...Nature is often intertwined with fate in stories. Both are unpredictable but affect us in a multitude of ways . By observing nature, people can learn about themselves and their life in a way that their usually hectic lives do not allow. The role of nature in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is to represent what affects Janie’s self-discovery. The pear tree represents marriage to Janie, which will affect her significantly. When Janie sees a bee pollinating a pear tree flower, it is said “So this was a marriage!” (Hurston 11). From this moment, Janie also learns what is her idea of love in a marriage is. It is shown that Janie’s view of love is an idealistic one, since it is full of joy, with no strife at all. However, once Janie marries Logan Killicks, she learned “that marriage did not make love.” (Huston 25). Janie’s marriage with Logan is dull and draining, while her image of marriage derived from the pear tree is invigorating. This leads to Janie ultimately trying to find her ideal vision of marriage as part of her life journey, and thus makes her more susceptible to Joe’s charms . The...
Words: 554 - Pages: 3
...In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston depicts the life and struggles of a black woman named Janie Crawford. Hurston uses the literary technique of symbols to represent the plot and emotions of Janie throughout the work. The two prominent symbols pertaining to the growth of Janie is the symbolization of her hair and the hurricane, which act as a symbols for restraint and oppression. Although the hair symbolizes confinement, while the hurricane representing Janie’s continual struggle, they also reveal her strengths and advancement as a character when she breaks free of those bonds. Through the symbolization of Janie’s hair and the hurricane, two themes are highlighted: the struggle to discover the individual stems from language and power, and liberation comes from self discovery found in personal loss. Hurston utilizes the connection between themes and the symbolization of Janie’s hair and the hurricane to give meaning of Hurston’s interpretation of Janie. Their Eyes Were Watching God is unique as a novel because of Hurston choice of conversational dialect for the characters. Throughout the novel Hurston uses the Southern black dialect in order to bring a realistic feel to the setting and plot line for the reader. The irony in the novel’s unique choice of conversational dialect is that the protagonist, Janie, is often hidden behind the other characters in the novel. This brings about the first theme which is, the struggle to discover...
Words: 1165 - Pages: 5
...As a hero herself, Janie goes on journey of hardships where she persists through them with her endurance. But with endurance comes with her determination and her want to go forward with her life. Not only does she stand against those that hurt her but Janie wants to keep going. Wanting to move forward, Janie exhibits the heroic quality of determination in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Meeting Jody, Janie finds that he could be the new start in her life and is determined to begin a new. But with the journey she realizes that along with Logan, Jody fails her too shown s she looks over her life “She had been getting read for her great journey to the horizons in search of people . . . But she had been whipped like a cur dog and run off down a back...
Words: 1144 - Pages: 5
...Black Culture and Women’s Role in Society as Seen in Their Eyes Were Watching God In Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, we see many different references to the way both blacks and women were seen in her time as well as when the book was set. The book takes place a few generations after the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished. Tensions between blacks and whites were high, and they were still decades away before women’s rights were even considered as legitimate concern. Hurston uses a variety of devices to help portray the world of her characters, the most obvious being her use of dialect. The way each particular character speaks gives us an inside view of their life and experiences. For example, if a character is educated, and lived in big cities for most of their life they are going to sound different than a character who worked in the fields their whole life. Giving each character their own dialect also helps the reader differentiate between characters based on who’s talking, and allows Hurston to give each character their own mannerisms. A good example of this is on page 92 of Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God . “Another time she overheard him using Joe’s favorite expression for pointing out the differences between himself and the carelessliving, mouthy town. “Ah’m an educated man, Ah keep mah arrangements in mah hands.” ” Throughout the novel, there are many references to women’s places in society during that time period. Women were seen as stupid, and belonged to men...
