherhood as a means for her to gain some easy pleasure.
A key moment in this scene is when she calls him “primitive,” to which the narrator is taken aback by (413). She clarifies that she actually means “forceful” but it’s clear to the reader that she may have a racist and stereotypical way of viewing the narrator. In a way, part of her attraction to him is because of his race. I believe this moment where she once again objectifies the narrator also serves as a way to highlight the Narrator’s discomfort around white women (a theme that was also present with Bigger in Native Son). The narrator wants to act upon his urges and have sex with her, but is naturally resistant due to his fear of the power imbalance between their races. He is also wildly uncomfortable with the seeming adultery, which follows along the same lines of him being afraid of getting in trouble. The race divide he feels inhibits him from seeing her as a whole person.
Overall, the narrator and the women both objectify each other in chapter 19, using The Brotherhood as a means for their personal vendettas. By doing this, the entire purpose of addressing “The Woman Question” is ridiculed, making it clear that The Brotherhood just sent the narrator to work on it for appearances.
I loved reading your post and the points that you made! I found it interesting how the "woman question" was seen as a silly thing for him to do on the side. It's clear that the Brotherhood also objectifies women and only really care about them for their own gain. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post and I think the connections you talked about are really interesting. It got me wondering if the Brotherhood knew she would be interested in him and they sent him there so she would donate a large sum of money. I don't think we could ever figure that out, but I could definitely see that happening. And I think it's really awful how if he says yes to her advances she could blame him any time, and if he says no, she could accuse him of something as revenge. The power dynamic there is really bad.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post. It is really interesting to me how no one seems to really take "the woman question" seriously in this book. The Brotherhood sort of sends him there to get him out of the area they really have strong feelings about, and he even says that the women who go to the lectures don't really care. It does kind of seem like this situation is set up for him to be sexualized in this way if no one really cares about what he has to say.
ReplyDeleteThese ideas are really interesting! I think the Brotherhood sending the narrator off to deal with "the woman question" just adds another layer of superficiality to their work. Not only do they send him there only to get rid of him for a little while, the narrator's work isn't even socially impactful. The Brotherhood's use of "the woman question" as a substitute issue to occupy the narrator with also shows their lack of genuinely ethical motives.
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