Passionless In Roger Rosenblatt's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'

In Roger Rosenblatt’s article named “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, he correctly states that Logan and Jody both have lives that lack imagination and desire. Rosenblatt states that what Jody and Logan “offer is a variety of death: passionless lives lacking any sense of creativity”(31). This is saying that throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jody and Logan are unemotional and they are unoriginal. Rosenblatt is able to convey this message through the use of his words in his article. “Passionless” is one of the words that help display his opinion in an excellent way. Then, the denotation of “passionless” is lacking strong emotion or unemotional. In the same way, nothingness, emptiness, and drained are all types of feelings that …show more content…
Since “passionless” on its own is a very strong word with its connotation and its denotation, Rosenblatt used this to his advantage and was able to make “passionless” work in unison with the rest of the quote. Another word that is significant that Rosenblatt decided to use is “creativity”. The denotation of “creativity” is the use of the imagination or original ideas. Similarly, the feeling that “creativity” conveys is imaginative, joyus, and cheerful. Even though this word has a positive connotation to it on it’s own, the way that Rosenblatt uses the word “creativity” takes it and gives it a negative feel to it once it is incorporated into the whole sentence. This is because he added”passionless” which has a very negative connotation that is attached to it. Then, in result, it gives “creativity: a negative feeling to it. Additionally, the denotative meaning of “creativity” is the use of the imagination or original ideas. This is showing that Rosenblatt was displaying that Jody and Logan both were unable to have original ideas or an imagination throughout the novel, which resulting in them using others ideas or a variation of them in …show more content…
Logan said,“Ah’ll take holt uh dat axe and come in dere and kill yuh” (Hurston 49)” to Janie. This is saying that Logan is telling Janie that if she doesn't start behaving that he will kill her with an axe. There are multiple words that help get this point across, one of these words is “holt”. The denotation of “holt” is a grip or hold. This is saying that he will grab the axe with the intent to kill Janie all because he did not like that he wasn't following what he wanted her to do. Also, the connotation of the word “holt” is to end and freeze. This almost works against what Hurston wanted the quote to show since the connotation is making it seem like a sudden stop compared to grabbing or taking a hold of the axe. This is showing that Rosenblatt was wrong in stating that Logan was not show as “evil” because the word “holt” is displaying that Logan had an intent it use that axe that he took in a wicked way against Janie. Another word that is important to this quote is “kill”. The denotation of the word “kill” is cause the death. This is showing that something that is very wicked was going to happen if what Janie was doing would have continued and she wouldn't have left. The connotation of “kill” frightness, cruel, and deadly. This is displaying that Logan was going to