Writing Prompt:
1. To what extent does Janie acquire her own voice and the ability to shape her own life? How are the two related? Does Janie's telling her story to Phoebe in flashback undermine her ability to tell her story directly in her own voice?
2. How important is Hurston's use of vernacular dialect to our understanding of Janie, the other characters, and their way of life? What do speech paterns reveal about the qualities of these lives, and the nature of these communities?
3. What is the importance in the novel of the "signifyin" and "playin' the dozens" on the front porch of Joe's store and elsewhere? What purpose do these stories, traded insults, exaggerations and boasts have in the lives of the people?
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