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Love in their eyes watching God
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The Metaphor Horizon In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the horizon to symbol the future and Janies limitless possibilities. The horizon is a far off line in the distance where the earth meets the sky. It makes sense why Hurston would use the horizon to symbolize the future and limitless possibilities because, much like the future, it is out of reach and one never knows what it might behold. One can see how Hurston uses the horizon to represent the future when Joe Starks promises Janie a better life with him, she thinks “he did not represent the sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far out horizon. He spoke for change and chance” (Hurston 29). In this quotation Janie is comparing the horizon to change and chance.
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...
Hurston invokes the symbol of horizon recurrently throughout the novel, to portray Janie’s dreams, aspirations, and her growth as a strong independent woman while attaining her horizon. The symbol, horizon, is used in both the beginning and ending of the story to represent the desire and fulfillment of Janie’s dreams. In the novel's opening sentence, the narrator introduces Janie's motivation to pursue her dreams, “Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time” (Hurst 1). The horizon in this passage represents a dream that is not easily attainable, as
In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author takes you on the journey of a woman, Janie, and her search for love, independence, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit seems to constantly be disregarded, yet Janie continues to hold on to the potential of grasping all that she desires. In, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Hurston illustrates the ambiguity of Janie’s voice; the submissiveness of her silence and the independence she reclaims when regaining her voice. The reclaiming of Janie's independence, in the novel, correlates with the development and maturation Janie undergoes during her self discovery.
Throughout the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Zora Neale Hurston uses colors and other symbols to describe the state of relationships, feelings, and even show a certain point of view. As Janie goes through relationships, she encounters different colors. Hurston also shows us Janie’s feelings within those relationships as well as the common view of the world on Janie. Next to the colors, Hurston uses other symbols to show the reader even more specific meanings.
Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the pear tree metaphor, metaphors representing the inside and outside world, and finally the figure of the mule.
Poetry conveys emotions and ideas through words and lines. Long Way Down gives the story about a boy named Will, who wants to avenge his brother. He believes that a guy named Riggs killed his brother. He takes his brother’s gun and leaves his family’s apartment on the eighth floor. On the way down the elevator, he is stopped at each floor and a ghost from his past gets on.
Quote 1: “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics,2006), Chapter 2, page 8. In this quote, Hurston is setting the scene for the rest of the novel. In the first chapter, Janie has lived the rest of the novel, and is coming from the end of the last chapter. In the second chapter, however, she goes back to when she was but 16 and starts her story from there. This quote is the beginning of the second chapter, and the beginning of her story. Using this quote, Hurston makes it more clear to the reader that Janie is looking back from the future.
... Although the forces of the world may be unknowable and at times painful, she is at peace with them. She has found true love, which has enabled her to find her voice. This final image of Janie “pulling in her horizon” contrasts with the opening image of men’s “ships at a distance.” These metaphorical ships suggest that regardless of their ultimate success or failure, men dream of great accomplishments, of working on and changing their external worlds. Even if the ship comes in, it still originates as something external. Janie’s pulling in her horizon shifts the field of action to the interior. Her quest requires experiences of the world, of other people and places, but it is ultimately directed inward. Would you go the distance to find who you are?
Hurston, however, does not present the reader with the nihilistic hopelessness of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but rather offers an understanding of the basic human aspect that causes us to fear emptiness. Janie, the main character in the novel, understands this emptiness and is dissatisfied with it. In an attempt to solve the problem, Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of her inner void. Although she is beset on all sides by tragedy, Janie does not become discouraged - quite the opposite actually. She uses her tragedy as emotional fuel to keep her moving toward her destiny.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston which is set in the 1930’s explores the life of an African American women from the south, that trying to find herself. The protagonist of this novel is Janie Crawford. In the novel, Janie is going on a journey to find who she really is and to find spiritual enlightenment. To help shape Janie character in this novel Hurston is influence by the philosophical view from the Romanticism, and Realism movement in addition she is influence by the social events that were happing in the Modernism period.
Through her use of southern black language Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how to live and learn from life’s experiences. Janie, the main character in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a woman who defies what people expect of her and lives her life searching to become a better person. Not easily satisfied with material gain, Janie quickly jumps into a search to find true happiness and love in life. She finally achieves what she has searched for with her third marriage.
Horizon is the line that separates the surface and the sky in appearance; the horizon is also known as a person’s experience, how they perceive the world around them. In Zora Neale Hurston's “Their eyes were watching god,” Hurston uses the word horizon several times in the book in third person, and in first person by the main character Janie. In “Their eyes were watching god,” Janie a girl grows into adulthood through three marriages and experiences its ups and downs. The symbol of the horizon in “Their eyes were watching god,” represents the dreams of men and realities of women, it symbolizes Janie’s growth in her life.
Zora Neale Hurston opens Their Eyes Were Watching God with an eloquent metaphor regarding dreams: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time (Hurston 1).” Hurston describes here how some dreams are achieved with time while others lurk out of reach until the dreamer gives up. Janie Crawford, protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, encounters numerous ambitions throughout her life, mainly concerning a desire to somehow achieve something in life, and to not just go through the motions. While Janie’s dreams and my own do not exactly correspond, we both aspire to discover a greater passion in life and find a voice that will enable us to make a difference.
The Mechanical Engineering field involves multiple disciplines. The language from the disciplines converges into a complex dialect of sayings and metaphors. Metaphors are used in the field as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison” [1]. The Mechanical Engineering field entails different working environments and types of employment. The metaphors CAD jockey, cube farm, and worth his salt encapsulate different aspects of a Mechanical Engineer. In everyday life common metaphors like tie the knot, pass the buck, and pushing the envelope are used.
... middle of paper ... ... Through Janie's experiences and feelings regarding the love of her life, his death, and the hurricane, it is obvious that Hurston meant for the reader to relate self-realization to questioning God. Although God is not a dominant theme in the novel, it is likely that Hurston was mirroring the people she came into contact with throughout her endeavors as a folklorist.