Dialectical Journal: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Pages 80-193)

Pg. 89 "In search of things"

The disallusion of material items.

Pg. 90 "Mislove"

Mistaken Love. Was that the emotions and actions of Janie's Grandma? Or has Janie misconstrued her Grandma's love in such a way to make it sound less than it was. What is love?

Pg. 96 "He was jumping her king"

Janie's king is this false front that she worked so hard to establish; the mastered disconnection between her appearance and true emotions. This fellowis playing at more than just a game of chess. He knocking down more than her hard won kings.

Pg. 99 "quenching the thirst of the day"

Do we live for rest? How much of the world that Janie lives in works in the day only to sleep at night?

Pg. 100 "Fact is, she decided to treat him...around there again."

Playing hard to get? For a woman complaining about how old she has grown, she sure is acting like a school girl. If she really did't care for him, she wouldn't intentionally treat him one way or another, just laugh off his advances like she does all the rest. She must like him.

Pg. 101 "Crazy Thing!...beaming out with light"

So much for treating him coldly. Amazing how simple kindness can overcome negativity.

Pg. 102 "they made a lot of laughter out of nothing"

Janie is loving life now, at this moment, with Tea Cake. The speaker has created a great connection between happyness, laughter, and love. For Janie at least, one cannot exist without the other.

Pg. 102 "Tea Cake went out to the lemon tree..had lemonade too"

The fruit motif. Life literally gave Janie lemons and she made lemonade. Metaphorically, too.

Pg. 116 "Hurry up and come...never could be mad with you!"

Sounds just too good to be true. I don't think that this bliss can last much longer.

Pg. 128 "she tooks things the way he wanted her to"

Maybe its innocent, but it seems that Tea Cake is getting a little too much control over her.

Pg. 132 "they made good money, even to the children...up with the present"

Foreshadow: perfection never lasts long.

Pg. 141 "Us oughta class off."

Mrs. Turner, human in her aspirations, and human in her flaws. Her close association with Janies proves that 'class' is only an illusion created in the mind.

Pg. 141 "You reckon?...We'se too poor"

Janie has grown.

Pg. 145 "all gods who recieve homage are cruel"

Interesting. We give gods the power to be cruel over us. Like Janie's grandma who saw material wealth as the end all of end alls. And how Janie saw Jody. The bodies Janie returned from at the begining of the story, mindless people "with their eyes thrown wide in Judgement", are those who worship at unattainable alters. Their eyes were watching God.

Pg. 145 "Half gods are worshipped...require blood."

Tea Cake...a half god? What blood will God soon be demanding?

Pg. 156 "If I never see you no mo' on earth, Ah'll meet you in Africa."

This was a phrase originally used by those slaves brought to America from Africa, by people who dreamed of returning to their home, freedom. These characters are still enslaved, although law declares them free. Slaves to class and to economics.

Pg. 156 "Others hurried east like...snakes and coons."

Formal education and money keep Janie and Tea Cake planted while others leave, which seems to be a bad descision of the part of Tea Cake and Janie. Again, we see people compared with animals. Only, in the case I predict that these natural instincts will be more valuable than anything taught in school. Books won't save you from a Hurricane.

Pg. 157 "Don't care how good anybody sould play a harp, God woudl rather to hear a guitar."

This speaks mountains about these characters. I have to say, I love this line. A guitar can capture the sorrow, soul, and spirit of these people in a way no refined, eloquent instrument could. If God's require blood, they demand a sacrifice of yourself. He wants the suffering, pleasure, and soul of these people. Pompous wealth means little to Him.

Pg. 159 "If you kin see de light at day break, you don't keer if you die at dusk."

Like all great saints, Janie has found the true meaning of purpose and God. When Moses saw the burning bush, he didn't care what he had to risk to get his people free.

Pg. 163 "swim, man. Dat's all."

This author has a sick sense of humor, naming him 'Motor Boat'.

Pg. 172 "De ones de white man knows...laughed with her"

Janie and Tea Cake fell in love making 'laughter out of nothing'. Is that what they are doing here? Finding humor in the empty anger and prejudice of people, that really amounts to nothing.

Pg. 184 "Tea Cake crumpled...teeth from her arm"

Has he gone to Africa?

