Every book has a purpose. Some are obvious and out front, some are difficult to catch. Some books’ puproses are just to entertain, or to tell a story, and some are to persuade. Some are to inform, and some are to help. However, intentional or not, every book, newspaper article, magazine, or text makes an argument. They inform the reader of something that they need to know, even if it’s not a non-fiction book. This argument can vary greatly, and I’m going to explore some of these areguments and a couple examples of one.
When told to write this blog, I had to analyze the argument from a popular book I have read lately. The problem was, any book I had read lately was assigned reading. I haven’t been able to read any book out of enjoyment. Anything that you might be able to call a “good read” wasn’t exactly popular. Therefore, I decided to do this blog off of a book I had read after my freshman year, And Their Eyes Were Watching God . To give you a good idea of the events that occurred in this book, here is a summary from Wikipedia.com:
“The main character, an African American woman in her early forties named Janie Crawford, tells the story of her life and journey via an extended flashback to her best friend, Pheoby, so that Pheoby can tell Janie's story to the nosy community on her behalf. Her life has three major periods corresponding to her marriages to three very different men.
Nanny, Janie's grandmother, was a slave who became pregnant by her owner and gave birth to a daughter, Leafy. Though Nanny tries to create a good life for her daughter, Leafy is raped by her school teacher and she becomes pregnant with Janie. Shortly after Janie's birth, Leafy begins to drink and stay out at night. Eventually, she runs away leaving Janie with Nanny. Nanny transfers all the hopes she had for Leafy to Janie. When Janie is sixteen, Nanny sees her kissing a neighborhood boy, Johnny Taylor, and fears that Janie will become a "mule" to some man. Nanny arranges for Janie to marry Logan Killicks, an older man and farmer who is looking for a wife to keep his home and help on the farm. Although Janie was not interested in marriage at that time, her grandmother wanted her to have the kinds of things she never had the chance to have, and by marrying Logan Killicks Janie's grandmother thought it gave her the opportunity to make this possible.[3] Janie has the idea that marriage must involve love, forged in a pivotal early scene where she sees bees pollinating a pear tree, and believes that marriage is the human equivalent to this natural process. Logan Killicks, however, wants a domestic helper rather than a lover or partner, and after he tries to force her to help him with the hard labor of the farm, Janie runs off with the glib Jody (Joe) Starks, who takes her to Eatonville.
Starks arrives in Eatonville to find the residents devoid of ambition, so he arranges to buy more land from the neighboring landowner, hires some local residents to build a general store for him to own and run, and the people of the town appoint him mayor. Janie soon realizes that Joe wants her as a trophy wife. He wants the image of his perfect wife to reinforce his powerful position in town, as he asks her to run the store but forbids her from participating in the substantial social life that occurs on the store's front porch.
After Starks passes away, Janie finds herself financially independent and beset with suitors, some of whom are men of some means or have prestigious occupations, but she falls in love with a drifter and gambler named Vergible Woods who goes by the name of Tea Cake throughout the story. She falls in love with Tea Cake after he plays the guitar for her. She sells the store and the two head to Jacksonville and get married, only to move to the Everglades region ("the muck") soon after for Tea Cake to find work planting and harvesting beans. While their relationship has its ups and downs, including mutual bouts of jealousy, Janie now has the marriage with love that she had wanted.
The area is hit by the great Okeechobee hurricane, and while Tea Cake and Janie survive it, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog while saving Janie from drowning. He contracts the disease himself. He ultimately tries to shoot Janie with his pistol, but she shoots him with a rifle in self-defense. She is charged with murder. At the trial, Tea Cake's black, male friends show up to oppose her, while a group of local white women arrive to support her. The all-white jury acquits Janie, and she gives Tea Cake a lavish funeral. Tea Cake's friends forgive her, and they want her to remain in the Everglades. However, she decides to return to Eatonville, only to find the residents gossiping about her.”
Now that you can understand the plot overview, it will help you understand the argument that I believe the book is inadvertently conveying to its readers.
The author of Their eyes were watching God walks the reader through Janie’s journey towards happiness and how she strives to achieve it. Although it ends quite badly for Janie, she possessed happiness for a while. I believe that The author’s purpose in writing the book was that It is possible to find happiness. It may be a difficult journey, and it may not last forever, but it is achievable.
To achieve this purpose, The author uses many culturally significant words, phrases and dialects. This helps the reader to better relate to and understand the text. This is crucial as it is necessary for a reader to understand the text to understand the author’s argument.
Just like you can find an argument from reading And their eyes were watching God, and learn a valuable lesson from it, you can find an argument in anything. The argument might not be based off of the author’s intentions, however, but there is always a lesson to be learned. The argument may be a story, for you to learn from the triumphs and or mistakes of the characters, or just an explanation of a lesson that the author wants you to learn.
In conclusion, everything you will read, hear, or say, is a statement that can either be a challenge for someone, or a valuable lesson for another. Everything is an argument.
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