Pheoby Dialect

Zora Neale Hurston’s use of regional dialect added several pieces of important information in the story. The use of southern dialect back in the 1920’s appealed to African Americans, and illustrates the language people used to add authenticity. The use of dialect could have been used to seed out other people who related to her lifestyle and portray a story that could relate to their own personal lives. The short story, Sweat, used southern dialect to make other pieces of the story fit more accurately and precisely. The story was placed in Florida in the mid-early 1920’s, where many would speak in the same dialect used in the story. Hurston could have also intentionally used the dialect to give the audience a more movie-like projection of the

First of all, the dialect is authentic. This is how African Americans spoke, and Hurston did a great job of translating their speech into text. Secondly, the dialect of an African American is completely different from a Caucasian's American dialect. If this story had been written using the traditional dialect of that time, the story wouldn't have been as

The composition begins with Hurston describing her life as a child in the exclusively colored town of Eatonville, Florida where she enjoyed sitting on the front porch and saying friendly hellos to the white passer-bys. When she was thirteen, her mother died and she was sent to a boarding school Jacksonville, this is when she realized she was “a little colored girl”. Though she

Hurston intended to “show the beauty and wealth of genuine Negro material” as a response to the stereotyping of black people in literature (Draper 1068-1069). Sykes is shown as a successful independent black man which was something not seen often in Hurston’s time. Her material mainly focused on black and black relations over black and white relations. By focusing on the successful side of black life that she grew up with, Hurston was able to show black youth a potential future for themselves that they may not have thought possible with their current situation. Condemning those who oppressed African Americans and defying traditional norms was Hurston’s way of disrupting the social climate of the time (Champion). In her works, she was able to shine a light on societal problems that she believed needed fixing. Literature was the only way to fight because as a black woman she had no other ways to fight without incarceration. Hurston intended to present the side of black people that many white people did not see, her writings were”important because they…[presented] characters who…[were] undeniably and realistically human” (Draper 1068). Hurston had to provide realistic black characters in a time that black people were still seen as worthless by many. She wanted people to understand that white people and black people were just people. Hurston wrote good characters, not good people, to show that all races of people had bad eggs. The characters in “Sweat” were very realistic, whether they be gossiping on the porch or abusing their wife, they are acting as real people do. They may not be doing things that are morally right, i.e. being abusive, but that is a fault in humanity that all races are guilty of. Hurston had seen many different types of people throughout her life and was able to express these different personalities with expertise. Knowing how to write a character is just as important as

In the opening sentence of the story Hurston’s writes, “It was eleven o’clock of a Spring night in Florida. It was Sunday” (Hurston, 73). The beginning signifies correct English grammar and proper sentence structure, but in seamless Zora Neale Hurston’s fashion, the dialogue from the protagonist Delia Jones reads in broken incorrect syntax, “Sykes, you quit grindin’ dirt into these clothes! How can Ah git through by Sat’day if Ah don’t start on Sunday” (74)? In her short stories Hurston’s diction is elevated with the usage of morphology with the constant exchange of word formation with infixes, affixes and the combining of word choices. Hurston’s choice of diction offered a rhymical affect that adds a melodious tone to her writing shaped by the Harlem Renaissance period. As noted in the, The Florida Historical Quarterly “Hurston blended narrator and protagonist through language” (Haskin, 207) Her writing style aid in the management of mood, tone, character depiction, movement, and atmosphere in storytelling procedures. In the commencement of her stories, the storyteller, is communicating in standard English, the third-party narrative speaks as a representative for the character waiting to find his or her voice. As the character(s) discoveries their voice, they sway the narrator, and in the conclusion the narrator and central character are speaking for each other, using equally poetic, participating language (207).

In this book, Hurston writes in the dielect of the black community of the time. Many of the words are slang. Hurston begins the story with Janie telling it, but then it becomes a third person narrative throughout most of the story.

Through her use of southern black language in the book Zora Neale Hurston illustrates the vernacular she grew up speaking. Black Vernacular is “any of the nonstandard varieties of English Spoken by African American. It is also called Black English, Black English vernacular.” In the “Black Vernacular” article,

The Novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, follows Janie as she recounts the story of her life to her best friend, Pheoby. Hurston uses language as a powerful narrative device shows the readers the characters’ dialect as they speak throughout the novel. The above quotation, from page seven, gives the reader some insight into Janie’s life. It tells the reader that Pheoby and Janie have known each other for a long time, and consider each other friends and confidants.

