Preview

Their Eyes Were Watching God Tree Analysis

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
971 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Their Eyes Were Watching God Tree Analysis
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the tree symbolises Janie’s ideal future and how she pictures her future relationships with Logan Killlicks, Jody Starks, and Tea Cake. First, Janie realizes Logan Killicks is not her ideal pear tree. In addition, Janie also realizes the same about Jody starks. Lastly, Janie finally found her pear tree but is it too late. Opponents would argue the symbolism would be Janie’s hair because her hair represents independence, but once she got to the town Jody always demanded her to put her hair up. That takes away her independence and therefore shows which relationship is the healthiest. However, they are wrong because the hair is supposed affect each relationship and show which relationship is healthiest; …show more content…
Janie’s concept of marriage is unique in her own, sixteen year old, eyes. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.” (pg. 8) Janie saw her marriages like bees who visit the beautiful blossoms of the pear tree, her life was formed around this tree because of the experiences she had underneath it. She experienced love and life that she wants to replicate. Janie also knows that her life and loved ones would bring her joy and suffering and not everything would be what she hoped for. Joe Starks to Janie was the opposite of her pear tree---he was the suffering. Just like Logan, Jody did not give Janie her ideal pear tree image. “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon.” (pg. 29) Hurston uses the word “sun-up” to symbolize hope and “pollen and blooming trees” to symbolize sex and new life, but Jody did not give her these things he only gave her fortune. Janie's relationship to Jody was also very poor because there was a lack of communication between the two and too much

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    The novel begins at the end of Janie’s journey. She has returned to Eatonville a strong and proud woman who has already been “tuh de horizon and back,” but at the beginning of the story, Janie is completely unsure of who she is and how she wants to live. When she tells her story to Phoeby, she begins with her revelation under the blossoming pear tree, giving the reader an immediate sense of Janie’s deepest desires. Under the pear tree, Janie is inspired by the images of springtime. Sitting under the tree she sees the tree, a representation of the female, passively waiting for a bee, or the male, to penetrate its flowers. Janie resonates with this springtime moment of sexuality, and for the remainder of the book, the pear tree functions as her standard of sexual and emotional fulfillment. She says, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think. Ah…" (23).…

    • 2434 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    or for commercial sale, is strictly prohibited. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, translated or stored…

    • 927 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Janie’s life with Tea Cake lasts only about a year and a half. Yet the film made it seem as though the relationship lasted much longer. Though it was the most significant relationship of her life, for through it Janie gains the voice (identity) that has been squelched for her previous 37 years and through that voice saves herself from prison, the love story overshadows the character development.The movie is it doesn’t depict the sense of community that Zora Neal Hurston portrays profoundly in her book. This is a problem because the book is supposed to show the reader how an African American woman tries to make her way through the hardships of life and find out who she is.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie learns from and matures in her marriages, growing to become a strong and independent woman. Her journey begins when she marries Logan, who wants Janie as a domestic helper; however, this is not the “marriage lak when you…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the story Hurston uses different men to portray the continuum that men fall into in their society. Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks seems like the first stage in her development as a woman. She hopes that her forced marriage with Logan would end her loneliness and desire for love. Right from the beginning, the loneliness in the marriage shows up when Janie sees that his house feels like a "lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been" (Hurston 20). This description of Logan's house seems symbolic of the relationship they have. Janie eventually admits to Nanny that she still does not love Logan and cannot find anything to love about him. "She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" (Hurston 24). Janie's prayer seems like her final plea for a change in her life. She says, "Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do. De rest is left to you" (Hurston 23).…

    • 921 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The theme of the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, is the search real love and finding a new form of independence. Throughout Janie’s life, she faced numerous struggles as she searched for unconditional, true, and fulfilling love. Janie seeks an intimate relationship with somebody that lives up to her idea of true love, like that between a bee and a blossom on the pear tree that as child she witnessed while she was sitting under in her grandmother’s backyard. Through the course of this journey, Janie then gains independence, which makes her the protagonist of this novel.…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hurston made Janie’s life comparable to that of a great tree.(25) And within that tree the leaves signified if she suffered, she enjoyed , or basically how that part of her life…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God There are many themes. The one that stood out the most was Janie’s silence. Once Janie discovers her ability to define herself by her speech and interactions with others, she learns that silence can be used as a power. She then learns how to control her silence. The author places great emphasis on the control of language as the source of identity and power. Janie uses silence as both a tool of oppression and power during her marriages.…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hurston explores the conflicts of love in her story Their Eyes Are Watching God, which is reflection of ideas from the Harlem Renaissance.…

