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Journey’s Conflict

A journey consists of a quester traveling to a place for any reason. A journey is more meaningful as it is completed because the quester is enlightened at the end. During the journey the quester faces many obstacles threatening to stop their path to enlightenment that they must learn to overcome. It is these obstacles that make a journey much more than a trip to another place. Authors William Faulkner and Zora Neale Hurston wrote the novels As I Lay Dying and Their Eyes Were Watching God, respectively, as journey novels. Faulkner illustrates the journey of the Bundren family as they travel from home to Jefferson to bury the family’s matriarch, Addie. Hurston describes the journey of Janie Crawford who travels from city to city by way of a new marriage. The novels’ main character and narrator both complete their journeys with a newfound clarification about themselves. Faulkner and Hurston depict the individual journeys of central characters Darl and Janie as challenges against the conflict man versus self.

Life’s biggest conflict has always been man against himself. Janie and Darl both confront this obstacle on their journey to self-knowledge. Janie tackles what to do in reaction to things that challenge her situation. She discovers new knowledge with each marriage. In her first marriage to Logan Killicks in West Florida, Janie comes to this conclusion, “She knew now that marriage did not make love.” Janie’s relationship with Logan fails because she is too young and she cannot grow into herself under Logan as he says, “You ain’t got no particular place. It’s wherever Ah need yuh.” He sees Janie as a young girl who needs to be forced and molded into someone he has control over. Janie is more independent than Joe thinks and she leaves the marriage for a new town, Eatonville, beginning a new marriage to Joe Starks. Joe starts by treating Janie right, but changes forcing Janie to come upon another realization. Janie learns that silence and speak can be a strength. Joe hits Janie once to serve as humiliation and Janie responds with silence as she states, “No matter what Jody did, she said nothing.” Even though many say it takes powerful a woman to leave an abusive man, it also takes a powerful woman to stand by an abusive man. Janie does voice her opinion of Joe to him before his death, proclaiming, “You wouldn’t listen. You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don’t know half me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin’ de works of yo’ own hands, and cuffin’ folks around in their minds till you didn’t see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have.” Joe Starks never connects with Janie because he is too focused on own his desire to be a ‘big voice’. Even when Janie expresses her concerns about their relationship, Joe never listens and Janie is right; he misses out on all of the love he and Janie could have shared. Janie gains one finale insight in her last marriage with Tea Cake, a younger partner who takes her to the Everglades. Janie learns about the joy of life as Tea Cake’s spontaneous nature influences her. Janie stands behind her love to Tea Cake and her choices, choosing the option to speak out against her community’s speculations instead of being silent, “Dat’s all right, Pheoby, tell’em….’cause mah love didn’t work lak they love, if dey ever had any.” Janie is pleasantly rewarded as she ends her journey announcing, “She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.” Unlike Janie, Darl in As I lay Dying, does not receive the same enjoyable reward.

Darl narrates nineteen of fifty-nine chapters in As I lay Dying, serving as the closest thing to a narrator. Darl begins his journey already having great insight of his surroundings which is noted by the reader with his descriptive, poetic diction. Darl narrations make him the most sensible character. Cora describes him as, “I always said Darl was different from those others.” Darl has a supernatural intellect that allows him to uncover secrets without the secret carrier telling him. This talent makes his community alienate him and serves as an unhelpful ability to Darl as he cannot fully understand the private lives of the people around him. As the family travels to bury Addie, Darl confronts himself as he objects with her burial plans. It is an obstacle that he tries to defeat burning down the barn Addie’s coffin rests in. Jewel counteracts his brother’s plans, rescuing the coffin and animals inside the barn. Darl is seen as an uncompassionate person to the reader as he deliberately burns down the barn and questions Jewel about who is his real father relentlessly. But that notion of a non-caring person is knocked down as Vardman accounts Darl lying on top of Addie’s coffin telling Darl, “You needn’t cry. Jewel got her out. You needn’t cry, Darl.” Darl’s true intentions are to respect his mother’s death by getting her in the ground as quickly as possible so that she can rest in peace. Darl loves his mother unconditionally, which is shown as he cries over her coffin.

Darl is not rewarded with a delightful treat for his actions. He is sent to a mental asylum by his family they do not have the funds to pay for Darl’s destruction to Gillespie’s barn. Darl inquires Cash with, “I thought you would have told me. I never thought you wouldn’t have,” as the Bundrens assist in holding him down to be taken to a mental asylum. Darl is never told about the deal his family makes with Gillespie. He is ambushed by them and naturally loses his mind. He begins to narrate in third person uttering, “Darl has gone to Jackson, they put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like heads of owls when he passed.” Darl is now a sympathetic victim of his journey as a result of caring for a family that betrays him. Cash defends the family’s decision proposing that madness, “Ain’t so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.” Therefore he believes that destroying a man’s property makes a person crazy and “that’s how he (Darl) can’t see eye to eye with other folks.” The Bundrens treatment to Darl is unjust. They fear Darl’s uncanny talent to get into their minds and unapologetically take the first opportunity to remove him from their thoughts.

Both Janie and Darl have reached the climax of their journeys to self-enlightenment despite the struggles within themselves. Darl confronts his lack to act compassionate to other’s challenges. He finally breaks through his hostile exterior as he breaks down on top of his mother’s coffin. Days later, putting his desires aside, he tells his pa, “Let’s take Cash to the doctor first. She’ll wait. She’s already waited nine days.” Darl wants to get Cash’s injured leg cared for before Addie is buried. This is an unselfish act that justifies Darl’s change. He finally realizes he has been falling into despair and honestly cares about his family’s well-being. Janie confronts her inability to understand love. She speaks about reaching her horizon, which is a metaphor for her dreams, throughout the novel. She reaches her horizon at the end of her journey, declaring, “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back.” By reaching her horizon Janie comes to an understanding about love and informs her listener, “Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lik de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” Janie could only come to this conclusion by facing three different marriages. Her first marriage provided no love, her second marriage provided little love, while her last marriage brought her an abundance of love she could not maintain all at once.

Faulkner and Hurston successfully complete their task to write a novel about a character that faces an internal conflict, while facing opposing obstacles on their journeys to self-enlightenment in their works As I Lay Dying and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Faulkner’s character Darl concludes in his self-enlightenment that his family is dysfunctional, but he will still care for their welfare. His family teaches him about betrayal. He no longer has control over his own mind, switching between first and third person, because he loses his control over other people’s minds. Darl’s gain of self-enlightenment will enable him to reach redemption and learn to live the norm society accepts. Hurston’s character Janie concludes in her self-enlightenment an understanding of love and that she has learned love from the people that created her journey. Janie creates a new outlook on life that gives her peace and grants her the ability to begin a new chapter in life full of happiness. The characters have only completed part one of their respective journeys. Janie and Darl will continue on a new journey that may ultimately end with their deaths. The readers conclude that a journey is a complex combination of many chapters of life, with each one closing in self-enlightenment.