IOC mini passages

Empathy In, "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

In what ways could this novel specifically develop empathy and emotional intelligence, as well as contribute to the self-awareness of the reader?

In the novel, “Their Eyes Are Watching God”, the reader experiences Janie go through her journey of becoming self-aware. We see her go through learning experiences and discover new parts of herself. In the essay, the main theme was being too self-centered and finding perspective in your life. By reading the essay, I already had a shift in the way I would usually think about the world. I feel as though in this day and age most of this don’t enjoy the daily, “day in day outs”. Many of us, especially people my age are too focused on social media and our phones that we seem to forget the world around us, while walking around disconnected. That is an example of how I became self-aware while reading the essay. When reading the novel, “Thier Eyes Were Watching God”, I wouldn’t describe as it a novel that had this deep effect on the way I view the world. Through the characters though, especially nanny, and hearing her experiences and stories, did allow me to understand how detrimental pre-assumptions can be. My first impression of nanny was that she was a narrow minded elder that would not allow her granddaughter to blossom and learn through experiences and rather just throw her at a man. Later realizing that nanny had plenty of trauma and scarring experiences in her life. This immediately made me question the importance of empathy with whoever I might cross paths with. Seeing as I felt tremendous empathy for the way nanny was trying to raise her daughter, and trying to lead her down a path that was much different than hers. Yes, I don’t agree with the premise of what she was trying to do, marrying her off to a man much older, but who knows what I would have done in that situation. That to me is empathy. That is what will resonate with me till the end. That is what “Their Eyes Were Watching God” has taught me. 

Power of language

In the midst of stressing about school work and university applications, my family and I took a trip to Quebec. Specifically, we went to Quebec city. The city was filled with historic artefacts that I absolutely fell in love with. I explored the city down to its roots and got to know the journey that the Quebecois people took to get to where they are. I learned that the majority of the people living in the province are actually settlers from France. Due to this, French is the primary language in Quebec. My french language education lasted 7 years but still wasn't perfect. This meant that I was more comfortable speaking in english when wanting to ask for directions or any general inquiries. Little did I know this was frowned upon. As I approached an elderly woman with her children, I started speaking english thinking she would understand, as the majority who speak french also speak english, and she looked at me in confusion. I then started tried again in french this time and built up sentences with basic words that I know. As she saw me attempt to speak in french, she started answering my question in fluent english. This exact encounter frequently occurred as we were meeting people. I soon found out that when you initially approach and begin speaking in english, they take offence to the idea that you expect them to speak the english. They intern, out of respect, would rather us attempt to speak in french when approaching. If it is evident that they can’t understand they will then begin speaking in english or guide us to get help. This power dynamic occurs because of the history that Quebec was built around. It was first the French settlers that came in from France and took over the area making “french speaking”. Being the only French speaking province in a mostly English speaking country allowed for the people of Quebec to feel like minorities and powerless due to their language barriers. This leads them to expect that anyone coming in to Quebec should attempt to speak in their native language as I a sign of respect.