    • 89 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In this time period women were expected to stay inside of the house, and complete feminine duties. In her first marriage with Logan Killicks, she was expected to cook and help around the house. This marriage was not in line with the vision of marriage that she had recently had as a young teenager. When Janie ran off with her second husband, Joe Starks, she was promised the world.. After Joe became mayor of Eatonville, Janie quickly realized that he was changing. Joe began to notice that the men of the town payed close attention to Janie. He went as far as giving her orders of how she was to wear her hair after another man admired it, “Her hair was NOT going to show in the store...That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store” (Hurston 55). Janie also enjoyed listening to the men talk on the porch and watching them play games, but anytime that she tried to participate she would be chastised by Joe and even beaten. This conflict benefitted Janie in the end because it caused her to be more cautious when she had thoughts of another relationship. Her vision of what was ideal to her came into direct conflict of what was real, but eventually allowed her to find happiness and contentment in the…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Being in high school you meet a lot of people, some you like, some you do not like, some enjoyable, and then some like Joe Starks from the book “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, by Hora Neale Hurtson. Joe Starks is the husband of the main character Janie, they meet while Janie is married to Logan Killicks. Janie runs off with Joe because he promises her a better life. For the first seven years, their marriage is great! Joe turns bitter as the years go on. Joe is jealous, confident, and cold hearted, Joe is like this because he never found true love and depended on his money for happiness, this paper seeks to evaluate the traits of Joe Starks.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    From the beginning of the story till the end we see Janie go through a transformation that brings her to self-awareness. The book “emphasizing the importance of physical space (Partison 19)” and how she was kept from exploring her own. Her self-empowerment is not because of her marriages to different men but how she handled each marriage (Partison 9). She was able to stand up for herself and refused to let the men in her life define her. As Janie went through her journey she had ideas of what she wanted to find however she did not realize till the very end what she had been missing, and that is the experience of life and…

    • 1947 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    When Janie leaves Logan she hopes that Joe will lead her to the life she desires and she won’t have to work like Logan wanted her to. Janie said Joe spoke of a far horizon and she hoped he would get her there. In one article the author states, “At the outset, she knows that Jody is not himself a part of the pear tree vision…. A short time later, however, she seeks to realize her vision by disguising the concrete reality which should embody it” (Kubitschek). Janie knew that Joe was not part of her vision of the pear tree, but she hoped that she would still be able to achieve her dreams with Joe. However throughout their relationship she soon realized the Joe was not the person she took off with down the road with to embark on a new life. After Joe had abused Janie she reflected upon herself and realized that she had strayed so far away from the dream she had for herself as a child. Joe had complete control over her and she did whatever he told her to do. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston wrote, “But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she grabbed up to drape her dreams over” (Hurston 72). With this realization Janie was able to proceed with discovering herself again, come to terms with what has happened with her life and be able to get…

    • 1882 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zora Neale Hurston Portrays multiple sublime themes and ideas in her classic 1937 novel. Janie Crawford, the main character, desires love throughout her life in hopes to find the companion of her life to match the familiar ideal that love and successful relationships lead to true happiness. Through her relationships with Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods and Joe Starks she finally discovers a contradicting revelation that she feels genuinely satisfied alone. The accounts of these three characters help implement the theme throughout the…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before Janie’s grandmother died, she caught her kissing. From that day forward, she classified Janie as a young woman, and forced her to marry Logan Killocks. Janie had no interest in him. All she could pick out were the ugly features he had on the outside. She didn’t know anything about love, and wondered if she ever would. Logan didn’t treat her like a lady should be treated, so she ran off and married Joe. Being with Logan, Janie learned how it was like to be independent living away from home- her first step to adulthood! This was the first peek to widening Janie’s horizons.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays