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Zora Neale Hurston's Journey

819 Words4 Pages

People of all differences can dream for the enrichment of their lives. Hopes and dreams are prevalent in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God whether they are eradicated or achieved. The protagonist of the novel, Janie Crawford, longs for a passionate, loving marriage despite all other oppositions for her to marry for security. However, Janie is constantly mocked by her dreams which appear just out of reach. Hurston divulges in the deception of hopes and dreams through the recurrent symbol of the horizon. What one hopes for on the horizon is ultimately what deceives one. In Janie’s adolescence, she presumes that she loves Nanny, her grandmother and legal guardian, and that Nanny knew better for Janie’s welfare. However, during Janie’s newfound independence and self-discovery after a controlling marriage, she discovers her true feelings of Nanny: hate. She abominates Nanny because, “Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon… and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it around her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her” (Hurston 89). Janie falsely believed Nanny’s actions were to protect her, but now recognizes that Nanny …show more content…

At the end of her journey, Janie finishes chasing after the horizon since she finally reached it but is set back by Tea Cake’s death. She is wearied, tired, and finally at the end of her long expedition after the horizon. Janie metaphorically, “[pulls] in her horizon like a great fish-net… over her shoulder” (Hurston 193). In any case, Janie is satisfied with her accomplishments achieved along the way and has finds peace with nature that she longed for. Although she does not forever attain the horizon, she is in harmony and accepts the truth that hopes and dreams are always in sight but never fully feasible. Through this Hurston proves the absolute rule of insurmountable longings and wishes with eventual acceptance of defeat against

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