The Theme Of Innocence In 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow our protagonist, Janie, through a journey of self-discovery. We watch Janie from when she was a child to her adulthood, slowly watching her ideas change while other dreams of hers unfortunately die. This is shown when Jane first formulates her idea of love, marriage, and intimacy by comparing it to a pear tree; erotic, beautiful, and full of life. After Janie gets married to her first spouse, Logan Killicks, she doesn’t see her love fantasy happening, but she waits because her Nanny tells her that love comes after marriage. Janie, thinking that Nanny is wise beyond her years, decides to wait. But, as Logan continues to snap at Janie day to day, she becomes even more uninterested. While avoiding

Logan, sitting under a tree, Janie comes to a realization; “She knew that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” This realization made by Janie supports one of the biggest themes in this novel, which is that the concept of innocence and womanhood can’t exist at the same time. Because Janie finally lets go of her “childish fantasy”, her innocence is lost and she is now a woman. The theme of lost innocence in exchange for womanhood is also prevalent in Hurston’s story Sweat. This idea is one of the reasons that Sykes and Delia’s relationship begins to fall apart when we meet them.
One example of innocence without womanhood is when Janie first creates her pear tree fantasy. When Janie first sees the bee pollinating the flower, she is only sixteen years old. The scene, in general, seems to have an erotic undertone to it. Janie watches the bee “sink into the sanctum of a bloom,” leaving her in a state where she’s “felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.” This seems to heavily suggest Janie’s discovering an orgasm for the first time, and while some may see this as a dirty, loss of innocence, Hurston presents it in a way that gives Janie a romantic expectation for her future spouses as she connects the euphoria of it to marriage. Instead of being grossed out or bored with the situation, Janie is in awe, feeling honored to behold the spectacle of the “marriage” between the bee and the blossom. In her childlike daze that she has after watching the bee, she looks to Johnny Taylor, a childhood friend that Janie never really liked, but wanted after seeing the pear tree. She kisses him and is immediately caught by Nanny, who tells her that she’s a woman that should be married soon. Janie’s opposition to what Nanny says further proves that Janie is innocent. Janie is young and knows it, she has no desire to be tied down to some old man so quickly like Nanny’s traditional ideas would have her do. Nanny even goes as far as slapping Janie for not wanting to be an “honest wife” and not buying into her idea of marriage and love. In this exchange, the audience is witnessing womanhood, Nanny, and innocence, Janie come together; they don’t mix, showing that the two are unable to coexist as neither of the women understands each other.
Another example of the theme comes from Nanny herself. Instead of innocence with the absence of womanhood like Janie’s was, Nanny’s story shows the opposite; womanhood with the absence of innocence. Unlike Janie, Nanny had a rough childhood where she was raised as a slave. She explained how she was beaten down frequently by the mistress of the house after Janie’s mother, Leafy, was born. The reason for that was because the baby had light hair and light eyes unlike her mother, which proved that the master had been raping Nanny. Scared for the life of herself and her child, Nanny ran away near a swamp and stayed there until slavery was finally abolished. Nanny’s story shows that unlike Janie, she didn’t have a lavish childhood; she was forced to grow up quickly and face the harsh realities of life at a young age. The story gets even worse as Nanny tells Janie that she never married because she didn’t want a man to hurt Leafy, but Leafy ended up being raped by her white teacher. After Janie was born, Leafy’s life went downhill and she left forever. Nanny’s traditional stance begins to make more sense as the audience realizes that Nanny is trying to avoid Janie ending up like her or her mother. Nanny doesn’t want Janie’s sudden lustful behavior to attract a man with bad intentions, even if she has to go to the extreme to prevent it. Of course, marrying Janie off to Logan against her wishes doesn’t seem like the best course of actions, but Nanny simply wants to see Janie married and taken care of before she dies and is unable to protect her. Unfortunately, Nanny’s own experiences cloud her judgment and put her and Janie against each other as she is unable to see that Janie is still a child, and therefore innocent.
The audience finally begins to see Janie has fully lost her innocence when she meets Joe Stark. After Janie realizes that marriage doesn’t bring love, she becomes almost completely detached from Logan and only focuses on nature around her, only this time, there’s no love fantasy, only dead dreams. Logan and Janie constantly argue, and she stops caring for him at all. When Logan finally leaves, Janie decides to try to catch the eye of a passing stranger. She succeeds and learns that the man’s name is Joe Stark. Joe wants to find Eatonville, a town that’s being built and run by black people; there he will invest and get rich. Janie admires Joe’s ambition and sees that Joe wants to take her with him. We see Janie hold onto her little bit of innocence when she hesitates to leave with Joe; because even though she hated Logan, marrying him was what Nanny wanted. By still valuing her Nanny’s thoughts, even though she’s proven them to be untrue, Janie becomes a little girl that needs guidance again. When Logan returns, Janie continues to think about leaving as Logan berates her for not being grateful. After a heated argument during breakfast where Joe threatens to kill her, Janie finishes and leaves him, no longer conflicted. This is a very important moment because the audience realizes that Janie’s arguing with Logan over a man she simply “likes.” Janie has already implied that while she loves the thought of living lavishly with Joe, she knows that he won’t give the pear tree love she wanted when she was younger. This shows Janie’s loss of innocence because she goes against Nanny’s wishes and settles for Joe instead of striving for her old ideal of love and marriage; because now as a woman, she feels that it’s unrealistic.
The theme of innocence being forgone in favor of womanhood is also seen in Delia’s character in Hurston’s story Sweat.

