In Zora Neale Hurston’s text Their Eyes Were Watching God it is very apparent that the Janie is unsure of her life and is unsure of the things that are going to make her happy in life. Is it love that will make her happy or is to be alone? Janie values the ideas of love because of the beauty in the pear tree. Why does the pear tree symbolize love and marriage to Janie? Does Janie need to be alone to be happy? Is the destructive force of the hurricane a symbol of being alone to Janie and her life? Why are these figures so significant to the text?
The novel indicates that the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s desires in a relationship and her ideas of a marriage. Janie spent majority of her childhood near that tree because she used it as her center towards life and love. In 2005, Emily Kendall, Symbols and Metaphors, published
“As a sixteen-year-old girl, lying beneath a pear tree in the spring, she watches a bee gathering pollen from a pear blossom. The experience becomes a symbol to Janie of the ideal relationship, one in which passion does not result in possession or domination, but rather in an effortless union of
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individuals.” (1) Janie see’s that the tree as what a marriage is stated by Hurston in the novel “she saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousands sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to the tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!” (11) Janie’s sexuality and emotional needs come from the pear tree and Susan Meisenhelder supported this in “False Gods and Black Godesses in Naylor’s Mama Day and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”: [T]hrough Janie’s vision, the pear tree presents the ideal relationship, both sexual[ly] and emotional[ly], between women and men. The male bee is not aggressive or rapacious: he gently “sinks” into the blossom, and the female flower is not passive: she “arches to meet the love embrace.” It is the marriage of such active femaleness and gentle masculinity; it is fundamental equality (2). Meisenhelder states it perfectly when she says, “it is fundamental equality” because that is ultimately what Janie wants out of a marriage, a husband that treats her equally. It takes Janie a few failed marriages to come to the conclusion that she wants equality in her marriage. At such a young age, Janie was forced into a relationship at her Nanny’s request and shortly into the marriage she realized that this was not what love was. It was something she did to please her Nanny, not because she loved Logan Killicks. After coming to that realization, she went right back to Nanny. Kendal states in Symbols and Metaphors, “Three months after Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks, she returns to Nanny in tears. "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage, lak when you sit under a pear tree and think." (24) Her relationship with Logan disappoints Janie, and makes her vulnerable to the attractions of Joe Starks. Although he "did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees", Joe offers her the opportunity for a new life, one that she hopes will be better.” (1) Janie used that tree as her safe place where she could go to escape, a place of hope for her where the world was equal and non-possessive. The pear tree created comfort for Janie throughout this entire novel and she constantly refers back to it in the text. The hurricane represents the complete opposite of the pear tree in this novel.
The symbol of the hurricane is chaos and devastation amongst Janie and the other characters and everyone’s life. It is a dynamic symbol of change. Kendall declares, “The hurricane's devastation is beyond the control of the book's characters. Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature.” The hurricane is such a strong representation of how the characters are not ready for change in their lives and Kendall in Symbols and Metaphors supports this: “Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the structure of their lives and leaves them to rebuild as best they can. A pivotal event in the novel, the hurricane marks an abrupt transition from Janie's idyllic life
with Tea Cake.” (1) Before the hurricane, the characters knew the dynamics of their lives and they all became very comfortable in their roles. When the hurricane hits, they all start to change and the characters no longer feel at ease with the lives they are living. Publisher Olivia McCullum from Literary Device Evaluation states, “The hurricane causes the characters to wonder and question who they are and what their place in the world is and whether God cares. Ultimately the devastation of the hurricane causes Janie to be alone. When Tea Cake gets bit by the rabid dog, she has to kill the man she loves and it leaves her left with no man in her life. These two figures are so symbolic to the text and create so much understanding and confusion but are still needed by Janie and the other characters in the text to make the story dramatic. The pear tree is always how Janie will view beauty in love, marriage and nature. She is searching for something so passionate and exhilarating because she views that is what the pear tree creates in love. She is basing her love life around a piece of nature. The men in her life quiet honestly do not stand a chance on her views of love and marriage because they are so high on a pedestal that the men she chooses could never live up to those expectations. The hurricane is something that Janie or any of the characters wanted but is still such a major piece to the text. This is the ultimate power of God raining down on the characters and making them second-guess themselves and their lives. The hurricane is the ultimate falling action in the text, because shortly after the hurricanes hits, the events just rapidly take place until the end of the book. It is clear that none of the characters wanted to adapt to change in their lives, but Hurston puts a huge force in the text to make that change happen anyways. The pear tree becomes so important to Janie in this text and creates so much comfort for her and so much love in her mind and heart. The hurricane becomes an unwanted force of nature to all the characters in this novel but ultimately to Janie who is forced into being alone shortly after the hurricane. Both of these fragments in the text create the whole underlying meaning to the story and that is why they place such a big role.
