A majestic horse galloping across a expansive green field. On a peaceful street with a big Colonial house two cheerful children frollecking on the wooden, newly obtained swingset. Exuberant teenagers in long, bejeweled gowns and others in rented, formal tuxedos waiting impatiently to be swept away to a magical night in a long, sleek limo. Imagery unlike many other literary devices is used to set the scene for a plot to occurs and even provides deeper meaning into the storyline. On the other hand imagery can be used to deceive the reader of the bitter reality behind the idealistic image formed in their heads on behalf the imagery employed. Excellent examples of deceptive imagery used as illusions of a alternative, unfavorable reality are seen …show more content…
in the book by Zora Neale Hurston “Their Eyes were Watching God”. Throughout the book Hurston uses timed imagery to represent the new beginning and false hope that each man bring to Janie’s life, but ironically the imagery is an illusion because each romantic relationship ends badly.
The first illusion can be seen through the idealistic and extravagant imagery used to depict Janie and Logan’s wedding. The author describes the setting, describing it as, “in Nanny’s parlor of a Saturday evening with three cake and big platters of fried rabbit and chicken. Everything to eat in abundance”(21). The wedding taking place in grandma’s house represents a place of comfort on a leisurely day such as Sunday. This whole time and location of the wedding give that the marriage will be full of peace and warmth. More importantly, the large feast represents the large expectations of the marriage itself. As it is Janie’s first marriage as a young women she this feast, which must have been expensive and full of effort to make, is displaying a sort of arrogant confidence in that the …show more content…
marriage will be long and successful. Her first marriage signal a hope that her marriage will be full of love and new, happy beginning of her life as a young women. Later on the book reveals that this imagery was an illusion for a bad relationship that quickly deteriorates after their wedding. Jamie ends up unhappy in her marriage, and Logan becomes frustrated with her behavior. He openly insults her and judgmentally assumed the reason behind her unhappiness, “Ah’m too honest and hard-workin’ for anybody in yo family, dat’s de reason you don’t want me”(32)! His offensive speech is a verbal symbol of the ending of their relationship. Janie no longer has the patience to continue being apart of a marriage with someone she does not love. Her first marriage ends with Janie’s departure, never turning coming back to her relationship with Logan ever again. This ending is a stark contrast to the hopeful and peaceful start of their relationship. The first marriage doesn’t last long and ended with a hostile conversation between the couple. Not unliker her marriage to Logan, the imagery that the author employs is full of tranquility and beauty creating a optimistic mood about the relationship, while this imagery is only providing an illusion for how her relationship with Jody ends.
The author depicts the day Janie meets Jody with beautiful, tranquil imagery, “The noon sun filtered through the leaves of the fine oak tree where she sat and made lacy patterns on the ground”(27). This imagery is a symbol to foreshadow a blossoming of a beautiful, growing relationship between Jody and Janie. Examining the imagery, it infers that their relationship together will be contain emotional depth like the light filtering through the leafs, and work together naturally like the leaves of a oak tree. Her new relationship provides a new opportunity for her to live a better life for herself and fills her with hope of finding her true love. These type of innocent desires of hope and love can be shown through the simplistic act of leaves on the trees. As the years pass their relationship digresses, Jody becomes arrogant and ruthless with the power of mayor and Janie is forced into a role of submissive, spineless wife. Janie reveals her discontentment about her marriage to Jody to him in his final moments,”All dis bowin’ down, all dis obedience under yo’ voice--dat ain’t whut Ah rushed off down de road tuh find out about you”(87). As their marriage ends, Jody realizes how misleading the beginning of their relationship and how the
deception caused her to live a life of servitude underneath him. Their marriage does not give Janie the love she wants or has hoped for when she met Jody. The ending of her relationship is in stark contrast to the hopeful imagery used on the day that she met Jody. Rather than using a overly positive image like used at the beginning of each Jodie’s relationships, the imagery that Zora Hurston uses when Jody meets Tea Cake highlights the transformation their relationship will cause and how it fills her desire through describing the moon on the night Janie meets Tea Cake, “Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth and quenching thirst of day”(99). As well as this imagery provides an illusion for a happy ending between the two, when in reality their relationship ends tragically. This