I find it very interesting that there is a Chinese woman living in a small town such as Spoon River in the early 19th century. The cruel way in which the people of Spoon River received her may have been also because of her unique outer apparence, since she is most likely the only Asian person in the town, if not only Asian person the white townspeople have ever known.

Reading this poem, it seems like George Gray truly understands what one must do to truly live his/her life to its fullest. It’s too bad that he came to this realization only after his death.

This poem also relates to Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston in that the main conflict in both Robert Fulton Tanner’s and Janie’s lives was their struggle against God: no matter how hard Janie tried to improve her life through her three marriages, God always seemed to make things difficult for her by arbitrary taking the things she held dear and keeping her from being happy for a long time. God (or the ogre Life in his case) controlled Robert F. Tanner’s life as well, and thus prevented him from being satisfied with his life.

“Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine…She was borned in slavery time when folks, dat is black folks, didn’t sit down anytime dey felt lak it. So sittin’ on porches lak de white madam looked lak uh mighty fine thing tuh her. Dat’s whut she wanted for me- don’t keer whut it cost. Git up on uh high chair and sit dere. She didn’t have time tuh think whut tuh do after you got up on de stool uh do nothin’. De object wuz tuh git dere. So Ah got up on the high stool lak she told me, but Pheoby, Ah done nearly languished tuh death up there.” (114)

The quote above is from Ch. 12, when Janie is talking to Pheoby about her relationship with Tea Cake and telling her what she plans to do next in her life. The quote is significant because it clearly shows Janie’s finally deciding to part with what Nanny had wanted for her. After being forced marry Logan when Nanny was still alive, Janie has striven to get herself closer to her ideal way of life with each subsequent marriage: she left Logan for Joey because she fell in love with Joey for his big dreams and ambitions; she realized later that Joey was just as (or even more) domineering and controlling a man as Logan had been, and her dream of having a romantic relationship deteriorated as years passed by; seeking a truly romantic relationship where she had the freedom to be the person she wanted to be and do the things she wished to do, she decided to go off with Tea Cake. The quote is also significant because it shows a fundamental difference between Janie and Nanny and what they want in their lives: having survived through the terrible conditions of slavery, having enough wealth to be able to sit in a high chair doing nothing was more than Nanny could want in her life. However, having been born after slavery ended, Janie didn’t have the same value Nanny had: knowing that being free (of forcible labor by whites) was a guaranteed right, she wanted so much more in life than Nanny did. She didn’t want others to have any control over her and her life in any way whatsoever, and thus resented at being told what to do by her husbands.

“Dat’s ’cause you need tellin’,” [Joe] rejoined hotly. “It would be pitiful if Ah didn’t. Sombody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves…They just think they’s thinkin’. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one.” (71)

Again in this chapter, we see that the main issue of the story isn’t race (as we may have assumed at the beginning of the story), but it is gender and one’s perspective on what a woman or a man should do and be. What Janie wants in her life is so different from what society (imposed by Joe) expects of her, and this is the main reason for the tension between the two (as well as between Janie and Logan in her first marriage). I found it very interesting how in Eatonville, it is mostly the men who sit around, gossip, and don’t do anything of value. This made a great contrast to how the old women were gossiping about Janie in the very first chapter. This goes on to show that neither gender can be defined by absolute stereotypical characteristics, just as Janie’s personality isn’t entirely feminine.

He had always wanted to be a big voice, but de white forlks had all de sayso where he come from and everwhere else, exceptin’ dis place dat colored folks was buildin’ theirselves. Dat was right too. De man dat built things oughta boss it. (28)

This quote reminded me of a comment Ishmael made in Moby-Dick when he was talking about the ethnic backgrounds of his shipmates and of people in the whaling industry in general:

As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are American born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. (107)

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . and one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

In trying to realize the American dream and improve our lives, we strive to propel ourselves ahead of time to reach closer to the ideal future that we seek. On the other hand, we cannot part entirely with the past, either: the things we do, the way we think, and the goals we dream of are all bound by our past experiences, and, no mater how hard we strive to become the person that we wish to be, it is impossible to get rid of our past identities or who we really are. The harder we try to reach that goal and gain happiness, the goal moves farther and farther away, and true happiness cannot be attained. In our lifelong, vain efforts to control the passage of time to grasp the future or forever remain in the happy memories of the past, we are constantly struck with the impossibility of mankind and struggle in the reality which the haunting, self-created image of the ideal forbids us to find happiness in.

Here’s a poem I found by Mary Oliver called “In Blackwater Woods”. I thought it related to the characters in The Great Gatsby, especially to Jay Gatsby: In Blackwater Woods