How Does Janie Use Symbols In The End Of The Novel

Gates represent a dramatic change in Janie’s life. Pheobe met Janie through the back gate of her house when Janie came back to Eatonville. “When she arrived at the place, Pheobe Watson didn’t ago in by the front gate and down the palm walk to the front door. She walked around the fence corner and went in the intimate gate with her heaping plate of mulatto rice. Janie must be round that side” (Zora 4) Janie’s first kiss happened across a gate. “She searched as much of the world as she could from the top of the front steps and then went on down to the front gate to and leaned over to gaze up and down the road. Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made. Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes. In the last stages of nanny’s sleep, she dreamed of voices. Voices far-off but persistent, but gradually coming nearer. Janies voice. Janie talking in whispery snatches with male voice she couldn’t quite place. That brought her wide awake. She bolted upright and peered out the window and saw Johnny Taylor lacerating Janie with a kiss” (Zorra 11, 12). The pear tree, the most important symbol in Their Eyes Were Watching God, portrays sex. Zora Neale Hurston uses the pear tree to describe how Janie feels throughout her life. ”She was stretched out on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arc to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing in delight. So this was mirage! She had been

From the first sentences of the beginning of the novel we are lead to learn about the dreams of men. Starting with those first few paragraphs meant the audience needed to keep a look out for Janie’s dream. From the first moment we see her with the pear tree Janie’s dream seems obvious. Her dream is to find out what true love is. Using Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Edwidge Danticat’s foreword, and my own annotations Janie’s dream will be explored.

Janie's hair along the story represented more than her beauty, it helps show her identity and how women are unfairly treated. Hurston states, “That night he ordered Janie to tie up her hair around the store”(page 52).Jody shows his jealousy by making Janie cover her hair because he believed that he is only one who should see it. She states, “That was why she sought out Janie to friend with. Janie’s coffee-and-cream

As a young woman, Janie wanted love, true love. In the beginning of the novel and Janie 's journey, she is under a blossoming pear tree where she spends most of her days. She is watching the bees fly to the blossoms, when she has an epiphany. “So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then

All through the novel Janie travels through valuable life experiences allowing her to grow as a woman. Janie at first has a difficult time understanding her needs rather than wants, but as she continues to experience new situations she realizes she values respect. Janie’s first two marriages turned out to be tragic mistakes, but with each marriage Janie gained something valuable. When Janie is disrespected in her second marriage with Joe Starks, he publicly humiliates her, disrespecting her as a wife and woman. This experience forced Janie to come out of her comfort zone and stand up for herself.

Reflect upon Janie’s new life with Tea Cake. Why does her “soul [crawl] out from its hiding place”? Joe forces Janie to wear a head-rag when in public, and Joe’s jealously makes Janie bind her hair, constraining Janie’s femininity and stifling her identity. In an attempt to keep Janie all to himself, he crushes her and shatters her image of him.

All novels contain symbolism in one shape or form, masking a deeper meaning beneath the words that are written on the page. Usually, there is an assortment of symbols disguised by a literal meaning that blend in with the scene. Symbols frequently come in the form of nature. Nature, generally being in the background of a scene, becomes more prominent when it is meant to be identified as a symbol. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the symbolism in nature is recurrent throughout the novel. It is used to indicate turning points and track the growth of the main character, Janie’s, coming-of-age. This is portrayed through the changing of the seasons and various correspondents. In this way, it can be seen that not all events affect Janie in the same way, leading her in one direction. In Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, seasonal symbols are used to target experiences in Janie’s life and how they affect her overall development into adulthood.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, their eyes were watching god; the author leads Janie through a journey. She lives with her grandmother named Nanny, who currently is attending a white family. Janie is living with Nanny because her mom had been raped and the father was running away from the sheriff. As the story goes on she tries to explore love with different lovers. At the begging she is presented with one young man name Logan, but as time goes on Janie become less interested in him. Ultimately she ends up living with Teacake the man that loves her the way Janie wants to be loved. Through the symbolism of nature, Hurston uses a pear tree blossoming to symbolize the way Janie hopes to interact with a man, as the bee pollinates the blossoming

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

Another desire of young Janie is to find true, passionate love in a relationship. Returning to the metaphor of the pear tree, Janie says to her Grandma, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston 24). Janie dreams of a peaceful, pleasant, and comfortable love in her marriage, similar to the quiet bliss of sitting in the shade of a blossoming pear tree. In her article, Kubitschek also points out Darwin Turner’s understanding that “‘All Janie wants is to love, be loved, and to share the life of her man. But . . . she must first find a man wise enough to let her be whatever kind of woman she wants to be’” (qtd. in Kubitschek 109). Unfortunately, this love and freedom was not acquired in Janie’s first marriage. Despite her hope that feelings of true love would develop with her first husband Logan Killicks, “she knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). Discontent with lack of passion in her first marriage, Janie decides to abandon her dream of finding love with Logan and does not hesitate to run away with Jody Starks when the situation presents itself. Deborah Clarke comments on this change in heart, writing, “Janie thus gives up a

Janie was no longer letting anything control her any longer. She was making her own decisions now by talking to Jordan and not listening to her grandmother, who told her to respect her husband. With the results of this, Janie ran from Killicks to marry Joe for numerous years while waiting for her hunger for love to be filled. However it never was with Joe. After the death of Joe, Janie soon found Tea Cake, who gave her the love she starved for: “after a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind” (Hurston 107). Hurston gave Janie Tea Cake to show that she was no longer going to wait around and wait for love. She was now going to find it herself. Proving that she was no longer the naive girl who sat under a tree and dreamed all day.

Near the beginning of the book, Janie develops an idealistic view of love whilst lying underneath a pear tree. She is young and naïve, enthralled with the beauty of spring. She comes to the conclusion that marriage is the ultimate expression of love and finds herself pondering why she does not have a partner. In the rashness of her hormone clouded brain, she is drawn to Johnny Taylor, who is nearly a stranger. This is her first experience formulating ideas about

The novel presents a story of an African American woman, Janie Crawford. It shows her struggle in which she fights for acceptance and a sense of security. Throughout the novel, her growth into womanhood is presented. At the beginning, Janie is depicted as a shy and withdrawn woman who is not inclined to speak about her emotions and feelings. Her voice is often stifled, and, as a result, she remains unheard and unnoticed. She feels that her community ignores her. She could not define herself as a woman, and, in turn her inner self is not integral (Fard & Zarrinjooee, 2014). Miller writes that Janie`s character can be considered as a canonical figure from the feminism`s point of view because of the fact that she wants to free herself from men`s

At the beginning of the book, when Joe Starks and Janie get married, Janie's hair gives a direct representation of how her identity and freedom can become tied up or freed, the way that Janie’s hair can be tied up or let loose. For example, after Janie marries Joe, she is unable to do the things she

Janie is a black woman who asserts herself beyond expectation.  She has a persistence that characterizes her search for the love that she dreamed of since she was a girl.  Janie understands the societal status that her life has handed her, yet she is determined to overcome this, and she is resentful toward anyone or anything that interferes with her quest for happiness. "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see, "(Page 14)  laments Janie's grandmother as she tried to justify the marriage that she has arranged for her granddaughter with Logan Killicks. This paragraph establishes the existence of the inferior status of women in Janie's society, a status which Janie must somehow overcome in order to emerge a heroine in the end of the novel.