Pg. 192 "Lawd! Pheoby breathed...about livin' fuh themselves"

So, Janie may free her people after all. She ain't no moses, and her people are slaves in a different way. But god is guiding her all the same.

Pg. 193 "Tea Cake, with sun for a shawl"

He is her burning bush. Tea Cake showed Janie the word of god.

Pg. 193 "She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net...over her shoulders"

A tree preparing for winter, pulling the nutrients from its leaves into its roots, and then dropping the golden leaves to the ground to create soil for others. Winter is coming in Janie's lifetime. She never had children, but one can already see rebirth in others. Pheoby 's won't be the only eyes Janie opens.

Dialectical Journal: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Pages 1-80)

Pg. 1 "Ships at a distance have every man's wish onboard... That is the life of men."

A very pessimistic tone with which to begin the book. It seems to be a metaphor appliable to all people. "Men" seems synonymous with "humans".

Pg. 1 "Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget."

The narrator has drawn a distinct line between men and women. Perhaps this foreshadows a theme of "the role of women in a man's world". The speaker voice must be woman. Has she had some kind of experience with men to give her this judgmental attitude.

Pg. 1 "The dream is the truth."

There seems to be something desperate in this line. Someone who believes this must be living in a situation where the present is only bearable because of hope for the future. What dream is this speaker holding onto that she needs so desperately to be true?

Pg. 1 "It was time to hear things and talk...They say in judgment."

These characters are living in a society where the right to free speech is oppressed. The fact that they exercise their right in darkness shows that humanities and ethics still exist among them. Maybe this will become an optomistic book. At least these characters have thinking and judging minds, if only at night. I don't think the speaker is necessarily criticizing them, perhaps empathizing with them.

Pg. 2 "Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times...It was mass cruelty."

Okay, strike what I said before, the speaker does not empathize with these characters. It's interesting that she refers to this as 'mass cruelty', but not having to deal with the bloated bodies earlier in the day.

Pg. 2 "A mood come alive. Words walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony in a song."

Group think.

Pg. 2 "What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls?...wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal?"

So, the speaker is not a typical woman in that society. Is she rebellious? Certainly is a noncomformist, at least by those men's standards.

Pg. 2 "Why don't she stay in her class?"

Considering the men were describing money, and nice clothes earlier, she must be from a "higher" class than these men or at least they perceive her to be. And as we heard earlier, she percieves women (including herself) to be higher intellectually than men.

Pg. 2 "The porch couldn't talk for lookin"

Again, the speaker classifies all these men as one in the same. A single thought.

Pg. 2 "They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye."

What have these characters already lost in dignity and humanity to have no desire for respect and self discipline.

Pg. 2 "It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned turned out of no significance"

Was she leading a rebellion? Is seems the 'it' may have been the death of all those people who's bodies she buried earlier.


Pg. 4 "They hope the answer were cruel and strange"


Are these characters in such a tough spot in life that they must find suffering in someone else to find pleasure in their own lives? The author draws a comparison between people and animals in some situations, but in thsi the characters seem distinctly human. What other animal finds pleasure in the suffering of another of its kind? What other animal feels envy and seeks revenge?


Pg. 5 "An envious heart makes a treacherous ear."


This book already seems to be developing the theme of a class struggle.


Pg. 6 "dis year and a half y'all aint seen me"


It seems like a great story is being foreshadowed, about hat year and a hafl she was gone.


Pg. 8 "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf...dawn and doom was in the branches."


Trees in leaf are plump full of sun a nutrients from summer and spring. However, it means that winter is up and coming and the tree must quickily draw the nutrients into itself and drop the leaves. Whatever Janie has just returned from must have filled her with happiness, joy, sustinence, and she is displaying that to the world, but now she senses a 'winter' coming, or maybe its time to bear fruit, for the rush of her life to end and another to begin. Oh, maybe she's pregnant?


Pg. 14 "De nigger woman is a mule..as ah can see"


The metaphor and motif of mule appears again. Why is it that the workers, those who bear the responsibility of carrying the load which all are dependent on, are looked down upon?


Pg. 18 "In de black dark...by de river"


A reference to moses? Is this baby supposed to be the saviour for her people? Has that sense of purpose been passed to Janie?


