Beliefs

Since I'm a very opinionated person with a strong belief in my faith i find it frustrating how unemotional and uncaring Mersault is towards everything. You feel as though he truly doesn't care about anyone. As the book progresses more important events occur in his life, but he reacts to them all the exact same.

Davenism

Principles of Davenism:

• There is only one God.
• He is kind and worthy of praise.
• Realistic hedonism applies.
• There is a cause for everything.
• God indirectly affects our lives.
• People are naturally good-natured.
• There is an afterlife, divided into Heaven and Hell

"Fiat Voluntas Dei"

Stranger Journal #2

Everything Mersault does is for physical satisfaction, whether it's smoking half a pack of cigarettes and buying a piece of chocolate to going to the movies with a date. There isn't any morals or ethics to which he lives his life. This is shown when at the funeral he feels both disgust and hate for the elderly sitting around him. This all follows the existential belief that the only meaning of life and the only characteristics of human nature are those that we create.

Stranger Journal # 1

The first one, labeled part one, is much more fluid and wordy. Unlike the passage labeled just "1", part one feels more human and uses a style of writing similar to my own. 1 is very choppy, with short sentences void of any emotions. 1 also employs french words and uses a more direct translation of the original text. Part one may usemore formal word choice, but the style feels more realistic than the short sloppy feel of the 1 translation.

Plot Structure

The plot structure in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is very circular. Whatever starts something in the story usually finishes it. Like at the beginning of one chapter she is talking about the horizon and the sun, then at the end of the chapter she refers to the sun again. At the beginning of the book she is talking to Pheoby, and it returns to thissetting again at the end. Hurston does this to show change that occurs in the book by comparing the differences at the end.

Journal 8

I think the title of the book is meant for the women of the novel. In this time in history women weren't considered equal to men, so they have no control over their own lives. They watch God because they need him to tell them what to do with their lives . Janie is searching for her place throughout the book, and eventually she realizes that it's up to her to decide. The title is meant to empower women by pointing out how they need to take a hold of their own destiny.

Journal 7

Mrs. Turner is somewhat racist towards her own race in the novel. I believe this is because of her resentment of her husband. She generalizes all black people to be like him, uneducated and lazy. This explains why she likes Janie so much, because Janie gives her hope that black people will rise up to be more civil. Compared to Tea Cake and Janie the Turners are unloving and cold. In fact it may be a foil for the marriage of Tea Cake and Janie to highlight cetain features like their youthful happiness. Mrs. Turner is stubborn like Janie and holds the same values of women's rights.

3 Lit Techs

Literary Technique 1: Personification (pg. 116) "The train beat on itself and danced on the shiny steel rails mile after mile."
Zora Neale Hurston uses the personification here to express the joy of this event. It is possible to say there is the tone of happiness as well, but the dancing in the personification expresses it more clearly. Through this personification, Hurston establishes a happy tone for the rest of the scene. The consonance of "l" is used at the end to elongate each word, drawing them out like the beat of a railroad.

Literary Technique 2: Metaphor/Nature Motif (pg. 136) "A little seed of fear was growing into a tree."
This motif relates to the tree of love mentioned earlier in the book. Now the metaphor is for jealousy, showing the other side of love, which she so idolized. She fears now losing the love she has and this fear will corrupt the relationship. She knows this and this adds to the fear, making it grow. Zora Neale Hurston uses nature so often because growth is a central part of the story.

Literary Technique 3: Hyperbole (pg. 122) "When the fellow began to pick the box the people begin to come from east, west, north and Australia."
This hyperbole overexaggerates Tea Cake's skill at the guitar, but to make a point that in Janie's eyes, seeing it through the looking glass of love, he seems perfect and skilled and charming. People wouldn't travel great distances to see him perform but to her he is the greatest guitarist ever.

Motivation to Change

Janie's main motivations are to find true love, and to find understand herself as a woman. Tea Cake made her happy unlike Logan or Jody. They tried to control her, and she desired freedom. We see evidence of her desire to understand herself by the way she desires to bloom like the nature imagery used so frequently by Zora Neale Hurston. Ironically, love and womanhood are also intertwined since Janie realizes she was a woman when her dream of marriage creating love died.
At the beginning of the book, Janie was young and naive, quick to believe what she saw and felt. As she gets older she becomes wiser too, since she is so cautious of Tea Cake upon first meeting him. Now she feels like she has more freedom and control over her own life. I think this causes Janie to feel power through controlling her of course in life. She is reluctant to give up that control again to any man. Tea Cake seems too friendly and young to force her to do things so she enjoys his company.

