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Pathos
Definition of Personification
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down... read full definition
Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the... read full definition
Personification
Explanation and Analysis—Morning Again:
At many moments throughout the book, the narrator takes a moment to specifically describe the dawning of a new day or the end of one in a sunset. This is, on a simple level, a way to move the story forward to the next day, a way to indicate in an interesting way that one day in the story has ended and another has begun.
Oftentimes the sun is personified in these descriptions, as at the beginning of the book. Janie begins telling her story to Pheoby in the evening: "The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky." This is quite a picturesque image of a sunset, describing it as the sun's footprints. Sometimes these moments are not personifications of the sun, but of morning: “Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun. So Janie had another day.” Or, as later in the book, the sunlight is personified instead: "Daylight was creeping around the cracks of the world when Janie heard a feeble rap on the door."
These repeated structures lend a consistent sense of time to the book. The reader understands how the story moves forward, day by day. This is especially important in a story with a complicated structure of time, in its frame narrative, and in a story which sometimes leaps years ahead. These references to daylight are also perhaps a subtle allusion to similar references at the beginning of many of the books of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which describe a personified Dawn which lights each new day. In sum, these references help to structure the book, but do so in a nuanced and aesthetically appealing way.
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Him-with-the-square-toes:
Death is personified in the book in a novel and strange way, as a man with square toes. This personification of Death arrives as Jody is dying:
So Janie began to think of Death. Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him come. Been standing there before there was a where or a when or a then. She was liable to find a feather from his wings lying in her yard any day now.
The same description of Death returns later in the book after the hurricane, though neither Janie or the narrator is willing to refer to him by name:
And then again Him-with-the-square-toes had gone back to his house. He stood once more and again in his high flat house without sides to it and without a roof with his soulless sword standing upright in his hand. His pale white horse had galloped over waters, and thundered over land. The time of dying was over. It was time to bury the dead.
There are small references to this character of Death at other moments in the book, usually in brief reference to square toes. This is specifically Janie's conception of Death: the first sentence of the first quote clarifies that this man is the product of Janie's imagination. Still, Hurston used this specific character of Death in many of her short stories and novels, including the famous Dust Tracks. This personification of Death, like so many of Hurston's images, is unfamiliar yet evocative. Generally this Death does not draw from culturally familiar images, other than the "pale white horse," which is an allusion to Death's pale horse in Revelation 6. The other details—his house in the west, his messenger, his sword—seem to be Hurston's invention.
This picture of Death creates a quiet but powerful fear. Janie is familiar with death: by the end of the book, she loses her grandmother, her mother and father (presumably, though both are mostly unknown to Janie), and one of her husbands. Janie knows death well and can describe him well through this peculiar but specific character. The descriptions also show Janie's complex imagination: she dreams up this image of death, but its description is in more complex and abstract prose than much else in the book, showing her rich mental life. But in addition, this image of Death, on a simpler level, is excellent scary-story fodder, and images like these bring back to mind the frame narrative of the book. The reader might imagine Pheoby, squealing with fear and delight, as Janie the storyteller paints the scary image of Death with his square toes.
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—The Monster:
Lake Okeechobee, after it is struck by the hurricane late in the book, is personified as an old monster with human traits, with strange specifics in the description. The first personified image of the hurricane comes as it is just beginning:
[The storm] woke up old Okeechobee and the monster began to roll in his bed. Began to roll and complain like a peevish world on a grumble. The folks in the quarters and the people in the big houses further around the shore heard the big lake and wondered. The people felt uncomfortable but safe because there were the seawalls to chain the senseless monster in his bed.
Note several peculiar features of this description of the "senseless monster." For one, it is unclear whether the description is referring to the lake, or to the hurricane, or to the effect of the hurricane on the lake, or something else: this monster is strange and unknown, reflecting how the people of Belle Glade don't know how the hurricane will affect them.
But the monster here doesn't do much of anything. All it does is "grumble" and toss and turn in bed, reflecting the agitation in the lake in the early hours of the storm. Many of the townspeople at this point in the novel were not worried about the hurricane; this description of the monster reflects that.
The monster is specifically male, as Hurston confirms in "his bed." With that in mind, this monster resembles the worst of Janie's husbands. All three of them, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake, are shown grumbling at her in their bed at some point in the book. The similarities in these descriptions inform the reader of Janie's opinion of her husbands. She thinks of them as generally unintimidating, yet annoying. In other words, as Janie had known her grumbling, complaining husbands to be generally ineffective people, she also doubts that the hurricane will cause much damage.
Chapter 19
Explanation and Analysis—Him-with-the-square-toes:
Death is personified in the book in a novel and strange way, as a man with square toes. This personification of Death arrives as Jody is dying:
So Janie began to think of Death. Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him come. Been standing there before there was a where or a when or a then. She was liable to find a feather from his wings lying in her yard any day now.
The same description of Death returns later in the book after the hurricane, though neither Janie or the narrator is willing to refer to him by name:
And then again Him-with-the-square-toes had gone back to his house. He stood once more and again in his high flat house without sides to it and without a roof with his soulless sword standing upright in his hand. His pale white horse had galloped over waters, and thundered over land. The time of dying was over. It was time to bury the dead.
There are small references to this character of Death at other moments in the book, usually in brief reference to square toes. This is specifically Janie's conception of Death: the first sentence of the first quote clarifies that this man is the product of Janie's imagination. Still, Hurston used this specific character of Death in many of her short stories and novels, including the famous Dust Tracks. This personification of Death, like so many of Hurston's images, is unfamiliar yet evocative. Generally this Death does not draw from culturally familiar images, other than the "pale white horse," which is an allusion to Death's pale horse in Revelation 6. The other details—his house in the west, his messenger, his sword—seem to be Hurston's invention.
This picture of Death creates a quiet but powerful fear. Janie is familiar with death: by the end of the book, she loses her grandmother, her mother and father (presumably, though both are mostly unknown to Janie), and one of her husbands. Janie knows death well and can describe him well through this peculiar but specific character. The descriptions also show Janie's complex imagination: she dreams up this image of death, but its description is in more complex and abstract prose than much else in the book, showing her rich mental life. But in addition, this image of Death, on a simpler level, is excellent scary-story fodder, and images like these bring back to mind the frame narrative of the book. The reader might imagine Pheoby, squealing with fear and delight, as Janie the storyteller paints the scary image of Death with his square toes.
