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.