ipl-logo

Their Eyes Were Watching God Symbolism

1640 Words7 Pages

Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Look into a Woman’s Perspective

Often overlooked, the female perspective is one that is unique and different from typical male perspectives. Author Zora Neale Hurston reveals such a perspective to readers in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Within this work, Hurston centers the story around main character Janie Mae Crawford and her life throughout the years. From adolescence to adulthood, Hurston uses symbolism to represent Janie’s perspective as she navigates through her journeys of joy and sorrow. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the pear tree, the horizon, and the bee and blossom as symbols of Janie’s ideals and dreams.

Throughout her life, Janie constantly refers to trees …show more content…

When Janie first meets Joe Starks, the horizon represents the change that Janie wants from her current life. While Joe does “...not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees…he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance.” (Hurston, 29) By definition, a horizon is a limit to a person’s ability. Hurston uses the horizon as a symbol of change for Janie. Hurston clarifies that while Joe does not comply with Janie’s vision of love, the change he speaks for is enough to convince Janie to run away with him. In her first marriage with Logan, Janie lives a monotonous life and is unhappy with him. With Joe, Janie sees a far horizon or a new change from her unfulfilling life. In addition to change, Hurston uses the horizon to represent new beginnings. When Janie runs away with Joe, “They sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged.” (Hurston, 33) The “crack in the earth” refers to the horizon and how night and day change starting at that point. Hurston describes one setting that changes at the horizon into another to represent the new change in Janie’s life. With Joe, Janie is starting a new life with new opportunities. She is running away from her first marriage with Logan and is now starting another with Joe. Hurston uses the changing of night and day on the horizon to highlight Janie’s transition from one stage to another. …show more content…

The pear tree from Janie’s past represents Janie’s longing for fulfillment and growth. She witnesses the transformation of the tree and longs to undergo the same process and feel complete like the tree. However, this ideal is not upheld in her first marriage as she is unhappy. Wishing for a change, Janie runs away from her first marriage and enters into her second, where her horizon is used as a symbol for change and opportunity. Later in her life, the horizon represents her life experiences as a whole. Having lived and lost, Janie’s horizon is complete and ready to be “pulled in.” Along with the pear tree and horizon, Hurston uses the bees and blossoms as symbols for Janie’s desires. Like the bees and blossoms, Janie wishes to be in a relationship where she is equal to her partner and experiences mutual pleasure. She wishes to see the same passion from the bees and bloom in her marriage and finally gets her desires fulfilled by Tea Cake. After living through her first two marriages, each filled with their own issues, Janie finally gets to live her dreams with Tea Cake. All throughout the book, Hurston reveals her perspective to readers through the use of symbolism. She uses the pear tree, horizon, and the bees and blossoms to reveal the ideals and dreams that Janie holds dear as she navigates through her journey of love and

Show More
Related
490 Words | 2 Pages

Janie's "tree" gets cut down and strangled and destroyed throughout the book in several different events until the day someone walks in and takes the time to repair it. c. THESIS STATEMENT: Janie experiences love in harsh words and beaten down sprit. Never in her marriages has she experienced the unconditional love she desperately craves, until Tea Cake walks in and shows her true love. II. FIRST POINT- MARRIAGE TO LOGAN a. The marriage to Logan began sweet but ended with bitterness.

Read More
896 Words | 4 Pages

Hurston’s limited description of the town connects to Janie's limited freedom within it, and her inability to express who she really is. After Joe’s death, Janie moves to the Everglades. Right away Janie is relieved and filled with a sense of freedom, “to Janie’s strange eyes, everything in the Everglades was big and new.” (129) The Everglades represent opportunities and a new beginning for her allowing Janie to actually enjoy the life she lives.

Read More
1256 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout the book, we see Janie growing up and going through similar stages in her own life. In a way, the tree and Janie’s journey mirror each other in the way that they grow. Janie also is gaining a new perspective on life in this moment. This scene is a revelation for Janie, one where she’s waking up to the beauty of life and how she personally wants to live. Shortly after, she also says, “She was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers.

