There Eyes Were Watching God- Journal #4

On page 77, Zora Neale Hurston uses long, lengthy, and descriptive sentences to set the scene."Then one day she sat watched the shadow of herself [...] which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference." (77) Hurston uses this type of syntax to compliment the relaxed tone beneath the text. This is evident when in the next paragraph Hurston switches both of these. "Jody must have noticed it too. [...] long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth." (77) In this passage Hurston uses the exact opposite tone and syntax used in the previous paragraph of long and lengthy sentences combined with a relaxed tone, and now uses short and abrupt sentences that creates a very tense tone. Hurston then uses two different names to distinguish the character Joe or Jody. She uses Jody to smoothly transition from a relaxed to tense tone, but "Jody" and "Joe" both have their own underlying meanings. Hurston uses the name Jody to identify the character when he has power over a character or a group of characters in a passage or sentence. "He didn't rear back in his knees [...] and had been fearing for her to see." (77) In this passage Hurston is talking about Jody losing his dominating characteristics that has given him his famous reputation. Because Janie feels sympathy for him, Hurston uses the name Jody to reoresent that. How ever, to start the paragraph when she describes Joe losing his dominating characteristics's Hurston uses the name Joe because he no longer has the ability to maintain contrk, without those characteristics. Hurston then uses the depressing sound of Joe's description to foreshadow his prominent death.