Eyes #4

Hi Mrs. Wecker. I wrote this up on paper because I was babysitting the night before it was due and you checked it off in class, so we're all good. Here's journal 4!

The first paragraph of chapter 8 is a marvelous example of Hurston's language manipulation in the following categories:

SYNTAX
"New thoughts had to be thought and new words said"(81).
Traditionally, Joe is the thinker and speaker of Eatonville.  Since he is incapacitated by his illness, he is no longer the figurehead of the community.  The parallel structure between new thoughts and new words foreshadows the change that is coming to the town after Joe's death.  With the passing of one leader, a new one has to step up.  Ergo, new thoughts and words.

WORD CHOICE
ex: Adressing Joe as "Jody" rather than "Joe".
From the end of chapter 7 on, the narrator calls Joe Starks "Jody".  The high amount of submission shown to him by Janie is gone because he falls ill and can no longer control her.  This makes Jody equal to, if not below, Janie at this point.  Choosing this change in name is Hurston's way of signifying Janie's change in attitude towards Joe.

TONE
ex: "He had crawled off the lick his wounds"(81).
Here, Joe is compared to an animal.  Hurston adopts a tone of disrespect towards Joe to change the reader's attitude about him.  Dehumanizing Joe takes him off the pedestal that tge people of Eatonville placed him on for 20 years and puts him far below them.  The Joe who was compared to a slave driver is heavily contrasted with the present Joe, who is old, ill, and animalistic.

SOUND
"But the stillness was in the sleep of swords"(81).
The "s" sound brings an ominous, slithery, creepy sound to the passage.  This could be a signal for Joe's death (note how death is later described as holding an "icy sword") or one for the impending conflict between Joe and Janie shortly prior to his death.