What is true love? In the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford, the protagonist, is searching for true love in the 1920s American South. Janie experiences a journey of true love through her three different marriages, learning valuable lessons from each one of them. In this text two literary elements, symbolism, and juxtaposition, are demonstrated throughout, juxtaposition is the idea of placing two or more things together to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect. Symbolism is the idea that literal objects represent abstract ideas. Hurston uses the pear tree, Janie's hair, and the rose to represent Janie's marriage. Janies three marriages demonstrate a clear example or juxtaposition as her first marriage symbolizes …show more content…
When Janie first starts looking for love, she agrees to her grandmother's demands and gets married to Logan Killicks while she is only 16. To Janie's grandmother, Logan represents a stable, comfortable life because he is one of the few black men that owns the land. Before marrying Logan Killick, Janie used to wish "to be a pear tree-any tree in bloom!" With kissing bees singing." Logan Killicks contracts Janie's young beauty, according to Janie, Logan Killicks is too fat and old. his toe-nails look like mule feet" he doesn't wash himself enough. and he makes her work in the field. Logan seems to have the idea that marriage is being in control of a woman as an object for men. Janie also doesn't respect him for giving her 60 acres of land, which makes him feel even less appreciated by her. Janie feels that their marriage and "the vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree" because she is not in love with him and does not find him attractive, "She had no more blossomy opening dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used