February 17, 2009

Journal: Structure

The beginning of the book starts out with Janie coming into town after everything has happened and in the end it finishes by going back to Janie telling her tale to Phoeby. Not only does that coincide, but the structure of a dialogue between two people with no "she said" in there is consistent as well. This lack of breaks in speech keeps the text moving, making it more real since in real life, most times a person doesn't have to stop and realize who it is that has just said what had been spoken, they're able to figure it out just by paying attention to the speaker. The last chapter also digressed from the long story that Janie had been recalling into the situation of the present where Janie is actually with Phoeby, as Hurston had done in the opposite order at the beginning of the book. The structure in chapters as well as the general one of the entire book always returned to the same line of thought as it had been on in the beginning, which caused more emphasis on what had been at the beginning and end since it was not noticeably enough revisited for it to be a motif, but just the right amount so that it stands out to the reader.