Their Eyes Were Watching God

Throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston, the use of dialogue and language becomes prevalent . Zora Hurston is famously known to have mastered the dialogue of the African American people and uses that skill in her writing to show a deeper meaning. Language and dialogue are used in this story to show the relation between people, and even the power and influence that certain individuals have. Through the use of dialogue and language, Zora Hurston is able to convey her attitudes towards characters and their situations. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Hurston uses dialogue to show the relation between individuals. She more specifically uses dialog to show how Janie came from a higher class than most of the people she encountered. In her story of her youth, Janie talks of how she lived in the back yard of a nice white family. The family treated her as an equal by playing with her and even giving her clothes that they grew out of. Whenever Janie would go to school, the colored kids would always exclude her from their games because she was not like them. She neither talked like them, nor even dressed like them. The kids treated her wrongly because of their jealousy towards her (9). Yet again she is treated differently because she is of a higher class. Jody won’t let her sit and talk with the people in the front of the store because he believes that they are “trash” compared to her (54) After Janie comes back from her life with Tea Cake, a poor younger man, to her hometown, Janie is still criticized by the townspeople for being of a higher class. They gossip about her running off with Tea Cake; despite this, Janie is only ever pleasant to them (1-3). She is never able to escape her elevated relations with the common people and it follows her to her death. Consistently throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Hurston uses language and dialog to show power, or the lack of power. When the story begins, Janie seems to be completely