Welcome and Introduction

Hey!  I'm Allison S. and my English class is beginning to read the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  This novel is about Janie Crawford and her life in poverty.  It is told from the point of view of Janie telling her friend Phoeby the stories of her life so that Phoeby can tell them back to the neighbors.  There are three different periods in Janie's life which correspond to the three different men that she was married to.  This book was not very popular among Hurston's peers at the time that she wrote it because they believed that she was being stereotypical to African Americans.  This book was not rediscovered and made popular until after Hurston's death.

http://www.neabigread.org/books/theireyes/

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25 Random Facts About Me

1. I love to watch reality TV shows.
2. Glee is my favorite TV show.
3. I love animals, except for bugs.
4. My favorite color is blue.
5. I love thunderstorms.
6. I have been playing the flute for 6 years.
7. I've never been anywhere farther than Florida.
8. I really want a hamster as a pet.
9. In fifth grade, everyone in the class each raised mealworms into beetles.
10. In seventh grade, the class was put into groups to raise pets, and my group had an anole lizard named Herby.
11. My mom, dad, brother, and I were all born on a Thursday in the same hospital.
12. I could drink orange juice at any time of the day.
13. My rec basketball team won the championship this year.
14. My rec soccer team won second place in the championship this year.
15. I have 7 first cousins on my mom's side and 3 first cousins on my dad's side.
16. I once raised a caterpillar into a butterfly and then released it outside.
17. I have a crazy black lab named Raven.
18. I have been in Girl Scouts since I was in kindergarten.
19. I love the Twilight series.
20. I have five goldfish.
21. I used to have a lot of hermit crabs.
22. I want to have some sort of career that involves animals.
23. I love to eat potatoes, especially mashed potatoes.
24. I've been going to the Outer Banks, NC with my whole family included aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents since I was born.
25. I am not at all a morning person.

Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God

1. P. 11 “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.” 

2. P. 14 “She slapped the girl’s face violently, and forced her head back so that their eyes met in struggle. With her hand uplifted for the second blow she saw the huge tear that welled up from Janie’s heart and stood in each eye.”

3. P. 41 “Jody told her to dress up and stand in the store all that evening. Everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her. She must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang. So the put on one of her bought dresses and went up the new-cut road all dressed in wine-colored red. Her silken ruffles rustled and muttered about her.”

4. P. 24/25 “And when she gained the privacy of her own little shack she stayed on her knees so long she forgot she was there herself. There is a basin in the mind where words float around on though and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by though. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees.

5. P. 12 Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes.”

6. P. 32 “The morning road 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.”

7. P. 17 “Nigger, whut’s yo’ baby doin’ wid gray eyes and yaller hair? She begin tuh slap mah jaws ever which a’way. Ah never felt the fust ones ‘cause Ah wuz too busy gittin’ de kivver back over mah chile. But dem last lick burnt me lak fire.”

8. P. 47 “Take for instance that new house of his. It had two stories with porches, with banisters and such things. The rest of the town looked like servants’ quarters surrounding the ‘big house.’ And different from everybody else in the town he put off moving in until it had been painted, in and out. And look at the way he painted it – a gloaty, sparkly white. The kind of promenading white that the houses of Bishop Whipple, W.B. Jackson and the Vanderpool’s wore.”

9. P. 9 “Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old. Wouldn’t have found it out then, but a man come long takin’ pictures and without askin’ anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us. Round a week later de man brought de picture for Mis’ Washburn to see and pay him which she did, then give us all a good lickin’. So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’ Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn. Miss Nellie, de Mama of de chillum who come back home after her husband dead, she pointed to dark one and said, ‘Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’”

10. P. 27 “It was a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these parts. His coat was over his arm, but he didn’t need it to represent his clothes. The shirt with the silk sleeveholders was dazzling enough for the world. He whistled, mopped his face and walked like he knew where he was going. He was a seal-brown color but he acted like Mr. Washburn or somebody like that to Janie.”

Symbolism in Their Eyes Were Watching God

1. Janie’s hair- symbolizes Janie’s freedom and womanhood

2. Pear tree- symbolizes Janie’s entrance into womanhood and instills in her deep thoughts of love and marriage

3. Gate- symbolizes Janie being held back from what she wants

4. Horizon- symbolizes Janie’s dreams for the future that she may never reach

5. Mule- the lowest rung of society: black women

6. Head rag- symbolizes Joe’s oppression of Janie and his control over his wife

7. Tobacco spittoon- symbolizes how Joe thinks he is better than other people

8. “High chair”- symbolizes the metaphorical pedestal that Joe puts Janie on; also, how people in the town view Janie

9. Lamp lighting- symbolizes the changes Joe is trying to make for the good of the town so that the townspeople will appreciate him and his wealth

10. Joe Stark’s house- symbolizes Joe’s wealth and power and his similarities to white men

My Name and Its Meaning

My full name is Allison Christina Sanphillipo. My parents did not choose my first name for any significant reason. It was one of the names that they both really liked and could agree on. My mom really liked the names Sophia and Olivia, but my dad liked the name Allison. I would have been named Michael if I was a boy; this is because my dad’s name is Michael as well as my grandfather on my mom’s side, my mom’s brother, and his son. But I was named Allison and my younger brother was named Michael instead. My middle name is Christina because that is my mom’s sister’s name, who is my godmother.

Allison is of Germanic, French, Irish, and English origin. The Germanic meaning is “of noble birth.” The French meaning is “a 13th century variant of Alice meaning nobility.” The Irish meaning is “honest.” The English meaning is “variant of Alice: of the nobility.” Some nicknames people have for me are, in my family, Allie, and some of my friends call me Al. When you say my entire name together it is really long, and most people have trouble pronouncing and spelling my last name. People usually ask me how to pronounce my last name and what is its origin; the origin of my last name is Italian, but I could not find anything about what it means or its history.