Poetic Device Artwork

by Tasia Widner

This is a free-hand, pencil drawing by Tasia Widner of a few of the poetic devices exemplified in Zora N. Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.  In order to make the drawing sharper and easier to see, Tasia edited a photograph of the drawing using http://www.picnik.com/, a free photo-editing website.  The individual vignettes and their descriptions are displayed below.  If you want to see this drawing on your full screen, simply click on the image.

"The Sea"

The picture as a whole encompasses Janie's statement that "love is lak de sea.  It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore" (191).  The three different vignettes represent different attributes of the sea in correspondence to different times in Janie and Tea Cake's marriage.  The first represents the calm, easy-going beginning to their life together.  The second represents their trials and the depth of their love for eachother, and the third represents the dreadful calm after the storm, the culmination of their marriage.  

Checkers

This scene is the first time Tea Cake teaches Janie how to play checkers.  I chose to depict a scene with Janie and Tea Cake because most of the times that the two protagonists are at the store are filled with sensory imagery (for example, Janie and Tea Cake's dialogue in chapter 11 about whether Janie was ever satisfied with her looks).  Also, this scene is located right at the start of the horizon.  Meeting Tea Cake was the beginning of the fulfillment of Janie's dream.

Watching God 

This portion of the drawing contains the majority of the poetic devices.  On page 158, Hurston compares the hurricane to a "monster," and in this vignette, Janie and Tea Cake are huddling together in their house, beseeching God with their eyes to protect them from this monster.  In the background, the ship that has "every man's wish on board" (1) rests on the horizon.  I drew it this way because this scene -the hurricane- was the climax of the story, and similarly, the point at which Janie knew her dreams were fulfilled. 

The End of the Horizon

This last vignette also represents vivid sensory imagery:  the vicious dog that tried to kill Janie and Tea Cake and Tea Cake's triumph over it (166); the descriptions of Tea Cake's difficulty in drinking water (175, 178); and the suspenseful interchange between Janie and Tea Cake that lead to his death and the sorrow that followed (183-184).  This final scene was drawn at the opposite side of the horizon for two reasons.  First, Tea Cake is metaphorically refered to by Janie as the "son of the Evening Sun."  Finally, this event marks Janie's road back home, and describes her statement to Pheoby: "Ah done been tuh de horizon and back" (191).