Journal #4: 3 Patterns

3 patterns in Their Eyes Were Watching God:

1) The first pattern I noticed is that trees and plants are connected with power and authority. When Joe sends for someone to get a tree to make into a post, he only accepts the very best one. Only he could have down something like that in the town.
"But the whole town got vain over it after it came. That was because the Mayor didn't just take it out of the crate and stick it up on a post...He sent men out to the swamp to cut the finest and the straightest cypress post they could find, and kept sending them back to hunt another one until they found one that pleased him" (Hurston 44).
Joe is shown by the townspeople as a symbol of power during a conversation behind his back.
"Speakin' of winds, he's de wind and we'se de grass. We bend which ever way he blows" (Hurston 49).

2) The second pattern is that the author always uses some sort of time reference in the first sentence of each chapter. I think it helps the reader gain some sort of time line as the book progresses.
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone" (Hurston 8).
"Long before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talking in rhymes to her" (Hurston 26).
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer" (Hurston 21).

3) The third pattern is that the author uses the weather to describe how someone is feeling. When it is cold for example, the author depicts the characters as alone or afraid.
"But anyway, she went down the road behind him that night feeling cold" (Hurston 43).
If it is warm out the author depicts the characters as enjoying themselves and content.
"She was stretched out on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold sun and the panting of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her" (Hurston 11).