One of the most ubiquitous themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God involve Janie's desire for true, decisive and fulfilling love. Her search was not completed until she went through two unsuccessful marriages which caused love to happen much later in life than I think Janie desired. Nevertheless, the story ends how it began, with Janie alone, yet she has a sense of peace and comfort, filled with the love she always desired. She experienced different types of love throughout her life, however, the true love from another man was one she only dreamed of. Her grandmother raised her to think that love will come with financial security and physical protection but Janie broke free of that soon after her grandmother passed. A Rose for Emily by William …show more content…
This plays an enormous role in the theme because it foreshadows and symbolizes Janie's hard journey on the quest to find love. Hurston writes, "from barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom" (10). This is a representation of Janie transforming and maturing into womanhood and noticing changes in her body, as well as her mind. It is just like the bloom of a tree and something only Mother Nature can control. Janie's fascination with the pear tree is introduced in this chapter as well. Throughout the novel, the pear tree symbolizes for Janie the sense of possibility in life for a connection between the self and the feelings of sexual desire and love. "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 a marriage" (11). In Janie's mind, this is an idealistic image that represents her desire for love and sexual romance. This view is partially why her earlier relationships are not successful. Once she slowly opens her relationship with Tea Cake on a more mature level, Janie sees what love really is. The "marriage" between the bee and a blossom foreshadows the feeling Janie gets when she begins to receive other kinds of …show more content…
Her fathers love is very similar to that of Janie's grandmother. There seems to have been a falling out between Emily's father and the rest of the family, leaving Emily to learn about love only from him. Faulkner writes, "we had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip." This imagery portrays a sense of control that Emily's father has over her and her relationships. Although it is a form of love, it might not be in Emily's best interest. Several times it is mentioned that he drove all her suitors away because no one was good enough for her in his mind. This showing of love from Emily's father has proven to be more harmful than it is helpful. After her father's death, Emily somewhat begins to panic. She no longer had that leader or figure of total control and dominance in her life. This leads us to Homer Barron which Emily hopes will fulfill her feeling of isolation. However, the love is unrequited which leaves Emily in a crisis because she is terrified of being alone. Before he can leave her, Emily kills him and keeps his body in her bed for the years to come. The narrator describes, "the body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long
A pear tree blossom in the spring” (106) Janie saw Tea Cake and she automatically thought that he could be the one she falls in love with. This metaphor shows that love can make you think crazy things. Hurston also
Finally, Janie learns what true love is with Tea Cake. Janie’s love for these men gets very puzzling throughout the novel, will Janie figure out what true love really is?
Zora Hurston's “Their Eyes Were Watching God” follows Janie Mae Crawford quest to woman hood and self discovery. Having to go to adulthood from childhood at the early age of sixteen this story helps show Janie’s struggle and the realizations of her dreams going through the hardships of three marriages. And, being a black woman in early 20th century America. The author used nature as symbolism to help guide us through Janie journey to finding herself. One of the most powerful metaphors to nature in this novel would be the blossoming pear tree.
The way that the bee embraced flower, stamped the idea of love and womanhood on Janie. Once Janie begins to see the relationship of the bee and flower she starts to get the idea about what marriage and love is about. Janie is seeking for independence, she begins her journey were she is able to freely express herself. This imagery shows that Janie is chasing after this idea because this is what she wants the experience of fulfillment of love, similar to what she watched the bee and the flower. “The monstropolous beast had left his bed.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford, a woman who is in search of her authentic self and for real love goes through a journey where she survives and triumphs through three different marriages. Janie's meaning of love is defined during the pear tree vision she experiences. Hurston exposes Janie to the erotic feeling of pleasure of a relationship at the age of sixteen. As Janie "saw a dust bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom" (Hurston 11), Janie’s women hood started beyond this point as she came to a revelation “so this was a marriage” (Hurston 11), she translated the feeling of pleasure she felt from the pear tree into what a relationship of marriage is and meant to her. Hurston takes us
Love Janie Crawford is our main protagonist in the book “Their eyes were watching god”she lives her life going through failed marriages trying to find true love. Janie was married 3 times one which she was never happy in and left the other two she was happy at a point then they end tragically. Janie 's first marriage was to a man named Logan Killicks who her grandmother forced her to marry for her protection and financial security. Logan was a old man who did not do much he was a very simple man Janie was not happy at all and he left him.