Read More
899 Words | 4 Pages

Janie gradually forsakes this message, Hurston writing at the end of the novel, “ Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes!”(243). Janie “pulls in” the horizon, showing an agency within the world she previously did not have.

Read More
897 Words | 4 Pages

Janie experiences many relationships which help her understand the person she is and what she needs to become happy. Throughout Jamie’s multiple marriages she realizes how important equality is within a marriage, and shows how she develops into a woman while enduring these three relationships. In the story, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Hurston, the author shows how life experiences, especially marriage, helps develop and has people come to an understanding of their true colors. The main character Jaine represents a woman from the turn of the century, who undergoes the life of a black woman and the struggles she went through. While dealing with this lifestyle, Janie gets to find out about herself, her goals in life, and what love really

Read More
733 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the book, we see an idealistic view of love linked also very closely with innocence and youth. This is illustrated when Janie says, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.”’ (Page 24). In this quote, Janie expresses her idealistic desires surrounding marriage. Her reference to the pear tree perpetuates the theme that we see in the novel of Janie’s youth, and perception of love, evoking a reference to

Read More
899 Words | 4 Pages

(Hurston 89) This quote expresses how Janie was beginning to realize that she now had a choice in how she portrayed herself to the world. “So Ah’m back home agin and Ah’m satisfied tuh be heah. Ah done been to de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons.” The Horizon corresponds to Janie’s happiness, it represents her journey and how far she went and came back.

Read More
800 Words | 4 Pages

They represent Janie’s lust for life and the beautiful moments that make it all worth living. In the first chapters

Read More
724 Words | 3 Pages

This represents how Janie finding her identity might not always be in the most perfect way but everyone has a purpose and their life has meaning no matter their background or who they

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie suffers from hardship in two relationships before she can find her true love. Janie explains to her best friend, Pheoby, how she searches for love. Therefore Pheoby wants to hear the true story, rather than listening to the porch sitters. Throughout the book Janie experiences different types of love with three different men; Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. At 16 Janie marries Logan Killicks.

Read More
1660 Words | 7 Pages

Janie is the symbol of feminism and independence for women in the novel and shows her heroism in many instances. Some of her heroic qualities include determination, empathy, and

Read More
722 Words | 3 Pages

Thus, Zora Neale Hurston uses community as a motif to help prove her theme, using specific details such as Janie’s disallowance to go to the funeral and the community scorning her. In conclusion, the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” presents the theme of love and that being in a relationship hinders independence but in an unique way. Hurston uses symbolism like Janie’s head rag which stifled her independence and when burned, made her feel free. She also uses the motif of communities, which are ever present throughout the book, using specific examples such as when Janie isn't allowed to go to the funeral, which hinders her independence because she isn't making choices for herself and isn't doing

Read More
1067 Words | 5 Pages

Symbolism has the power to transform ordinary objects, actions, or words into profound representations of complex ideas and emotions, captivating the imagination and deepening the emotional connection between the audience and the novel. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel brimming with symbolism, illuminating the story's deeper meaning beyond its surface-level plot. The novel follows the story of Janie Crawford, a young African American woman who embarks on a journey of love, relationships, and self-discovery. Hurston uses various symbols throughout the novel to represent different aspects of Janie's life. Five symbols are essential to understanding the novel's plot, themes, and characters.

Read More
739 Words | 3 Pages

Many symbols are used throughout the book to represent this struggle. Two of the main symbols Hurston uses are the horizon and the pear tree to help symbolize Janie’s future and Janie’s youth. These symbols are also used to represent Janie’s life and her want for

Read More
983 Words | 4 Pages

Janie’s continuous interactions and experiences with nature prove its influential role in Janie’s life throughout Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Nature is Janie’s pathway into womanhood and played a big role in starting her journey through life as a woman. Janie’s experience with the pear tree provokes this shift from childhood to womanhood for Janie. “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom [...] the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. [...] Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid” (11).

Read More

More about Their Eyes Were Watching God Symbolism

Related Topics

Open Document