imagery is a symbol for Tea Cake coming in the life of the Janie and filling her desire of true love that she has yearned for since childhood. Therefore the capabilities that Tea Cake has as being the amber fluid represents the hope that Janie will finally experience true love and that she will no longer need to marry terrible, self serving men that take into no regard Janie’s feelings or wants. While Janie and Tea Cake share true love, he takes advantage of her feelings for him to obtain a sense of power over her. Tea Cake makes Janie move or stay wherever he may like, controls her socialization with Mrs. Turner, and brags about how his physical abuse to his friends. In the end, the animal fight occuring during the hurricane is the event symbolizing the ending of their relationship. The author detailedly describes the scene that would later caused Tea Cake’s death, “They fought and somehow he manage to bite Tea Cake high on his cheek-bone once. Then Tea Cake finished him..”(166). While Tea Cake served as a dominating force in his marriage, he sacrificed his life to save Janie’s, which displays a deep care for her. The imagery at the beginning while displaying a whole fulfillment of her desire, it is only an illusion due the fact her sense of fulfillment is cut short by the death of Tea Cake. He is only able to transform her life with love, even as he may had his shortcomings, the imagery lacks to include that their relationship comes to a tragic ending. The imagery only portrays an idealistic view of how Tea Cake would forever be in her life, providing her with love and affection. Like other strong imagery used through any form of writing, the imagery used in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” uses imagery to intrigue and provoke readers thoughts, but are misleading in its premise of happiness and bright future. While the big feast indicated a successful marriage, Logan and Janie are not satisfied with their marriage and it ends quickly after it is started. Even as the beautiful, picturesque tree imagery of that day exhibits hope of a complexly satisfying love with Jody, Janie is trapped into a toxic relationship with a tyrannical man that ultimately prematurely dies a bitter man. In the last relationship while the moon imagery displays full satisfaction and transfiguration of Janie’s life, Tea Cake dies tragically, which leaves Janie without the love she had with Tea Cake. Furthermore “Their Eyes were Watching God” utilizes imagery to display confidence and hope at the beginning of Janie’s romantic relationships, although the imagery is an illusion for the disastrous ending of each relationship.
The pear tree, the ocean, the horizon, the hurricane are how Janie views nature. Hurston uses spring as a sign of fertility, blossoming sexuality, and a new start. The pear tree represents Janie blossoming into womanhood. In Janie’s eyes the pear tree represents beauty and freedom because she is able to reflect on her life, and her future. No one is telling her what to do when she sits under t...
Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford the main character goes through some big changes. Throughout this book Janie struggles to find her inner voice and purpose of love. She looks high and low for a sign of what love really is and she finds it as being the pear tree. The pear tree is very symbolic and ultimately shows Janie what love is and how it should be in a healthy relationship. This tree, with the bees pollinating the blossoms, helps Janie realize that love should be very mutual and each person needs to provide for the other equally. Janie tries to find this special kind of love through her three husbands, but she comes to realize it is going to be much harder then she expected. Each one of Janie’s husbands are a stepping stone for her finding her voice.
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). When Janie was a teenager, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. She longs for something more. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if this is what she looks for. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the main character, is involved in three very different relationships. Zora Neale Hurston, the author, explains how Janie learns some valuable lessons about marriage, integrity, and love and happiness from her relationships with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
The book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about Janie Crawford and her quest for self-independence and real love. She finds herself in three marriages, one she escapes from, and the other two end tragically. And throughout her journey, she learns a lot about love, and herself. Janie’s three marriages were all different, each one brought her in for a different reason, and each one had something different to teach her, she was forced into marrying Logan Killicks and hated it. So, she left him for Joe Starks who promised to treat her the way a lady should be treated, but he also made her the way he thought a lady should be. After Joe died she found Tea Cake, a romantic man who loved Janie the way she was, and worked hard to provide for her.