In the beginning, Delia is a meek, quiet wife who takes whatever her abusive husband, Sykes, throws at her. Despite Delia begging Sykes to stop tormenting her with her worst fear, snakes, Sykes refuses and instead says “Ah don’t keer how bad Ah skeer you.” By listening to the men gossip on the porch, the audience learns that Delia has been putting up with Sykes’ abuse for a long time, he’s even started cheating on her with another woman. At this point in the story, Delia is innocent because she still hopes to make her marriage work and even hopes that Sykes will one day value the work she’s invested into their life together, as she’s the sole provider. Her being loyal to Sykes despite years of ridicule is a very important detail because it shows Delia’s hope and perseverance. The first time the audience begins to see Delia’s innocence fade is when she tells Sykes she’s moved her church membership to Woodbridge. After Sykes brings a rattlesnake to the village, Delia hates him so much that it’s a chore to even see him. She also tells him that he can lay around with his mistress, Bertha, all he wants, but he has to get his things and leave her home. Delia no longer considers the house their home, now it’s only hers and she wants nothing to do with Sykes. This shows Delia losing her innocence because she begins to see Sykes for what he is; not a tough husband,

but her lazy abuser. Later, Delia’s little bit of innocence is shown when she comes home from the “love feast” at Woodbridge; she addresses the rattlesnake’s box, but is met with complete silence. This makes her think that Sykes took the snake away because he was sorry for what he’d done to her, the text even says “Fifteen years of misery and suppression had brought Delia to the place where she would hope anything that looked towards a way over…” Delia’s hope is quickly crushed when she realizes that the snake is laying in a basket in the house. This point of the story is where Delia’s innocence completely dies, she climbs up to the top of the hay barn and a rage overcomes her. She lies down and simply says “Well, Ah done de bes’ Ah could. If things ain’t right, Gawd knows taint mah fault.” Delia is now an independent woman and separated herself completely from Sykes, not caring about what happens to him because he’s no longer her responsibility. This theme is reinforced in the final scenes of the story when Janie listens to Sykes’ screams of pain and watches him die. She stands over him as he is weak and defenseless like she once was. This time, Delia is the one in power and pays Sykes back for all the torment that she’s faced.
The theme plays into the emotions and thoughts of the audience in order to create a meaningful impact on the story.

When Nanny tells Janie the story of her life, it reaches the audience’s pathos. Where many readers would have been upset at Nanny’s harsh views, the pain and loss of her past make the audience more empathetic. It happens again near the end of the story when Janie has to shoot Tea Cake. As a woman, Janie has found her true love after finally being able to understand what it is, but the person that helped her realize it is no longer who they used to be. The emotions that the scene elicits are so strong because the audience trusts Janie as a storyteller. We are able to know her experiences and see how she goes from being an innocent, air-headed child to a strong woman, which makes her a credible character. Janie’s journey through life is also able to make the audience ponder. At times where we can’t hear Janie’s words out loud, like after Tea Cake beats her or when she was with Joe, we wonder how she’s feeling about her

situation.