Symbolism In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus

Throughout the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, there is an ongoing story of how Janie, the main character, grows up and deals with the many challenges life throws at her in her quest for her “Horizons”. A horizon is a metaphor for one’s ambitions, hopes and dreams. To be truly happy, one must conceive their own horizons, explore them and embrace them. Janie’s “horizons” evolve throughout the novel, starting as limited and socially determined, moving towards being expansive, individualized, and fully realized.

[she longed] to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she... [was] waiting for the world to be made" (11). Janie, feeling herself opening like the petals of a flower, yearns to delve into the unfamiliar - to find the sweet marriage represented by the bees and blossoms.

In the beginning, Janie is captivated by a bee that associates with the blossom of a flower. She sees a “bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom” and meet with the “love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree” which was “creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight” (p 11). Hurston incorporates the bee and the blossom symbol to represent Janie’s desire for love’s pleasure. The author reveals to the audience of how she is taken away by the overwhelming desire and passion shown from the “creaming” of the tree and the bee. This marks her virginity as she is presented pleasingly to the desire of lovemaking, yet also conserve her purity through creating her expectations for her later affectionate lovers. Further, Hurston portrays the shattering of Janie’s bee and blossom dream when she is left to realize that being with Joe and his personality is an illusion as he slaps her. She “stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought” and saw that “her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered” causing her to have “no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man” (p 72). Hurston revealing Joe’s actual image to its reader depicts Janie’s apprehension of how he was never the man of her dreams and just persuaded herself to believe that he was just a better man than Logan. She is left with the

It’s amazing that one state can have within it places that differ greatly in all aspects—people, surrounding, weather, and feeling. Zora Neale Hurston exemplifies this phenomenon in Their Eyes Were Watching God. There are a multitude of differences between Eatonville, FL and the Everglades; each place represents a certain theme or feeling to Janie (the main character) and their differences each contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

     “’…but she don’t seem to mind at all. Reckon dey understand one ‘nother.’” A woman’s search for her own free will to escape the chains of other people in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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

The bees, sun, and breeze, are all beautiful creations of the earth and each contribute to part of Janie’s newly developed thought regarding love. The “alto chant of visiting bees” teaches Janie how to talk to a man she is fond of. Secondly, “the gold of the sun” foreshadows Janie’s future accomplishment of discovering a man she adores; gold representing success and the most prestigious achievement. Finally, “the panting breath of the breeze” suggests to Janie that if the breeze of nature is followed, mature thoughts of sexuality will be uncovered. Now that Janie has been exposed to nature’s thoughts of love, she attempts to imagine what sexual intercourse looks and feels like. Janie sees “a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom” that creates “the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight”. Janie witnesses a bee pollinating a bloom and is overcome with new intimate feeling: the delight of an orgasm. This new passion confirms Janie has grown for a timid child to a grown adult undergoing a mature sexual

Mythology is a key part of many of Zora Neale Hurston’s short stories and novels. She researched the stories of her home town and many other areas of the world. Hurston used this knowledge of myths and stories to help her carry them on to later generations in a form that almost everybody could relate to. Through out all of Zora Neale Hurston’s stories, mythology has been a crucial keystone. Her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has been influenced by three different ancient myths: the myths of Ezili Freda, Osiris and Isis, and Aphrodite and Adonis.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, she tells the story of a young woman named Janie Crawford and her journey in discovering love and her own self through multiple marriages and trials. Janie grew up mixed race and did not realize that she was black until she saw a photo of herself. Janie’s grandmother was the one who raised her after her mother abandoned her. Nanny, which is what Janie called her, would do anything for Janie but being brought up as a slave, Nanny’s view of the world was dark and scary. But her one desire for Janie was to marry a man who could provide security and social status for her. Due to Nanny’s desire Janie marries an older farmer named Logan Killicks. Janie thought by marrying him that she could learn how to love and eventually love Logan, but she was miserable in the marriage and did not love him. Then one day a man named Joe Starks comes into town and flirts with Janie.

Zora Neale Hurston was an African American writer during the Harlem Renaissance who wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was a very ambitious woman and did many things in her lifetime. In one article an author wrote, “Hurston realized many of her dreams during her lifetime and wrote prolifically, publishing short stories, essays, plays, historical narratives, ethnographies, an autobiography, and several novels” (“Zora”). Not only was she an author she was also an anthropologist. However Hurston’s life wasn’t all perfect at times.

On October 9, 2012, in northern Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head (Lieve 1). Prior to this incident, Yousafzai, who lived in a patriarchic society “began giving speeches across Pakistan in favor of education” for women and became “a rising voice of dissent against terror” (3). However, the men in her community felt threatened by the undermining of their power, and one of these men committed a heinous act in order to suppress efforts to achieve equal rights for women. The concept of sexism embedded within the basis of society is reflected in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston’s Reconstruction era tale centers on Janie, a character who attempts to find her own identity in a social structure that seeks to find it for her. The sexism underscores the struggles Janie must face in order to grow and prosper as she continues on her journey towards maturity. This demeaning social force helps the author develop the theme that the restriction of freedom affects the ability of a person to make a difference in their society.

Janie's afternoon under the pear tree in Nanny's backyard marks an important point in the becoming of her character. The image of how the "dust-bearing bee sinks 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" (Hurston 11) contains many specific

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, experiences relief at the end of the novel. The novel begins at the end emphasizing the importance of her moral reconciliation. Though at the beginning it appears she returns home defeated, it is contrary. She returns home triumphant in finding her peace and fulfillment. When Janie starts to take things into her own hands instead of relying on her faith of others, she finally finds herself and joy. She needed to experience love in her own way to find what she was missing and what she needed in her love and her life.