For example, Harper Lee uses imagery to develop the theme that believing rumors will lead you to false assumptions unless you have walked in that person's shoes. For example, on page 372, while Boo Radley and Scout are walking back to Boo’s house Scout thinks to himself that, “if Miss Stephanie Crawford was watching from her upstairs window, she would see Arthur Radley escorting me down the sidewalk, as any gentleman would.” In this quote, Harper Lee uses imagery to show Boo Radley walking Scout down
Jody believes that Janie has poisoned him, illustrating the magnitude of both of their unhappiness. Almost immediately after Jody dies, Janie “starches” and “irons” her face, which could also imply how the headrags represent a facade that she unwillingly dons in public. Janie goes to the funeral inundated in loneliness and grief. However, after she emerges from the funeral Janie burns all of her head rags. Hurston states: “Before she slept that night she burnt up everyone of her head rags and went about the house the next morning..her hair in one thick braid”(pg 89). Fire represents the destruction of something; by burning the very tool that was facilitating the suppression of her identity, Janie is making a vow to never sacrifice herself to others. The long, nimble braid the reader is introduced to in the first chapter reemerges. It is important to note that as she lets her hair down, her circumstances change for the better. Janie meets Tea Cake, her playful new husband. Hurston describes Janie as the curious, vibrant child she was under the pear tree similar to how she is presently with Tea Cake. Therefore, Hurston reveals the overarching theme that when one unwillingly enshrouds their identity, their circumstances become unpalatable. This theme is conveyed through JAnie: As she sacrifices herself to tie her hair up, her happiness devolved into loneliness. However, once she crosses the threshold to her true self, she fully exuded the vivacious Janie that she truly is. All of this is manifested through her
Imagery is when the author presents a mental image through descriptive words. One prime example of imagery that the author uses is in paragraph 3; where she tells of a moment between a man and a woman. In this narration she states the time, year, outfit of each character described, and what the female character was doing. These details might come across as irrelevant, or unnecessary, but this is Didions way of showing what the blueprint of notebook it. Using imagery reinforces the foundation of the essay, and what the essay’s mission was.
In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the image of a pear tree reverberates throughout the novel. The pear tree is not only a representation of Janie's life - blossoming, death, metamorphosis, and rebirth - but also the spark of curiosity that sets Janie on her quest for self-discovery. Janie is essentially "rootless" at the beginning of her life, never having known her mother or father and having been raised by her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny even says to Janie, "Us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways" (Hurston, 16). Under a pear tree in Nanny's backyard, however, Janie, as a naïve sixteen-year-old, finds the possibilities of love, sexuality, and identity that are available to her. This image, forever reverberating in her mind through two unsuccessful marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, is what keeps Janie's spirit alive and encourages her quest for love and life. "It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep" (10).
Over time Janie begins to develop her own ideas and ideals. In Their Eyes Watching God. Each principle character has their own perceptions. towards the end of marriage. & nbsp;
Janie represents all of the independent women of her time because she never gave up her happiness. The one moment that brought the whole story together and the one moment that really showed Janie as one strong woman, was the moment she let down her hair. After many years and multiple men burdening her of societal expectations she finally became a woman that she wanted to be. The moment quoted when she became herself was, “She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there”(Hurston 86), was the climax of the story, and the beginning to Janie’s
The novel incorporates intimate emotions of Janie, “She had to hug him tight for soon he would be gone, and she had to tell him for the last time” (187), and encompasses feelings that are very human. It can be observed that different circumstances, with different people, with different emotions, affect perspectives and outlook, ultimately affects what one does. Forgiving and being compassionate is something that takes character, willingness, understanding and disposition, “Sop and his friends had tried to hurt her but she knew it was because they loved Tea Cake and didn’t understand” (189). Letting go and showing care is something that is not easily imparted, but is instead something given with immense caution and
There was evidence of Janie using his process as she thought about love and compared it to a pear tree; however, many of her relationships with men heavily influenced her journey to find her voice. Whether the relationship was healthy for her or not, Janie felt the oppression of men was weighing her down leading her to find Tea Cake and finally her own voice. Writing her most famous novel, Hurston’s use of these relationships, symbols, and personal life experiences are what led to Janie’s journey and also what ultimately helped Janie find that strength. Embarking on this journey, Janie ventures out of her small life to pursue her idea of love and happiness. She goes through many years of her life being oppressed by a number of men, even those who are not her husband. Ultimately, Janie uses that experience of male dominance in her life to breakout on her own and find the strong female voice she always searched
This passage displays Janie’s intuitive and authentic idea of love. Janie is a young teenage girl under the care of her grandmother and this is the beginning of her sensual awakening and discovering her femininity. Janie is in the springtime of her life, with a fresh, young and unpolluted in her perception of love. She views the world as a place filled with romantic possibilities and opportunities, ready for exploration. This discovery ignites her desire to experience true love. The embrace between the bee and the flower impresses an idealized vision of love and a moment of equal and reciprocal serenity. The flowers “arch to meet” the “visiting bee” and the following harmony provides each companion with a beloved existence. Janie desires to