Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

951 Words2 Pages

Sanna Keith
English 474
Dr. Tim Caron
June 15, 2015

Symbolism in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a novel with a resilient theme of Janie’s quest to find an unequivocal and irrevocable love. It is a literary work that is rampant in the use of symbolism and metaphors. Perhaps the most compelling symbolism employed throughout the novel is the budding pear tree, which Janie explores during the peak of her adolescence. As she is lying under the pear tree, Janie experiences a blissful union beneath the blossoms. She watches the majestic interaction between the bees and the flowers and in this moment, is overcome by her feelings towards nature and thus aspires to give it meaning. She believes …show more content…

The passage is rife with erotic implications; “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage!” It is at this point that Janie recognizes her need to have a similar affair. Responding to her natural desire to experience the same ecstasy as flowers and the bees, she persuades a local boy into kissing her. This revelation of her sexuality quickly sparks a series of three marriages Janie pursues in order to find the perfect …show more content…

She becomes blinded by Starks appeal, as she so desperately wants him to fit the ideals of her pear tree. However, Joe Starks does “not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees". Instead, he provides Janie with the chance of a new love; one that she again naively believes will blossom into perfection. Her second relationship stems into a jealous and controlling marriage. Starks suppress Janie as he becomes driven by his thirst for power and the need to acquire wealth, forcing her into his shadows. Janie grows dissatisfied and jaded. "She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be." She lives out the rest of her unhappy marriage with Stark until her chance for freedom to once again seek a fulfilling and blissful

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