Hurston’s novel is full of these conventions, as well as other dominant features of African American culture. Omission or absence of the copula in conversations, consonant clusters reduced at the ends of words, r and l deletion, signifying, playing the dozens, braggadocio (Smitherman), and free indirect discourse, or quasi-direct discourse (Pateman). A favorite passage exploring the entertainment of verbal play, or signifying, occurs in Chapter Seven when Janie finally stands up to Jody, her second husband, after all the times he had put her down in front of others: “Stop mixin’ up mah doings wid mah looks, Jody. When you git through tell’ me how tuh cut uh plug uh tobacco, then you kin tell me whether mah behind is on straight or not…Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s a whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but ’tain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice…Talkin’ ’bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life.” (79) An example of indirect discourse can be seen in Chapter Nineteen when the narrator reports some of the thoughts of Tea Cake, Janie’s third husband, after he has taken ill with rabies and is not thinking clearly: Tea Cake didn’t say anything against it and Janie herself hurried off. This sickness to her was worse than the storm. As soon as she was well out of sight, Tea Cake got up and dumped the water bucket and washed it clean…He was not accusing Janie of malice and design. He was accusing her of carelessness. She ought to realize that water buckets needed washing like everything else. He’d tell her about i... ... middle of paper ... ...how she and Tea Cake had been with one another so they could see she never shoot Tea Cake out of malice. She tried to make them see how terrible it was that things were so fixed that Tea Cake couldn’t come back to himself until he had got rid of that mad dog that was in him and he couldn’t get rid of that dog and live…But she hadn’t wanted to kill him….She made them see how she couldn’t ever want to be rid of him. She didn’t plead to anybody. She just sat there and told and when she was through she hushed. (187) These passages not only provide excellent examples of the distinctive features of AAVE mentioned earlier in this paper, such as using done for resultatives, consonant clusters, and substituting the /d/ for the /th/ sound, but they also demonstrate how, no matter what the social occasion, Janie does not alter her speech patterns or dialectic utterances.
10. What form of figurative language does the author use in lines 4 & 5 of page 215 to make his writing more
If Ah ever gits tuh messin’ round another woman it won’t be on account of her age. It’ll be because she got me in de same way you got me—so Ah can’t help mahself." Tea Cake professes his love to Janie by saying that she is the only woman he thought of marrying. Tea Cake knows that he will be loyal to Janie, but can not control other women's urges to flirt with him. When Tea Cake tells Janie that he is the man in her life he says:"You don’t have tuh say, if it wuzn’t fuh me, baby, cause Ah’m heah, and then Ah want yuh tuh know it’s uh man heah." (Ch.18). Tea Cake wants Janie to know that he is nothing like her other husbands, but is perfect for her. Tea Cake is essentially perfect for Janie because he helped her accomplish her her ultimate dream of love. Janie and Tea Cake’s marriage is the key to a good marriage because they treat each other with equality and
“Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don’t speak tuh suit ‘em dey got tuh go way back in yo’ life and see whut you ever done.” (Hurston
before, she becomes a better shooter that Tea Cake, and he respects her for that,
In conclusion, Janie is an outgoing and caring person who wants to meet and have fun with other people. Most of the people in her life made her avoid being able to fit in with the crowd. Janie could not overcome the control others had over her. People always continued the gossip throughout the community because she was different. After Janie met Tea Cake, she was determined to do as she wanted without anyone’s say so. Janie will always be known as the
...ver have been condoned had Joe still been around. Janie can say what she wants and doesn’t have to hide her true feelings. Finally, she can be herself around someone who accepts and encourages who she is. Tea Cake adds excitement and passion to Janie’s life, something that hadn’t ever existed in her previous relationships. Despite how the town feels about the new romance, Janie and Tea Cake leave the town and are bonded by the true love Janie had yearned for since she was a child. Janie finds the future she had always wanted. All because of Joe’s death, Janie became free to live out her own dreams instead of his. She was finally accepted by someone she truly loves and the conflict she faced for so long is over. She has the independence to be who she wants, love who she wants and live how she wants. Joe’s death led her to Tea Cake where she finally found who she was.
To begin with, a husband needs to be honest with his wife. Out of all of Janie’s husbands Tea Cake is the least honest one, but one of the times he does lie to her, but he makes it better. Tea Cake is going everyday and working then spending some nights till late with his friends. Janie wakes up one day finding out that her
When Tea Cake enters Janie's life, Janie really starts to come out of her shell. She lets down her hair that was kept up the entire time with Starks. This symbolizes Janie letting all her inhibitions out. In finding Tea Cake, Janie has "completed her voyage" of self-discovery. Tea Cake allows her to feel exhilarated and young again. She makes more friends and becomes more social. During this time in her life Janie is an excellent role model for other black women. She does not give a second look at what other people think about her, which is very admirable. This is shown when Hezekiah Potts tells Janie that Tea Cake is too low of a man for Janie yet, she stills persists on seeing him. Many people also think that Tea Cake is courting Janie for her money only. Janie pays no regard to these onlookers though.
I recently read your article titled “Vodou Imagery, African-American Tradition and Cultural Transformation in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Your article mentions how Zora Neal Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God while she was collecting folklore on Vodou in Haiti. You proceed to discuss the Haitian Vodou imagery present in the novel as well as the influence that it had. You claim that Hurston’s use of Haitian Vodou doesn’t signal a rejection of modernity, but rather an acknowledgement of it (158). Although I disagree with your argument that Ezili is the predominant Vodou element in Their Eyes Were Watching God, I agree with your claim that Hurston’s use of Vodou not only empowers Janie to transcend the stereotype that black women had preordained constraints, but also gives the character of Janie a deeper meaning.
Hurd, Myles Raymond. "What Goes Around Comes Around: Characterization, Climax, and Closure in Hurston's 'Sweat'." Gale Artemis Literary Sources (1993).
February 25, 1692: Tituba, at the request of neighbor Mary Sibley, bakes a "witch cake" and feeds it to a dog. According to an English folk remedy, feeding a dog this kind of cake, which contained the urine of the afflicted, would counteract the spell put on Elizabeth and Abigail. The reason the cake is fed to a dog is because the dog is believed a "familiar" of the Devil.
her to be somebody that she wasn't. Tea Cake let her be herself. He loved
They sometimes went to jook joints, and other times stayed at home where Tea Cake played his guitar and people gathered together. “The house was full of people every night. That is, all the doorstep was full. Some were there to hear Tea Cake pick the box; some came to talk and tell stories, but most of them came to get into whatever game was going on or might go on… outside of the two jooks, everything on that job went on around those two” (Hurston, 133). Like Eatonville, “The men held big arguments here like they used to do on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” (Hurston, 134). The way she now lived her life, at least to her, seemed simpler. “Clerkin’ in dat store wuz hard, but heah, we ain’t got nothin’ tuh do but do our work and come home and love” (Hurston, 133). Tea Cake, shortly before his death, said to Janie, “You’se uh lil girl all de time. God made it so you spent yo’ old age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo’ young girl days to spend wid me” (Hurston,
"The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.
In Hurston 's short story “Sweat”, the theme is expressed in many ways throughout the story, though most prominently by way of domestic violence and ungratefulness shown