Imagery is a literary device which provides the reader with vivid visual descriptions using figurative language. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston flawlessly uses imagery throughout her writing to enhance her book.
Chapter 1
1. "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men." (pg. 1)
2. "...because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky." (pg. 1)
Chapter 2
1. "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches." (pg. 8)
2. "She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?" (pg. 11)
Chapter 3
1. "She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making." (pg. 25)
2. "Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman." (pg. 25)
Chapter 4
1. "..he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon." (pg. 29)
2. "The morning farad 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 bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet." (pg. 32)
Chapter 5
1. "The idea was funny to them and they wanted to laugh. They tried hard to hold it in, but enough incredulous laughter burst out of their eyes and leaked from the corners of their mouths to inform anyone of their thoughts." (pg. 37)
2. "They, all of them, all of the people took it up and sung it over and over until it was wrung dry, and no further innovations of tone and tempo were conceivable." (pg. 46)
Chapter 6
1. "Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun." (pg. 51)
2. "That was the rock she battered against." (pg. 54)
Chapter 7
1. "The years took all the fight out of Janie's face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul." (pg. 76)
2. "Then one day she sat and watched the shadow of herself going about tending store and prostrating itself before Jody, while all the time she herself sat under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her clothes. Somebody near about making summertime out of lonesomeness." (pg. 77)
Chapter 8
1. "Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the Weest. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him come. Been standing there before there was a where or a when or a then. She was liable to find a feather from his wings lying in her yard any day now." (pg. 84)
2. "Rumor, that wingless bird, had shadowed over the town." (pg. 84)
Chapter 9
1. "Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a wall of stone and steel." (pg. 89)
2. "She sent her face to Joe's funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world." (pg. 89)
Chapter 10
1. "So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day." (pg. 99)
Chapter 11
1. "He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom- a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God." (pg. 106)
2. "Janie awoke next morning by feeling Tea Cake almost kissing her breath away. Holding her and caressing her as if he feared she might escape his grasp and fly away." (pg. 107)
3. "In the cool of the afternoon the fiend from hell specially sent to lovers arrived at Janie's ear. Doubt. All the fear that circumstance could provide and the heart feel, attacked her on every side." (pg 108)
Chapter 12
1. "The next morning Pheoby picked her way over to Janie's house like a hen to a neighbor's garden. Stopped and talked a little with everyone she met, turned aside momentarily to pause at a porch or two- going straight by walking crooked." (pg. 112)
Chapter 13
1. "But, don't care how firm your determination is, you can't keep turning round in one place like a horse grinding sugar cane." (pg. 118)
2. "She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her. The thing made itself into pictures and hung around Janie's bedside all night long." (pg. 120)
3. "Her heart all but smothered her." (pg. 120)
Chapter 14
1. "Some came limping in with their shoes and sore feet from walking. It's hard trying to follow your shoe instead of your shoe following you." (pg. 131)
2. "All night now the jooks
(I couldn't find anything good for Chapter 15 or Chapter 17, considering that Chapter 15 was short and Chapter 17 was all about the townspeople getting drunk and not much else.)
Chapter 16
1. "Mrs. Turner was a milky sort of woman that belonged to child-bed. Her shoulders rounded a little, and she must have been conscious of her pelvis because she kept it stuck out in front of her so she could always see it." (pg. 138)
2. "Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars." (pg. 145)
Chapter 18
1. "Morning came without motion. The winds, to the tiniest, lisping baby breath had left the earth. Even before the sun gave light, dead day was creeping from bush to bush watching man." (pg. 155)
2. "So when Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west-that cloud field of the sky-to arm themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, mounting, sinking, darking." (pg. 158)
3. "It woke up old Okeechobee and the monster began to roll in his bed. Began to roll and complain like a peevish world on a grumble." (pg. 158)
Chapter 19
1. "And then again Him-with-the-square-toes had gone back to his house. He stood once more and again in his high flat house without sides to it and without a roof with his soulless sword standing upright in his hand. His pale white horse had galloped over waters, and thundered over land. The time of dying was over. It was time to bury the dead.
2. "Saw the hand of horror on everything. Houses without roofs, and roofs without houses. Steel and stone all crushed and crumbled like wood. The mother of malice had trifled with men." (pg. 169)
3. "She looked hard for something up there to move for a sign. A star in the daytime, maybe, or the sun to shout, or even a mutter of thunder. Her arms went up in a desperate supplication for a minute. It wasn't exactly pleading, it was asking questions. The sky stayed hard looking and quiet so she went inside the house. God would do less than He had in His heart." (pg. 178)
Chapter 20
1. "The light in her hand was like a spark of sun-stuff washing her face in fire. Her shadow behind fell black and headlong down the stairs. Now, in her room, the place tasted fresh again. The wind through the open windows had broomed out all the fetid feeling of absence and nothingness." (pg. 192)
2. The whole last paragraph of the novel was quiet long, so I didn't write it, but it should definitely be considered part of this list. (pg. 193)
My favorite line of imagery in the novel is, "She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making." (pg. 25). This is my favorite quote from the novel because I love the way it explains how every day is a new day.
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