Theme Of Nature In Their Eyes Were Watching God

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). Janie’s orgasm after watching the bee ‘make love’ to the tree illustrates the connection between her path into womanhood and her interaction

Although the Everglades seems to be a very peaceful and happy place for Janie and Tea Cake. It is apparent that this is not the case, as signs of a storm start to worry Janie. Through these signs it becomes evident that nature is not only a favorable force in Janie’s journey. “And the lake. Under its multiplied roar could be heard a mighty sound of grinding rock and timber and a wail. They looked back. Saw people trying to run in raging waters and screaming” (161). The words used to describe this scene demonstrate how dreadful this experience is for Janie. The storm drive Janie and Tea Cake out of a place where they are happy, a place where they both work and live peacefully. However, this doesn’t mean nature is evil. Although the storm is dangerous, nature does not mean to hurt Janie and Tea Cake, as it gives them multiple warnings. Several days before the storm, Janie “heard the snort of big animals. Once the muted voice of a panther. Going east and east” (155). Janie and Tea Cake, despite nature’s many attempts to warn and help them, decide to stay and wait it out, refusing to believe a storm will drive them out of their home. Unmistakably, Janie and Tea Cake are punished for this, and end up running for their life, sacrificing their past happiness to live. Tea Cake has to “throw his box away” (161). Tea Cake valued his box, playing it for Janie ever

While the storm wears down Tea Cake, Janie is blown into the water by a strong gust of wind, and hangs onto the back of a cow. On the cow is a fierce dog, and it starts to attack Janie. Tea Cake, seeing this, does whatever he can as he “rose out of the water at the cow’s rump and seized the dog by the neck” however, his fatigue allows the dog to “bite Tea Cake high up on his cheek bone once” (166). Although this seems like a happy ending to the gruesome storm, the bite looking like a mere scratch to Tea Cake, the dog is a key part in ending Janie’s journey and her relationship with Tea Cake. However, after Janie and Tea Cake return to the Everglades, Tea Cake exhibits signs of sickness as he “filled his mouth [with water] then gagged horribly” (174). As a result of this weird behavior, Janie calls a doctor, who then declares that “a mad dawg bit [Tea Cake]” (177). The doctor tells Janie that Tea Cake is liable to die sooner or later. This is surprising to see because Tea Cake had dismissed the bite as a mere scratch, believing that he was victorious in the battle with the dog. Tea Cake’s death symbolizes the role of nature in ending Janie’s journey, as it was the storm and dog, both elements of nature, that killed him. The horizon is another symbol of nature that appears in both the end and beginning of the novel. It appears in the opening of the book “Ships