Racism is a cultural force that individuals can struggle against or yield to. It is a social construct, a free-floating force that affects everyone, white or black, weak enough to succumb to it. Hurston includes these ideas in the society and culture in which Janie lives in. The african-american community has always been under the rule of whites. So in order to acquire power, they feel that they must become like white people. In Their Eyes Were, whiteness provides power to those who possess it; this is shown by Nanny’s lecture, by Joe’s behavior, and by Mrs.Turner’s worshiping of caucasians.

The great characteristics of Maine’s dialects had been clearly discussed in the Dialect Project 1 such as rich vocabularies, various syntaxes, different morphologies, and unique lexicon. However, the main goal of this project is to explore those previously explained concepts to see how Maine’s dialects are received such as negative or positive, inaccurate or not, too exaggerate or too simple, and how various ways of linguistics are presented in real life situations. Speaking of phonology, the descriptions of words are exactly what explained in the Dialect Project 1, which is there are many words are being pronounced with the Ah sound like the pronunciation of the word “father.” Moreover, there are different words but have the same pronunciations in Maine’s dialects. Beyond this similarity, the other thing seems inaccurate is the pronunciation of the letter R. The demonstration of this project will demonstrate that the word R is pronounced very soft and less stressed. Syntactically, the word order, phrases or idioms in Maine’s dialects are very broad, rich, and its ridiculous meaning might make people confuse sometimes. Last but not least is the variation lexicon that some words are written in SAE, but the meaning is slightly different overall.

In the beginning of the book when Janie is telling her story to her best friend Phoebe she mentions that she didn’t know she was black when she was really young till she saw herself in picture next to some white kids and didn’t recognize herself. Nora Hurston brings this in the book to show how far Janie had come by the end of the book. As a black women and also

Hurston’s introduction depicts how Janie came back to Eatonville, Florida and many neighbors are talking amongst each other to see where she was for a long time. Her close friend Pheoby visits her and tries to figure out what has happened. Janie started to explain to her how she had felt from her experiences in the very beginning. She begins to tell how her grandmother raised her, and how she wanted to marry Logan Killicks, who owns 60 acres of land, which can provide an economic status for Janie. She was miserable, and ended up running away with a man named Joe Starks. They traveled to Eatonville, and they expanded the land. She wished she was part of the social life, but Jody wouldn’t let her talk with the people of the town. 20 years later,

Introduction Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that deals with the task of self-fulfillment as a human being. The novel reveals the journey of the protagonist, Janie Mae Crawford, who seeks to be content with her life. Her past experiences demonstrate how she has always felt powerless and unsatisfied with her life. Janie always dreamed of being more- someone with a free soul. But her previous husbands dominated every aspect of her life.

The Harlem Renaissance was very empowering time of the 1920’s. It was the uprising of black culture, i.e. jazz, art, books, poetry, etc… Zora Neal Hurston captures a lot of the Harlem aspects in her books; today we are going to be discussing and analyzing her book “Their Eyes Were Watching God”.  The plot of this book is very similar to the hurricane— settled on by many as the front cover— examined in the book. Throughout the book Zora Neal Hurston hits on the idea of oppression and the seeking of freedom. Janie—the protagonist—was treated fairly well although she was black. She did not have to face the same trials and tribulations as a typical black person back then. Janie gets the respect and a role in the white community which was extremely

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the greatest authors in the Harlem Renaissance era, and it saddened me to discover that she died before seizing the benefits of her literary work of arts. Ms. Hurston was often criticized for her substantial use of southern country dialect and folk dialogue; she was a master at creating realistic African-American works of fiction. Hurston’s style of narrative is divided into direct and indirect dialogue. In her writing, she would employ a third-person narrative voice that was vastly intelligent with scholarly techniques such as formal grammar, rich vocabulary, vivid imagery, and allegories to define her settings, locations, and portrayals. Contrariwise, in the same piece, she would display a narrative voice in first-person and third-person using slang language, informal grammar, and irregular speech patterns. Through Hurston’s fictitious creations it enables us to appreciate how significant linguistic choices are used to enrich the production of contemporary literature and how different dualistic styles of narrative can work together in depicting the narration within that story.