Their Eyes Were Watching God Journal Entries (1-2)

2/4/09

Journal Entry #1
The dialect used in the story and the narration are extremely different. The dialect in the story portrays the uneducated side of the black population which has become the common belief, using a lot of slang and other factors that give the character their "personality" (which was actually very hard to read for the first couple of pages). The narration on the other hand is written in a way that is easily read by a person who is not used to such strong dialect and is written in the way most of us are familiar with when it comes to novels. With the story dialect, you can get a sense of emotion and see specific characteristics of individuals that can't be achieved by writing in the style of the narration. On the other hand, some information (such as background information) should be left to the kind of text that can be simply understood.

Journal Entry #2
The setting, no doubt, influence the ideas and personalities of these characters. We can see right from the beginning that gossip plays a big role in the community and that they all seem to be very close. Most of chapter 1-3 focused on Janie's grandmother's story about all the hardships that she faced growing up (slavery, rape, running away etc) and because of all that she went through, she wants to be sure that Janie is safe in a place that is prone to violence toward blacks during the time period. Nanny also tries to marry Janie away to Logan Killicks in an attempt to keep her safe, even though Janie is against it which shows to what extent Nanny is willing to go to get peace of mind knowing that her granddaughter is "safe".