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...
In the beginning, the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s yearning to find within herself the sort of harmony and simplicity that nature embodies. However, that idealized view changes when Janie is forced to marry Logan Killicks, a wealthy and well-respected man whom Janie’s Nanny set her up with. Because Janie does not know anything about love, she believes that even if she does not love Logan yet, she will find it when they marry. Upon marrying Logan, she had to learn to love him for what he did, not for that infallible love every woman deserves.
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.
Oprah Winfrey mutilated the classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston by turning the movie into a story with no resemblance to the book. Throughout Janie Crawford’s life, love is a dream she wished to achieve. Oprah makes changes to Janie’s character, her marriages, and the differences of symbolism, the change of themes, and the significance of Janie’s childhood which will alter the entire moral of the story. Another difference is the way the townspeople gossip. Oprah changes the point of Janie’s life journey to find herself to a love story.
...er, she uses her voice and fights to save her dream and her life. Because the hurricane scene serves as the central metaphor of Hurston’s novel, it’s not surprising that other writers would want to use the hurricane to signify on Hurston. What may surprise these other writers, however, is that the novel actually includes five hurricane scenes, not just one.
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).
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.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and “Sweat,” Hurston uses the characters Janie Crawford and Delia Jones to symbolize African-American women as the mules of the world and their only alternative were through their words, in order to illustrate the conditions women suffered and the actions they had to take to maintain or establish their self-esteem.
the novel, the pear tree symbolizes Janie's idealized vision of love and marriage. The mule, on the other hand, represents the oppression and mistreatment of African Americans during the time period in which the novel is set. The storm symbolizes chaos and upheaval, both in nature and in Janie's personal life. Finally, Janie's journey itself is a symbol of self-discovery and empowerment. As she navigates through different relationships and experiences, she learns more about herself and what she wants out of life.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel that presents a happy ending through the moral development of Janie, the protagonist. The novel divulges Janie’s reflection on her life’s adventures, by narrating the novel in flashback form. Her story is disclosed to Janie’s best friend Phoebe who comes to learn the motive for Janie’s return to Eatonville. By writing the novel in this style they witness Janie’s childhood, marriages, and present life, to observe Janie’s growth into a dynamic character and achievement of her quest to discover identity and spirit.
So many people in modern society have lost their voices. Laryngitis is not the cause of this sad situation-- they silence themselves, and have been doing so for decades. For many, not having a voice is acceptable socially and internally, because it frees them from the responsibility of having to maintain opinions. For Janie Crawford, it was not: she finds her voice among those lost within the pages of Zora Neale Hurston’s famed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This dynamic character’s natural intelligence, talent for speaking, and uncommon insights made her the perfect candidate to develop into the outspoken, individual woman she has wanted to be all along.
The pear tree for example is similar to that of the Garden of Eden. The pear tree and the horizon signify Janie’s model of a perfect life. In the bees’ interaction with the pear tree flowers, Janie witnesses a perfect moment in nature, full of energy, interaction, and harmony. She chases after this ideal life throughout the rest of the book. Janie’s romantic and idealistic view of love, seen in her reaction to the pear tree, partially explains why her earlier relationships are not successful. It is not until later in her life, when she slowly opens up to her relationship with Tea Cake on a more mature level, that Janie sees what love really is. Janie resists Tea Cake at first, remembering her early pear tree encounters, and her early sexual awakening. She becomes infatuated with Tea
Zora Neale Hurston was a very prestigious and effective writer who wrote a controversial novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie whom is the dynamic character, faces many hardships throughout her life. Janie’s Nanny always told Janie who she should be with. Janie was never truly contented because she felt she was being constricted from her wants and dreams. Janie’s first two marriages were a failure. Throughout the novel, Janie mentions that her dreams have been killed. Janie is saying that men that have been involved and a part of her life have mistreated and underappreciated her doings. The death of her dreams factor Janie’s perception on men and her feelings of the future. Logan and Jody were the men who gave her such a negative attitude towards marriage. Once Tea Cake came along, Janie realized that there are men out there that will appreciate her for who she is. Janie throughout the novel, comes into contact with many obstacles that alter her perspective on men and life overall.
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight,” (11). The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching, God by Zora Neale Hurston, tells a story of a woman, Janie Crawford’s quest to find her true identity that takes her on a journey and back in which she finally comes to learn who she is. These lessons of love and life that Janie comes to attain about herself are endowed from the relationships she has with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake.
... 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.