Journal #3: Their Eyes Were Watching God

1: "Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun" (pg 50).
-Personification

2: "The store itself was a pleasant place if only she didn't have to sell things.  When the people sat around the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice" (pg 50).
-Alliteration

3: "Take for instance the case of Matt Bonner's yellow mule" (pg 50).
-Motif

4: "He had seen Death coming and had stood his ground and fought it like a natural man" (pg59).
-Anthropomorphism

5: "As soon as the crowd was out of sight they closed in circles.  The near ones got nearer and the far ones got near.  A circle, a swoop and a hop with spread-out wings.  Close in, close in till some of the more hungry or daring perched on the carcass" (pg 61).
-Imagery

Analysis:

1: In this instance, personification was used in order to represent the passing of night to day.  The sun, which comes out during the day, has symbolized god throughout the book.  The personification makes it seem like it was a human effort to expose ourselves to god's gaze every day.  The word flung has a defeated and halfhearted connotation, suggesting that the effort to do so was not done with enthusiasm.  This all concludes that Hurston was trying to represent people's resentment to always being watched over by others that are more powerful.

3: The mule motif has been developed ever since the start of the book, where it was compared to women, having to always do all of the work for the men.  The reappearance of this motif as an actual physical character in the book lets Hurtston develop her motif much more literally.  The mule's abuse and neglect after years of hard work allude to Hurston's idea that women were undergoing the same oppression.  The characters reactions to the mule were also used as a tool by Hurston to let us see the character's feelings towards this gender situation.  For example, Janie is very surprised when Jody bought the mule just to give it freedom, because Jody is usually very restrictive towards Janie.  When the mule dies, Jody becomes even more oppressive towards Janie, symbolizing the loss of freedom because of the death of the mule which represented it.