Chapter 1-2 Journal
When I was reading the first two chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God I came upon the idiom "An envious heart makes a treacherous ear." (5) In my opinion meaning that someone that is jealous or envious of something just might make that person make up stories that they hear and twist and change them to what they want to have happened. This applies to Janie's situation because when she came back from the Everglades (or muck) and she happens to pass some of the women who knew her back when she was living in Eatonville. They start talking about her and making up rumors that when she ran off with the young Tea Cake he left her for a younger lady and took all her money, and why she came back wearing overhauls. Hurston makes the decision of using the idiom because that is not what happened at all to Janie, she lived working hard because of her own decision and married Tea Cake who treated her well at most times. Janie really doesn't pay much attention to the ladies on the porch talking about her and making their own assumptions. "And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now." (5) But then dismisses it by saying that they are not really aware of what is really going on. "If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em then Ah, do they's a lost ball in de high grass." (5) Hurston wants the reader to know that don't let others peoples words get caught up in your head because they are the ones who are really lost and not aware of the real situation and are just as wrong as anybody.
"She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze...then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid." (11) There is a lot of beautiful imagery in this whole paragraph and alliteration in the last three words, limp and languid. Hurston is expressing Janie's womanhood here in these couple paragraphs. She also repeats "bees" in the paragraphs. She repeats the word" bees" is beacause bees and flowers are used in explaining sexual themes and that time when a woman goes through the change.
"She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze...then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid." (11) There is a lot of beautiful imagery in this whole paragraph and alliteration in the last three words, limp and languid. Hurston is expressing Janie's womanhood here in these couple paragraphs. She also repeats "bees" in the paragraphs. She repeats the word" bees" is beacause bees and flowers are used in explaining sexual themes and that time when a woman goes through the change.
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