Dialogue

One of the most striking things about Their Eyes Were Watching God is the dialogue, and the way it is presented by Zora Neale Hurston. An important question that came up was whether the phonetic dialogue, representing a style of speech that especially at the time had connotations as being the way uneducated people speak, adds to the novel and how it does so. I think the phonetic speech seems a little downgrading, as it separates the narrator from the characters speaking. The narrator sounds polished and speaks in clear succinct sentences that are easy to read and understand while the dialogue is written with odd spellings and broken sentences to represent speech.

However, I do think that despite there being connotations that the people of the South aren’t as educated/skilled as the blacks of the Harlem Renaissance in the north, the dialogue adds a dynamic to the book that makes it more interesting. Sometimes, it is necessary to read the dialogue aloud to yourself just to understand the conversation better, and in this way I feel like the book truly conveys speech. In a book that is so reliant on the telling of Janie’s story, the dialogue gives it a personal feel. The way the book flows from Janie’s voice to the narrator is done well, as it fits in rather seamlessly. One concern with these two styles of writing is the disconnect that could disrupt the narrative, but the author does a good job of splitting up the styles and keeping things fresh while also telling the narrative in a cohesive manner. This all plays into the idea that Janie is telling the story, we are not just observers of her story, but she is actually telling it. It is a frame narrative, but the book reminds us throughout that Janie, having been through everything she talks about, is telling us the story. This also adds to the depth of the story, because we see Janie reflect on her feelings in the past and how they changed as she grew older and more experienced.