Journal #1

Janie is perceived as an attractive woman and a confident person. Even before Janie speaks a word, the people sitting on the porch comment on her looks, "the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume"(Hurston 2). Janie's hair is a symbol of her beauty. Janie is not afraid to be different from the norm, which is exemplified when people sitting on the porch say, "what she doin coming back here in dem overalls? Can't she find no dress to put on?"(Hurston 2). A woman wearing overalls in out of the ordinary, but Janie does not seem to care because she is comfortable with who she is. Despite being critical of Janie, she is envied by others because she is attractive. Janie is perceived as someone that is higher up than the passive porch sitters, "still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day" (Hurston 2).

The narrator uses characters to explain her points and values, mainly from a women's perspective. The main character, Janie, is used along with the narrator's voice to highlight themes such as the empowerment of women. We can see that the author is favored and slightly biased to women through her choice of a character who is a colored woman perceived by other characters as not as intelligent, but through the narrator's clever use of imagery and similes it is revealed that she is anything but that, especially through the beginning passage which hints at Janie's journey throughout the novel and her return. The narrator uses foreshadowing when saying, "She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgement" (pg 1). Not only does the narrator hint at what is going to happen, but also that Janie is a character that takes action.