So simple they should call it past-easy...

And Matt started to see Vanity. Vanity, the faceless figure with vacant eyes on the other side of the mirror. The demon that grows in man's heart. What need has vanity for sight, when it can only see itself? Its person passes through portraits in its own image that takes anyone's form. It sits motionless all day, marveling in its magnificence, until someone who loves themselves more than Vanity passes by. Been filling mens' souls from when they were mere thoughts. I expected to find a picture of him lying around soon enough. I was worried and cautious. Poor Matt! He hasn't got no need looking at every reflection he dun seen. I asked a psychologist to speak with him, but Matt wouldn't have it. He reckon'd that he wuz better than Jesus the day he rose again, so there was no need for help. He'd say that i'd come around the day the man cursing me rested in peace. He wasn't vain at all. That's what he believed. But family told me differently, so i knew i was right. And if they hadn't confirmed it, i was bound to know despite it, as the people from school told me and whispered amongst each other in the cafeteria and commons. People who wouldn't have dared to sayit to himwere content to talk amongst each other. They just gathered round the tables and gossiped. Pride, that double edged sword, had cut us away from them.

5 Lit Terms

1. pg 26 - Figurative Language

"Long before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talking in rhymes to her."

This doesn't literally mean that he stopped speaking in rhymes, but expresses that he used to speak kindly and lovingly, and that somewhere in their marriage that love had disappeared. Zora Neale Hurston wants us to understand the reasoning as to why Janie ran off with another man. It was to pursue a happier life where she would be appreciated.

2. pg 29 - Metaphor
"You ain't got no mo' business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday!"

Joe uses this metaphor to say that Janie deserves a better life, where she wouldn't have to endure physical labor like out here. It gives him an aura of kindness and charm that explains why Janie decided to leave her husband and run off with another man. Joe, unlike Logan, believes a lady shouldn't have to slave out in the field.

3. pg 31 - Personification

"The sun from ambush was threatening the world with red daggers, but the shadows were gray and solid-looking around the barn."

This sharp contrast between the vibrant red and the dull gray makes the imagery of the sunrise more vivid and helps set the setting of the events that are about to take place. The shadows remind us of how early it is still, and the sun foreshadows a hot day of work ahead. These subtle effects create a mood in the story that the reader unknowingly takes into account.

4. pg 32 - Epiphany
"A feeling of sudden newness and change came over her"

Janie realizes in this instant that she doesn't have to listen to Logan, or follow the orders that he gives her. And also in this moment of self-realized independence, she sees that she isn't reliant on him to meet her needs. This is the main reason she is compelled to leave and go find Joe Starks.

5. pg 33 - Motif
"saw the sun plunge into the same crack from which the night emerged."

This reminder of the sun reminds the reader of how sudden all these changes occur. At the beginning of this same day Janie was married to a different husband and had a completely different life. And now by the end we see she has a new husband which she is very hopeful and happy with currently, but it may change.

Journal uno y dos

1. The narration in the story is full of symbolism and metaphors, that tie back to the story but help convey the author's ideas in a unique way. On the first page she compares the dreams of men as fleeting ships that disappear with time. The dialect is a sort of slang, and it connects to the setting of the story. By using the dialect typical of the setting we are able to observe the characterization of the people who use the dialect. The contrast emphasizes the harshness of the rough use of English in this dialect, and the elegant symbolism in the narration, to capture the setting and possibly the riddle-like sentences of the narration in the beginning pages are used to subtlety hint at themes.

2. The setting has huge effect on the atmosphere of a story. The setting of sundown at the beginning of the story adds to the feelings of exhaustion and makes them more powerful. Where a character comes from decides how they act and possibly their motivation and morals too. An American character will have strong feelings of patriotism, and often is motivated by a desire to sustain liberty and democracy. A setting could be used in other literary devices to convey a certain theme as well. If a setting has a mood or is a motif the author may be trying to send a message to the reader.