Words: 870 - Pages: 4
...Janie Killicks/Stark/Woods: A Hero or A Failure? In Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most prevalent imagery consistent throughout the whole novel is of nature, both beautiful and powerful. Nature’s temperament gradually shifts from an innocent ideal into a destructive force in synchronization with Janie’s life. Janie’s wish is to be in a loving marriage, represented by the pear tree and blossoms; however, once she finally achieves this desire, the hopeful nature she had once longed for gradates into a damaging monster that ultimately kills Tea Cake and consequently, her dream. Though Kubitschek believes that her quest for the pear tree is obtained through her marriage to Tea Cake, the violent hurricane reveals Janie’s ultimate failure in attaining the one thing she wanted the most. The change in nature that occurs once Janie believes that she has achieved her fantasy of a blossoming marriage represents an epiphany, a coming of age moment in which Janie’s childhood dreams are realized as unrealistic and naïve, as the true, destructive disposition of nature is unleashed. The most driving force in Janie’s early teenage years is the need for attainment of the ideal marriage filled with love and equality, which she was introduced to by a pear tree in full blossom filled with sexual images such as “dust-bearing bees sink[ing] into the sanctum of a bloom” (Hurston 11). She became obsessed with the spring and “attempts to harmonize her daily life with her ideal image...
Words: 1269 - Pages: 6
...In the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there is an exploration of the paradigm of sexual identity from nature through the pear tree, the bee and the flower, and the hurricane. The film follows the transition from childhood to adulthood of Janie Crawford, a mixed girl of black and white. Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of the development of Janie's ideals of love and independence. As a child, Janie sees a bee pollinating a flower in the pear tree of her backyard and from there becomes determined to find true everlasting love. According to Robert Solomon, “This "traditionalist" definition of sexual identity has sometimes been associated with one or more of the following additional positions: that certain...
Words: 1259 - Pages: 6
...Their Eyes Were Watching God: Celebrating Independence and Condemning Patriarchy Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is an exquisitely rich novel, intertwining themes of race, love, and feminism. Hurston ingeniously combines these themes into one central story which follows the journey of Janie Crawford, a mulatto woman who fervently desires to find herself and her place in the world. Along the way, Janie discovers the fruitfulness of the black community in Eatonville, a self-segregated town in West Florida. She becomes captivated with the community’s so-called “mule talk” and sense of unshackled independence. However, even in a town founded on equality, women are considered as lesser compared to their male counterparts. Thus,...
Words: 882 - Pages: 4
...of nature, spanning as far as the eye can see, holding anything and everything. In “Their Eyes Were Watching God” the horizon symbolizes the hope that Janie has for her future every time that she moves on in her life and the dreams of equality and love she hopes to one day experience. Present throughout the entire book, the horizon manifests itself as Janie’s dreams for a better life. She travels along in the horizon in her marriages, always searching for her own ideal life. In her mind and adventures, the horizon gives her hope that a better life will be there for her allowing her to move on and grow as a person. The beginning of the book states that “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board… For others they sail forever on the horizon.” (Hurston 1)These first parts of the book foreshadow Janie’s own personality and what she is going to do in the near future. This quote is Janie stating that all men have dreams and intentions, just like Janie, but even though they have an advantage over women they do not pursue their own dreams and so their intentions slip away. Janie is different,...
Words: 622 - Pages: 3
...The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, is about a woman named Janie telling the story of her life to her friend, Pheoby. Janie, at sixteen, was on a quest for her ideal love and identity in Florida. Zora Neal Hurston portrays Janie after herself, as Hurston had a similar childhood to that in her story. Hurston had parents who were slaves and had lived in Eatonville when she was very young. She also had a fascination with nature, which added to the idea of Janie's idealized view of nature. Janie's journey to find what she was looking for was rough but she ultimately succeeded. In Their Eyes Were Watching God the author uses many symbols to characterize Janie's search for love and identity. In this story, Janie Crawford...
Words: 1468 - Pages: 6
...Beauty and Devastation "It [the tiny bloom] had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously"(10). In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” her use of imagery, particularly of nature, is used to stimulate the audience's imagination while communicating deep significance in the novel. The imagery of nature creates a unique parallel between the two sides of nature; its beauty and its devastation. Janie's idea of contentment is shown in Hurston's imagery of a pear tree, which represents nature's beauty. The pear tree represents Janie's idealized views of nature, as it demonstrates her naive and romantic character which constantly seeks true love, and her idealism of the harmony in a marriage based upon love as she travels a path of self-discovery throughout the novel. She was lying across the bed asleep so Janie tipped on out of the front door. Oh to be a pear tree—any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her? Nothing on the place nor in her grandma’s house answered her. (11) In this part of the novel it deliberately describes the pear tree in this fashion to show the relation between a blossoming tree, which is blooming as it grows, to the significant character...