Pg. 20 "cracked plate"


It's not that 'it doesn't have much use left in it" but that its a dish other people use, depend on, in their daily lives. Use without thanks. People need it to feed themselves. They often pray over the food on the plate, but are never grateful for the plate itself. It's cracked because those using it haven't taken care of it. Even when its cracked though, a plate is still useful. It's jsut not something you put out for company. Perhaps something you don't like to use yourself, and would like to throw out.


Pg. 21 "There are years that ask questions and years that answer...the sin the day?"


If this is a year for asking questions, it is foreshadowing a year for answers. Answers that will probably be contradictory to what she is told now or expects.


Pg. 21 "often-mentioned 60 acres"


Sarcam, or bitterness in these words. Killicks must be a man of wealth; and Janie sees wealth not in possessions or property but in the pollenation of a fruit tree.

Pg. 25 "a bloom time, a green time, and an orange time"

A lifetime...or a childhood...

Pg. 25 "A stallion rolling the in the blue pasture of ether"

A wild, bucking, uncontrollable thing intentionally sedated itself. Or thinks its free while it cripples and limits itself. The animal, curious, natural side of humanity suppressing itself through civilized society and economy.

Pg. 25 "Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman"

If for women "the dream is the truth" than how does having a dream die make a girl a woman? Perhaps the speaker is noting that women do not have far-fetched, fantastical dreams. The present is what it is, and women make it as good as it can be, without chasing a wishful thought.

Pg. 55 "The the matter of the mule, for instance"

So, Joe can draw a comparison almost unconsiously between "his woman" and a mule. This enforces the perception of women as livestock.

Pg. 56 "Mule has sense"

No longer is the person 'animalified', but the animal 'personified'. I finally get it, I think. Matt and his mule is symbolic of a relationship between a man and wife. Perhaps a foreshadow of where Janie's relationship is heading.

Pg. 56 "The was a little seriousness...didn't cost him anything."

Matt probably cares for his mule, doesn't spoil it, but doesn't mean to really neglect it. Joe looks down on men like Matt, but would Joe be able to handle himself and get over a situation like the ones Matt is put through? I doubt it.

Pg. 56 "She snatched her head away from the spectacle...Wish't Ah had mah way wid 'em ali."

Why does Janie pity the mule? Does she conciously sympathize with it? Perhaps she remembers what her grandma said about mules and black women. Maybe she no sees the truth in the statement.

Pg. 58 "Didn't buy im fuh no work...tuh do it."

Joe redemed. If the mule incident was a symbol for a man and wife, potentially a foreshadow for Janie's life, at least it has a happy ending. Of perhaps its a story of how her life would have been is she had remained married to Killicks, but like the mule, she was rescued by Joe.

Pg. 60 "the joys of mule-heaven to which the dear brother had departed this valley of sorrow...the raw-hide to his back"

Haha. Considering the mule symbolism for black women...what is heaven like for a black woman? Humorous.

Pg. 65 "Nature makes caution... He made nature and nature made everything else."

Funny, the two 'dimmest' seeming characters thus far in the story, stumble upon one of the greatest truths. Perhaps this is reenforcing the idea that formal education and economic wealth is insignificant in a life, when one loses sight or becomes unaware of the natural truths in a life.

Pg. 72 "She had an inside and an outside...not to mix them."

A year for answers.

Pg. 76 "Now and again she thought...and considered flight"

Bird motif. We are all birds part of a flock. Can fly high, but can never quite reach heaven. Flight: running away from the bad? Or running toward the good, a dream? or both?

Pg. 76 "She didn't read books so she didn't know...boiled down to a drop"

Reenforcing the theme of formal education vs. instinctively or naturally obtained knowledge. She didn't need books to understand morality and rightness.

Literary Device: Catalexis

Incompleteness of the last foot at the end of a verse.

Example:

One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Function:

The first and third lines given are dactylic, but the second and last lines are missing the syllables which would normally complete the dactyl. Perhaps the author employs the techniques because the incompleteness in the lines emphasizes that the life lost was not yet complete, the character not ready to die. Or perhaps it was employed in order to add an 'abrupt sounding' quality to the piece, reenforcing the premature nature of the death.