Reading 1001 discussion

5. What are the differences between the language of the men and that of Janie and the other women? How do the differences in language reflect the two groups' approaches to life, power, relationships, and self-realization? How do the novel's first two paragraphs point to these differences?

The opening paragraph talks about men gazing out to the horizon, watching ships that never come, and they talk about dreams they will never realise. They're not honest with themselves.

The second paragraph talks about the practicality of women, and their ability to see what matters in life and act on it. They understand what a dream really is.

The men on the store porch talk nonsense, aggrandising themselves, belittling each other, trying to establish a pecking order that sits under the throne of Mayor Starks. They talk about how tough and clever they are, how nobody can get one over on them, and how God is on their side. The same is true of most of the men on the muck, who shoot the breeze and big themselves up.

Janie, when she has opportunity to speak publicly, and in private, gets to the point of the matter, and speaks the truth she has inside her, which counters the nonsense being spouted by the men. She speaks clearly and acts on her words. Her words are never empty.

The women who come to the store are flirtatious, and on the surface talk nonsense, but underneath they know what they want to get out of the trip and how to manipulate the men in their self aggrandisement by using language that plays to the men's wrong impression of the women.

Like Jan says the men like to speculate and tell tall tales while the women cut through the crap and say what's on their minds.

I am not sure that I can differentiate between the genders in the voices in the story. I loved the descriptions of the teasing banter that went on between the men on the verandha, such as the story of Matt Bonner and his mule. I don't remember there being similar descriptions of how the women spoke, except for their conjecture and put-down of Janie on her return to Eatonville at the beginning of the story. But the description of this man-talk was wonderful: "When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."