Words: 1147 - Pages: 5
...Their Eyes Were Watching God tells a story about a young woman going through life and finding her voice, the movie made by Oprah Winfrey flips the story and its characters making the main character and everyone in the story different. Oprah does a wonderful job at completely destroying the morals of the time period, and the symbols shown in the book. The movie changes relationships making the main character stronger and more independent. The beautiful love story shown by Oprah became a ridiculous rendition of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel missing key elements from the book. Oprah Winfrey completely disregards the moral fiber of the time period. In the movie some scenes got extremely graphic with the kissing and love making. These scenes...
Words: 1309 - Pages: 6
...In my art piece for “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, I illustrated a close up of pear blossoms on a branch with a background of geometric swirling clouds. The pear blossom branch represents the idealized expectations of a fulfilled life many of the characters hold in the book. Janie Mae Crawford, starts out as a black girl in 1930’s Florida forced to marry Logan Killicks by her grandmother. Janie’s grandmother suffered the hardships and brutality of slavery, and she finds a fulfilled life is the security of wealth. Therefore, she extends her hopes and expectations of her fulfilling life onto her granddaughter, Janie. Janie disagrees with her grandmother because she values her absolute independence and the ideal of true love. These...
Words: 753 - Pages: 4
...Their Eyes Were Watching God, is heavily embellished with themes and motifs that contribute to it being an eccentric piece of work. The novel prompts insightful questions over whether or not love and independence can coincide and brings up themes of sexuality and power. One thought provoking aspect of Hurston’s writing is her frequent application of nature to the novel’s symbols and motifs. A great deal of the symbolism in the book is portrayed through nature; such as, the pear tree, the hurricane, and the horizon, which are all aspects of nature that Hurston utilizes. Along with nature, Hurston uses physical attributes as well. The roles of the pear tree and Janie’s hair aid Hurston in creating the significant themes...
Words: 991 - Pages: 4
...In Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston, The ending was happy, this is showcased by ;Janie finding peace with herself, and Tea Cake’s love for Janie. Tea Cake and Janie meet about halfway through the story. Janie has had two unsatisfactory husbands and Tea Cake is the first real gentleman in her life, so they get married. Janie is able to give happily after Tea Cakes death because of the there reasons listed above. Janie returns to eatonville and comes back a changed person. Towards the being of the people saw Janie as a whore. She would find younger men and the town was able to assume the rest. After Tea Cake’s death she could not live in the everglades without Tea Cake, so she went to her old home town. Upon her return, Janie is a lot older and has changed drastically. She was able to reunite with Pheoby her friend and talk about Tea Cake, which was a good emotional release for her. Janie says “”Ah'm satisfied tuh be heah””(Hurston 191). The familiar town where she might have been single, but she lived there like that before. Janie’s cherished her time with...
Words: 714 - Pages: 3
...Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Their Eyes Were Watching God The novel their eyes were watching God is a story of an African-American girl called Janie Crawford. At the stage of adolescence, Janie comes across a bee pollinating a pear tree in her backyard and she becomes obsessed with finding true love. She then matures and grows emotionally through three of her marriages (Cheryl 5). Her first marriage is to, a farmer, Logan Killicks and it is arranged and carried on by Janie’s grandmother called Nanny. Logan proves to be a reliable but uninspired husband. He later gives Janie threats to kill her for being disobedient. Janie later leaves Logan for an ambitious man called Joe Starks. Upon their marriage, Janie is taken to Eatonville in Florida, which is among the first all-black city in America, by her husband Joe who is a mayor. Janie later realizes that her husband is very demeaning to women. He silences her when she speaks. He then accuses Janie of acting too younger than her age. Janie finds the situation she goes through unbearable, and she insults Joe’s manhood. When Joe was in his deathbed, Janie enters his room and speaks to him. After Joe dies, Janie stays widowed for some time, and she later meets another man, a fun-loving man whom she is twelve years older than and is called Tea Cake. Janie finds the true love she has been dreaming. They experience jealousy in their relationship but despite this, they are happy interacting with other workers while working...
Words: 2036 - Pages: 9
