Janie is beginning to realize who she truly is and has been awakened through the scenic vision of the nature around her, presenting her womanhood in front of her eyes. In the excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author uses personification to bring the scenery surrounding Janie to life in a surreal way. By using personification through the passage, the author helps put a vivid imagine in the reader's head. At the outset of the passage, the author begins to exercise personification in lines 3 and 4, "...ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery." The rhetorical device makes us think as if the blossoming pear tree truly called Janie out to the back-yard to
Throughout the novel, Janie searches for the love that she has desired from her adolescent years. A depiction of love represented by her grandmother's pear tree where bees and blossoms connect. The pear tree symbolizes her blossoming sexuality which sparks her interest in romance and her idealistic views towards relationships. In relation, the pear tree represents her crave for sexuality while the bees are the men needed to fulfill her blooming. Under the pear tree she masturbates and
Early in the text of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston employs imagery and syntax to show Janie uncovering the growth and power she has over her own life. This sort of revelation comes to Janie as Hurston describes that “It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown seems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston illustrates the life of a young girl named Janie Crawford; a beautiful mixed girl who was raised by her grandmother around a white family. The events that took place in Janie’s childhood affected who she believed she was. Janie was a stranger to herself and had trouble with her self-identity. The exposition of Janie’s love life started when Janie was sixteen years old and got caught kissing a boy by Nanny. Immediately Nanny married Janie off to an older man named Logan Killicks, he had money and plenty of land for him and Janie to live on.
“The men noticed the great rope of black hair swinging to her waste and unraveling in the wind like a plume. They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye.” The townspeople think that Janie is viewing herself higher socially, just based on her appearance. The townspeople say they “hope she would fall to their level in the not so distant future.” Nonetheless, Janie declines to succumb to the social standard where a woman wearing her hair down was considered immoral.
The novel is primarily about a woman who struggles in her search for self while trying to reconcile her beliefs with those imposed on her by society and the men in her life. Important symbols in the novel include, the horizon, hurricane, Porch, Janie’s hair, gates, the pear tree, Land ownership and wealth, Janie’s overalls. All of the symbols provide the reader with clues as to how and why Janie’s grows and developments into the person she becomes by the end of the novel. Horizon symbolises Janie’s life long search for happiness. Pear tree indicates that Janie is maturing sexually and mentally and her interest towards love and romance is increasing.
Janie realizes that she had to stand up for herself, and not let anybody drag her down. Janie let Joe control her life and by letting him do that, she acted as if she was a rag doll,
While Janie is outside observing nature, she witnesses a beautiful and magical interaction between bees and the pear tree, one which gives her motivation for a more purposeful life. This shows that Janie is very drawn to nature and wishes for a love just as amazing as the one she has just seen. This is important because she starts to ponder the possibilities of the future and questions what love truly is. Janie also gets an ideal view of love and carries it with her onwards through the remainder of her life. The pear tree is brought up again once Janie meets Joe. She believes that “From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom” (32). After a single conversation with Joe, Janie runs off with him, chasing after his ideas as opposed to his person. He speaks of Janie’s ideal life, which pleases her to hear. Her wish to have a tasteful love like that of the pear tree controls her. The pear tree and bees symbolize the love, empathy, and passion that Janie searches for and also shows how she is willing to do anything to get that perfect
She was looking, thinking under the tree for a confirmation to her wedding. In addition, Hurston uses personification in lines 12-14 to emphasize that Janie is beginning to see how her marriage will be." ... soaking in
Janie’s outward appearance and her inward thoughts contrast following Joe’s death. She finally frees herself from his control only after he dies as she, “…tore off the kerchief…and let down her plentiful hair” (87). In freeing her hair, Janie begins to free herself from others’ control and social norms. However, she chooses to keep it tied up until after Jody’s funeral in order to keep appearances that she is grieving his passing in front of the townspeople. However, on the inside, Janie doesn’t really feel any sorrow and “sent her face to Joe’s funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world” (88). It is only after Joe’s elaborate funeral that Janie shows her first act of freedom by burning “every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (89). She chose to let her hair be free from his domination, thus freeing herself from him overall and allowing herself to move onto the next journey in her life.
For Janie this pear tree symbolizes love and the meaning of what true love is when Janie sees the connection that the bees have with the blossoms on the pear tree when a bee pollinated a blossom ¨She stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and she panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. 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.” ¨ So this is marriage¨ she states Janie's womanhood blossomed that day along with the pear tree her very first urge to find love and do what she feels would make her
Janie learns a very important lesson from her grandmother. Not a lesson to emulate, but one to avoid. She does not want to be a cracked plate, she is tall and blossoming and can see what she wants in her life.
Their Eyes Were Watching God: Symbols and Images In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” there were many symbols and images that helped the reader get a concise representation and description of the text. The symbols allow the readers to see the significance in certain things throughout the novel. Hurston mentioned specific things repeatedly that catches the reader's attention. Once the reader sees it appear continuously they are eager to find out its purpose and what it symbolizes.
“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” (Hurston, 6). Human life is a mixture of ups and downs and often the extent of these circumstances rely on the responses of those involved throughout the event. Voicing an opinion strongly and effectively can directly impact the outcome of a situation. Moreover, the articulation of an opinion depends not only on the internal confidence of a person, but also on the external factors, such as the context and background of the situation.
“Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves”(Hurston 192). It is important to have a great understanding of oneself, for when we realize our potential, we can accomplish a great deal. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston writes about a young woman, Janie Crawford, going through life in hopes of discovering her true self. Hurston uses the horizon and Joe’s death as symbols to highlight that the path to self revelation includes and hope
God is a substantial part in the lives of people, whether it is to help or harm He is known for being there for anyone. Hurston follows Janie with a force to be reckoned with, or as Janie believes, God. He is a means of guidance, though she has not directly spoken to or asked of God, He continually guides. Hurston interprets God as a force in Janie’s world, a role of characters she meets and as a metaphysical being, to convey the power that God has on Janie’s life.