A few days ago, I read the first three chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God and
I was struck by the stark difference between the narrative parts of the novel
and the dialogue. The narrative is very poetic, almost to the point of being
flowery and then suddenly the reader is thrown into the dialogue which is
written phonetically in a sort of vernacular of the time. It is written as it
would be spoken by the characters, accounting for accent and dialect. This
difference in writing style between the narrative portions and the dialogue
helps the reader understand how the people that Zora Neale Hurston is trying to
portray would have spoken.
I think that it is interesting that
although the characters' dialogue is written differently from the narrative,
they are both still able to convey the same message and the author does a good
job of making transitions between them very fluid. A good example of this is
when Janie is telling her story to Phoebe. The story starts out as Janie
speaking to Phoebe in the house and it is written in the style of the dialogue,
but as the story progresses the narrator kind of takes over the story and it is
written in the style of the narrative. Despite this change of style, it is
still apparent that Janie is telling the story, and the same ideas are
conveyed.
It will be interesting to see how these
two very different styles of writing work together throughout the remainder of
the novel.
Yes. the narrator is definitely different here than the other books we read. It is interesting how the narrator is able to swoop into the consciousness of the characters and help portray their ideas beyond the dialogue. I am not sure whether I can get used to the phonetic spelling, however. Maybe as we read further I will appreciate it more, but so far it has occasionally left me confused.
ReplyDeleteDespite the blending of the narrator and the characters, I still find that there is a very distinct difference for me between the way the narrator talks and the characters. This can be very jarring when going from reading the narrators highly eloquent speech to the phoneticized language of the characters. Though I think both styles are intriguing to read and It is quite and interesting literary device to have these dramatic changes.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the phonetic dialogue in the book. It lets us step into the characters, as when you read it you really have to try and listen to them speaking and you get more of a sense for how they are talking. This in combination with the narrator stepping into the minds of the characters gives us a deeper understanding of the characters which I think is welcome. Although the contrast between the two writing styles can be jarring, they fit well together.
ReplyDeleteI think the contrast between the style of the narration and the dialogue really sets the narrator apart from the characters. Even though it's often in their heads, it still comes off as distant, objective, and personally unattached for the most part, which is interesting because, as Mr. Mitchell mentioned in class, Janie spends much of her time in the author's home town. Also, though we are following what Janie tells her friend, the narration often departs from Janie; it knows more than she does within her own story. I think one result of this is that there's no particular point of view forced onto the reader. The narrator is much more like an anthropologist (actually, Hurston was an anthropologist) studying a culture than a character (until she slips into the occasional bit of free indirect discourse).
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