Answer the following questions in your dialectical journal
Since this will require not a little dedication and thoroughness, it will be worth a double test grade.
Chapter 1:
1. Based on the first chapter, what do you think some of the conflicts in the novel are going to be? What do you think the themes might be? Cite evidence from the text to support your predictions.
2. Describe the town’s attitude towards Janie. Describe her attitude towards the town. How does the communal dialogue help establish the town as a character?
3. DOUBLE POINTS!!!
Hurston frequently uses personification in her descriptions of the natural world. Find one example of personification from the first chapter. How does the use of figurative language impact the tone of the novel?
Chapter 2:
1. Identify the simile that is used to describe the way that Janie views her life. Explain how this description might foreshadow Janie’s future.
2. What does watching the blossoming pear make Janie realize? What does she do in response to this “awakening”? Why does her action upset her grandmother?
3. DOUBLE!!!Janie’s grandmother tells her that she wanted her to “pick from a higher bush and a sweeter berry.” What specific dream did Janie’s grandmother have for her granddaughter? When contrasted with Janie’s vision of her life as a tree, what is ironic about her grandmother’s words?
4. Hurston reveals the events of this chapter primarily through the use of dialogue. How does this choice impact the reader’s experience of the chapter?
CHAPTER 3
1. When Nanny asks Janie if she is pregnant on page 22, Janie says, “Ah’m all right data way. Ah know ‘tain’t nothin’ dere.” What does her response suggest about her marriage?
2. Contrast Janie and Nanny’s views of love. How have their life experiences impacted their perspectives?
3. Consider Hurston’s observation, “There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.” What do you think this means? Why do you think Hurston chose to use imagery related to water to describe thoughts and feelings?
4. Examine the final paragraph of the chapter. What sorts of things does Janie instinctively know? Consider the last line of the chapter: “Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” How does this statement relate to Hurston’s observation on the first page of the novel, “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth”
5. DOUBLE, DOUBLE!!
Analyze the figurative language that Hurston uses on page 29 to describe Janie’s feelings about Joe: “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon.” What does this description suggest about the future of her relationship with Joe?
6. Consider the following passage from page 32: “The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low branch beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet.” Explain why her actions are symbolic as well as literal.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. At the opening of the store, Tony makes a speech about Mr. and Mrs. Starks and is chided for not comparing them to “Isaac and Rebecca at the well.” Look up the story of Isaac and Rebecca and explain why this would or would not have been an appropriate comparison.
2. How does Joe respond when the townspeople ask Janie to make a little speech? What does his response suggest about his attitude towards Janie? Why is it symbolically significant that she views his response as “taking the bloom off things”?
3. Describe the tales that people tell about the mule after Joe Starks emancipates it. Why do you think the mule captures their imaginations the way it does?
4. TRIPLE PLAY!!! A. Describe the “dragging out” ceremony that the town holds for the mule. B. How does the ceremony fit the description from page 51 of the townspeople’s stories being a “crayon enlargement of life”? C. What reason does Joe give for not allowing Janie to attend the ceremony? D. Do you think he had a right to make her stay at the store?
5. On page 63 Hurston writes, “Janie took the easy way away from a fuss. She didn’t change her mind but she agreed with her mouth.” Do you believe she did the right thing? How does “agreeing with your mouth” but not with your heart impact a relationship?
6. Examine Sam’s use of the word “questionizin’” on page 63. Vernacular language, like figurative language, often has nuanced meanings. How is the meaning of the word “questioning” subtly different from “questionizin”? Pay attention to root words and suffixes to help you determine the meaning.
7. Based on context clues, draw a picture of the “scoundrel-beast” that Joe says he saw at Hall’s filling station (page 66).
8. What does it mean to say, “The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again”? What causes this change in Jody and Janie’s marriage?
9. At the end of chapter six, Janie speaks up and gives her opinion about a conversation that the men are having on the porch of the store. What are the men talking about before she interjects? What does she tell them about women?
CHAPTER 7
1. A dynamic character is a character that changes. Describe how Janie has changed by this point in the novel. Why do you think Hurston chose the metaphor, “She was a rut in the road,” to describe Janie at age 34?
2. How does Joe insult Janie? What does she say about him to retaliate? Why is Janie’s insult particularly offensive to Joe?
CHAPTER 8
1. Consider the language in the statement from page 81, “But the stillness was the sleep of swords.” What are the connotations of this description? How does the use of alliteration increase the effectiveness of the language?
2. Examine the descriptions of Death and Rumor on page 84. What forms of figurative language does Hurston use? How do her choices impact the tone of the chapter?
3. When Janie confronts Joe on his deathbed, she tells him, “And now you got tuh die to find out dat you got tuh pacify somebody besides yo’self if you wants any love and sympathy in did world. You ain’t tried tuh pacify nobody but yo’self” (Pages 86-87). Why do you think Janie uses the word “pacify” here?
4. How do you feel about Janie’s final confrontation with Joe and her reaction to his death? Was she was right to confront him? Do you feel sympathetic towards Janie? Do you feel sympathetic towards Joe?
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