Their Eyes Were Watching God Symbolism

People have been striving more since the beginning of time, even with political roadblocks and social norms. During the harlem renaissance, African Americans battled the limiting socitil norms of the time to discover their true selves, this can also be seen in Their Eyes Were Watching God with the journey of Janie. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston demonstatres how people can gain empowerment in their lives by self-discovery and the pursuit of personal fulfillment this is shown by the symbol of the horizon, the character arc of Janie and the motif of language and voice.

The Harlem Renaissance was all about people learning their language and finding their voice. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that began in the 1920s

By controlling and choosing Janie’s life chocic nanny is attempting to maintain control over her granddaughter and preserving the traditations and beliefs of their cimmunity. Moreover, the symbol of the horizon ties back about with the metaphor of tying the horizon around Janie’s neck. This quote is significant because it shows the struggle that Jaine has for individuality. By choking Janie with horizon, Nanny is essentially suppressing her voice and preventing her from expressing herself freely. This shows the power struggle involve with the need for individuals to assert their voice and asserting their identity. When Joe and Janie have the whole town celebration, the townfolk want Janie to give a speech but instead of letting that happen. "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home. (78)" Joe thinks that Janies is inculpable of thinking for herself and her role as a women and as a wife is strictly limited to the home. By stating that Janie “don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin”, Joe is showing the rest of the village that she isn’t educated enough or

Janie has started to talk about her life to Phoebe, she started to talk about how "[s]he was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree, soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her” (43). This quote is significant to the motif of language and voice because it shows an important moment in the growth of Janie’s character. She is imveloped by the experiences of nature, about the bees, the breeze and the sun. This experience is a form of communication in itself, and it sets the stage for Janie to discover her own voice. The phrase “inaudible voice” is particularly important, as it suggests that Janie is hearing something that cannot be expressed. This could be seen as a metaphor for the search for self-identity, as Janie is trying to find a way to rap her head around her own desires and needs, even though she may not know what she is trying to do yet. The phrase also implies that there are certain things that can't be fully communicated through language alone which reinforces the importance of nonverbal communication and the