Chapter 1- The One And Only Jay Rein

Filed under: Uncategorized — hurston at 4:03 am on Monday, November 14, 2005

After reading the first chapter, i noticed that figuartive language plays a huge role in the first chapter.  During class on thursday, we analyzed a passage from the first chapter, and as we could tell it was filled with multiple personifacations, metaphorss, repititon and many other examples of figuartive language.  My favorite line was “but nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody even thought to swallow spit until after her gate slammed behind her,” because the repition allows the author to portray the importance of the moment (Hurston 2).  It also describes the shocking image of Janie, by showing that she is very attractive and that the citizens of the town are suprised to see her.

 Another thing i noticed was that Janie is extremely similar to Holden, from Catcher in the Rye.  She is telling her story to a friend, much like Holden did.  It is hard to tell whether or not she is reliable, because she arrived at her home unexpected and mentioned the burial and death of someone.  She does not seem to be in a good state of mind.  Although not in an insane asylum liek Holden, I still dont trust what Janie is telling us.



3 Comments

19

   hurston

November 15, 2005 @ 9:39 pm

I agree that there is a similarity between Holden and Janie, especially in the sense of death. By Janie being distrought over the death Tea Cake it is like Holden being upset about the death of his brother. You said that you don’t think that Janie is in a proper state of mind after the death, as if she has in way lost her innocence. The loss of innocence is also shown when Janie has her first kiss with Johnny Taylor and her grandmother tells her to come inside and she says “Janie, youse uh ‘oman, now, so–” (Hurston 12). This shows her loss of innocence in becoming a woman.

Cassie Covollo

25

   hurston

November 16, 2005 @ 3:16 am

Janie’s story seems to be like a folkloric story in a way. The way she comes back to town so dramatically, walking down the road to her house while it’s so silent and everyone wondering what happened. Then she sits down on her porch or wherever she was and starts tell her story to Phoebe. I feel like she should be at a campfire with a guitar telling her story to a crowd of people. Does anyone else feel like the folkloric stories are significant in Their Eyes?

Carrie Pearce

28

   hurston

November 16, 2005 @ 5:13 pm

I agree with Jay. The use of figurative language is definitley present in the first couple chapters especially. For example her use of similies “Janie saw her life like a great tree in a leaf with things suffered, enjoyed, things done and undone” (Hurston 8). Also, she her usage of metaphors is evident as well, “It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of significance,” (Hurston 2).
~Leena John~

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