The Importance of the Pear Tree Both Richard Wright and Zora Hurston were great writers during the Harlem Renaissance. They each had their own ways of writing about life as an African-American and in regard to racism. Richards who seemed to be very opinionated about what he thought African-American writers should write about, had some strong views about Miss Hurston’s’ novel “Their eyes were watching us”. Richard’s opinion was that her novel carries no theme, no message, and no thought. Richard’s views on her novel are wrong, while Miss Hurston had her own way of writing with a clear theme and message in her novel. Hurston was before her time and focused more on feminism instead of racism. The theme and the message of Hurston’s novel are; …show more content…
Her desires become clear to her while she was laying under the pear 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 cramming in every bloom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage” (Hurston 32). This gave Janie the idea of what love should be like between a husband and wife. Once Janie realized this, it set things in motion her to find the ideal marriage that she saw under the pear tree and not to give up on that vision until it became reality. This analogy of the pear tree is something that Janie uses throughout her life in order to find herself and to find her idea of true love. However, her views on marriage are different from the views society tends to think traditional marriage should be …show more content…
That women have “been treated like animals, more specifically mules, to carry the burdens of men (Dildeck). Women during this time were essentially controlled by their husband. They had to work hard and that their lives wasn’t always easy. While some women accept this view by living their lives as a mule, Nanny wanted more out of Janie’s life and for her to not be treated as a mule. This also didn’t fit into Janie’s views of what marriage should be like. “Janie’s vision of the pear tree gives her a sense of life’s pleasure and fulfillment that counters Nanny’s vision of inevitable degradation and drudgery” (Stein). This is something that didn’t set well with Janie because she wanted a marriage like she had envisioned beneath the pear tree, not what society finds acceptable. Janie wasn’t going to be treated as mule, and she wanted more out of her life. Janie believed that women should be treated with respect, love, and dignity. The term mule is something that used several times in the book and is one of the reasons for the down falls of her first