What Is Janie's Relationship With Nature In Their Eyes Were Watching God

[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.

The imagery of the bees and the pear tree are the catalyst of Janie’s coming-of-age, representing her first “springtime” and the awakening of her sexuality. The moment Janie sees the bee pollinating the blossoms on the pear tree is when she becomes aware of her sexuality. She finds herself empathizing with the blossoms; both being young and undergoing the springtime of life. Contrastingly, however, Janie has no “bees singing for her” like the blossoms do (Hurston 11). In Janie’s eyes, the relationship between the bee

As a young woman, Janie wanted love, true love. In the beginning of the novel and Janie 's journey, she is under a blossoming pear tree where she spends most of her days. She is watching the bees fly to the blossoms, when she has an epiphany. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston follows a young African-American woman named Janie as she tells her friend Pheoby about her past experiences. It can be assumed that nature as well higher being or unknown force drives Janie’s morals and shapes her experiences. The first instance where Janie connects with nature in a significant way was an experience she had when she was sixteen. She was lying under the pear tree in her backyard when she noticed the bees around the tree. “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 was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation (Hurston 10). Something out of Janie’s control brought

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

In conclusion, In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, the audience watches Janie enter a period of self-discovery. When Janie gains this power of freedom, she realizes she craves something different from what society had told her she would want; What we feel inwardly to be true, society seeks to take that truth away. With this experience an internal and external

Janie’s life with Tea Cake ended when he fell ill and passed away. Janie finally found what she’d been longing for her whole life, true love. Tea Cake showed her how to love, and how to be loved in

As a young girl Janie had some romantic bones in her body. Her introduction to love—watching a bee pollinate a flower while lying underneath a blossoming

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

Tea Cake’s actions leave Janie distraught and increases the feeling of angst in Janie when she has an epiphany that Tea Cake might have run off with a younger

As the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora N Hurston, goes on Janie has a lot of changes that influence how she feels about her surroundings. Like how she became more and more “docile” to her soundings. And how she seemed to define love. Her ability to sympathize has also grown along her life.

For the first time in her life she worries about someone’s well being when Tea Cake goes missing. “But oh God, don’t let Tea Cake be off somewhere hurt and Ah not know nothing about it. And God, please suh, don’t let him love nobody else but me.” (Hurston, 120) She learns what it’s like to be jealous when Tea Cake was teasing some girl in the fields. Janie also learned that a couple has to face issues together. “From now on, you gointuh eat whatever mah money can buy yuh…” (Hurston, 128). If Tea Cake didn’t get work they didn’t eat. During the hurricane when Lias came to ask them to leave Tea Cake said “Thank yuh ever so much, Lias. But we ‘bout decided tuh stay.” (Hurston, 156). In this situation Janie could’ve left Tea Cake for her own safety but she decided to face the storm with him. Again later after the storm when Tea Cake get sick from the rabies, she could’ve left or sent him to the hospital but she risked her life everyday to be with

In the story Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, the main character Janie dream is to attain unconditional, fulfilling and true love. Throughout her life she experiences different types of love. As a result from her quest to find her desired love Janie’s gains personal freedom and independence, this makes her the true heroine of this novel. Janie searches for the love she always wanted, the one that is represented by the marriage between a bee and a blossom on the pear tree that stood in Nanny 's backyard. All Janie wants is to find true love and independence in her life.

Although her English is still mispronounced and broken, Janie’s thoughts become more abstract. Janie proclaims, "Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore" (191). Because of her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie is capable of defining what love truly is, which is a complex idea. Although she is saddened to shoot him when he is rabid, Janie frees herself from the limitations of being a woman in society. She is able to focus on herself and find out who she truly is on the inside. Janie further states, “Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuf find out about livin' fuh theyselves" (192). Janie’s newfound freedom causes her to realize the importance of focusing on oneself. Her simple, concrete thoughts as a young woman developed into abstract ideas, similar to the

He believes that he can achieve his dreams, and wants Janie by his side. He does not believe that Janie should be working at a farm and expresses these feeling when he tells Janie that "You behind a plow! You ain’t got no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got wid uh holiday! You ain’t got no business cuttin’ up no seed p’taters neither. A pretty doll-baby lak you is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan yo’self and eat p’taters dat other folks plant just special for you” (29). Janie believes that Joe will provide her with true love as he answers her concerns of not being appreciated by saying “Janie, if you think Ah aim to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong. Ah wants to make a wife outa you” (29). By having Janie working in a store constantly, and not being able to have any fun, Janie starts to resent Joe, and is not upset when he dies. While working at the store, Janie is taught to play checkers by Tea Cake and learns what it means to be truly loved by