In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow our protagonist, Janie, through a journey of self-discovery. We watch Janie from when she was a child to her adulthood, slowly watching her ideals change while other dreams of hers unfortunately die. This is shown when Jane first formulates her idea of love, marriage, and intimacy by comparing it to a pear tree; erotic, beautiful, and full of life. After Janie gets married to her first spouse, Logan Killicks, she doesn’t see her love fantasy happening, but she waits because her Nanny tells her that love comes after marriage. Janie, thinking that Nanny is wise beyond her years, decides to wait.
This can be seen from her perception and description of the man who shares her “special” seat as a “… fine old man” and the woman as “a big old woman” (101). Her Surname 2 remembrance of the previous Sunday’s patient Englishman and his nagging hard to please wife whom she wanted to shake also shows her envy for women with male companionship. In Faulkner’s story A Rose for Emily, Emily is seen as a person who suffers from isolation from her community, by tradition and by law. Her isolation from the community and love is what seems to perturb her most; she is unable to accept the idea that her father is dead and she remains in denial.
Janie hitting Tea Cake supports Oprah’s theme of unfailing love by showing that their relationship can withstand a fight. “Janie does find love, but a love story, it is not” (Ceptus). In the novel Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship does not show true love because Janie loves the idea of Tea Cake not him. Janie, having a history of marrying older men, thought that marrying Tea Cake would be a pleasant change from older men.
Motifs can be expressed by symbols. Motifs are any elements that appears in one or more works of literature of art. Motifs explains the Theme in stories. It adds images and ideas to the theme to present throughout the narrative. Motifs provide compositions with a traceable pattern, meaning it can mean something.
“ 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,” (Hurston, 1937, p. 11). The bee gathering pollen became a reference for Janie throughout the rest of the story. “He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring,” (Hurston, 1937, p. 106). After seeing the bee and the blossom, Janie wanted to find a connection like that in her life. She
Zora Neale Hurston, an author during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, an amazing novel written about the losses and loves of a lady named Janie Crawford. The author describes the way Janie found out who she really was and what love was throughout her three marriages. Janie’s first two marriages were unfulfilling and not healthy for herself. Janie realized what true love was when she met Tea Cake. Janie’s first marriage was to a man named Logan Killicks, which was forced upon her by her grandmother.
“Their Eyes Were Watching God” is a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. The novel portrays Janie, a middle aged black woman who tells her friend Pheoby Watson what has happened to her husband Tea Cake and her adventure. The resulting telling of her story portrays most of the novel. Throughout the novel, Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of love, or being in a relationship versus freedom and independence, that being in a relationship may hinder one’s freedom and independence. Janie loves to be outgoing and to be able to do what she wants, but throughout the book the relationships that she is in with Logan,Jody and Tea Cake, does not allow her to do that.
One of the universal themes of literature is the idea that children suffer because of the mistakes of an earlier generation. The novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" follows the story of Janie Mae Crawford through her childhood, her turbulent and passionate relationships, and her rejection of the status quo and through correlation of Nanny 's life and Janie 's problems, Hurston develops the theme of children 's tribulations stemming from the teachings and thoughts of an earlier generation. Nanny made a fatal mistake in forcibly pushing her own conclusions about life, based primarily on her own experiences, onto her granddaughter Janie and the cost of the mistake was negatively affecting her relationship with Janie. Nanny lived a hard life and she made a rough conclusion about how to survive in the world for her granddaughter, provoked by fear. " Ah can’t die easy thinkin’ maybe de menfolks white or black is makin’ a spit cup outa you: Have some sympathy fuh me.
Janie Crawford Killiks Starks Woods is the main character in the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, where she learns what's it's like to go from marriage to marriage looking for love. In the novel, Hurston utilizes the pivotal moment when Janie realizes that marriage doesn’t always mean love to show Janie's coming of age and psychological development which is used to show that love doesn't always come first. Logan Killicks was Janie's first marriage, which was brought about after Nanny (her grandmother) decided that she need to be married after she caught Janie and a young boy kissing when she was 16. After that Janie finds herself being thrown into some random marriage with some man she barely knew, and for a reason