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of there relationship. It was a ritual in their relationship for Joe to give Missie May the silver dollars every Saturday. The moon is described by Hurston as a silver image on Joe’s ride home from work, “...a lean moon rode the lake in a silver boat. If anybody had asked Joe about the moon on the lake, he would have said he hadn’t paid it any attention. But he saw it with his feelings. ” (255) Joe saw the lake with his “feelings” and he saw the silver moon; it is clear that he associated his relationship with his wife with silver.
Numbers are also used as symbols to make a statement without actually stating it. Joe and Missie May’s magic number is nine. This stands for the nine silver dollars that Joe would throw into the house every Saturday. After she and Slemmons were caught together Joe no longer threw the coins into the house on Saturdays. Slemmons is told to have two gold pieces on him in the amounts of five and ten which is the amount of coins that Joe throws into the house at the end of the story. Slemmons uses numbers in an abstract way to describe people. He associates the number forty with the word forte and Joe doesn’t understand what he means by it.
Slemmons ironically opens an ice cream shop. Ice cream is a universal symbol for something that is sweet but cold. Slemmons was seen as sweet and suave as was Missie May until the two got together; then Joe viewed them as being cold.
Clothing is another social status symbol. Slemmons is described as someone who wore fine clothes. Later in the story Joe calls them rags. When Joe took Missie May to the ice cream parlor he wanted her to wear her Sunday clothes so that he could show her off to Slemmons. He wanted him to see his woman since Slemmons talks about all of the women that he has. Hurston writes that Joe considered Missie May to be the best dressed woman at church, “...church on Sunday nights when Missie outdressed any woman in town...” (255) This quote also brings up
the symbol of religion. When Joe asked Missie May to go to the ice cream parlor for the first time Hurston writes that he tells her, “...put on yo’ Sunday-go-to-meetin’ things.” (253) Hurston
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writes in other quotes that refer to images from the Bible. “Like Samson awakening after his haircut.” (256) “Don’t look back lak Lot’s wife and turn to salt.” (257) The imagery from these quotes make it know that Joe is a religious man in the story and Hurston herself has a religious background.
Laughter is used to portray and hide feelings in Joe. Laughter shows the happiness between Joe and Missie May when they have their playful game on Saturdays. Later in the story
Hurston writes that Joe’s laughter is shown as an unsure feeling when he finds Slemmons with his wife, “So he just opened his mouth and laughed.” and before bed that night, “...and took a good laugh and went to bed.” (256) At the end of the story Joe was laughing in the store when he turned in the 4-bit piece that he pulled off of Slemmon’s neck for candy. The clerk states after Joe leaves, “Wisht I could be like these darkies. Laughin’ all the time. Nothin’ worries ‘em.” This was surely not Joe’s case at all but his character tells otherwise. Hurston also uses laughter as a private symbol in another one of her writings. “They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs.” (Their Eyes Were Watching God 2) “Pearl Stone opened her mouth and laughed real hard because she didn’t know what else to do.” (Their Eyes Were Watching God 2-3)
Hurston’s real life is story is a mystery according to Ann Ducile’s book review in The New York Times. She has conflicting age and birth date documents due to her habitual lying. “...although she gave the year of her birth as 1910, rather than 1891, as scholars have now determined.” (The New York Times) Literature and The Writing Process has her birth date listed as 1901. Her birthplace is also not certain. She has said that she was born in Eatonville but it is assumed that she was born in Notasulga, Alaska. Nonetheless, Hurston has made a mark in the history of writing with her cultural relations and peers. According to The New York Times
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article there are festivals, foundations, literary societies, endowed chairs, journals, honors and awards in the name of Zora.
