Journal Number 3

Techniques that add to Hurston's style:

Dialect (Obviously)
ex: "'Oh, er, Pheoby, if youse ready to go, Ah could walk over dere wid you,' Mrs. Sumpkins volunteered. 'It's sort of duskin' down dark. De booger man might ketch yuh'"(Hurston, 4).

Similes
ex: "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.  Dawn and doom was in the branches"(Hurston, 8).

Metaphors
ex: "'You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways'"(Hurston, 16).

With this quote I immediately saw the connection with the tree comparison made not that much earlier in the text.  If life is a tree, one would assume that it has a solid trunk as a foundation.  Janie, being a woman AND a person of color makes her tree a little bit less functional.  Being a branch without roots means that she will have to work harder to ultimately gain what she wants out of the tree of life because she doesn't have that strong foundation.  Things that make up said foundation could include money, being white, having friends in high places, coming from the "right" family, etc.  With this metaphor, Hurston is trying to communicate the struggles of being a black woman during her time period.

Alliteration
ex: "She often spoke to falling seeds and said..."(Hurston, 25).

The soft "s" sound communicates the fragility of new life as it sinks slowly to the soil.

Allusions, especially biblical references.
ex: "The town had a basketfull of feelings good and bad about Joe's positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him.  They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then afain he was all of these things because the town bowed down."

Being a mayor puts Joe in a very high position of power within the town.  Some might even call him God-like.  Hurston makes him appear that way through making her characters not oppose Joe in his rise to power, making Joe himself a well-respected leader in the community, and even making his speech more sophisticated and "white" than the other characters in the town he runs.  The above quote offers a more cynical take on Joe's, and also God's, power.  Hurston is expressing the belief that God only has as much power as he does over people because everybody is too afraid to question Him.  God has authority, to people submit to it.  At the same time, nobody is challenging that authority.  It is for this reason he has so much power.