Allegory Presented in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Allegory Presented in Their Eyes Were Watching God Allegory is the representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial from. Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, presents many forms of allegory. The main character in the novel is Janie and we are taken through her a journey of her life, and along the way we meet three different men that all play a vital part in her life, Logan Killicks, Joe ‘Jody’ Starks, and Vergible ‘Tea Cake’ Woods. Each of these men represent a time in her life, in which there names Janie is married off to Logan Killicks when she is sixteen by her grandmother. Janie has just had her dreams killed by her grandmother. “The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree, but Janie didn 't know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor.” (Hurston 14) Janie wanted to be free and explore the world, not be tied down to a man that ran a farm. Killicks also represents the death the of Janie’s Nanny. Her Nanny forced her to marry this man, and soon after she deceases. Nanny wanted Janie to be safe and protected, Logan Killicks was the man to take over that task, therefore she was able to pass on and her presence is killed off in Janie’s life. The name Logan itself means “hollow” (Thinkbabynames.com). We see Janie turn into someone that she is not. She becomes nothing on the inside. “Janie 's first dream was dead, so she became a women” (Hurston 38). Janie became something she wasn’t when married to Logan Killicks. He killed her dreams, was the reason her Nanny could finally go, and made her nothing of the girl she used to be. Janie soon runs off with Joe ‘Jody’ Starks. Jody seems to be the ideal man that will bring Janie her dream of being in love and raising a family. Stark means sever or bare in appearance or outline. Once they arrive to the town of Eatonville, Jody takes over and turns the barren town into a real town. With

Citations: 1. Weathers, Glenda. " Biblical trees, biblical deliverance: literary landscapes of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison.." African American Review. (2005): n. page. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. 2. Husrton, Zora, Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: HarperCollins Publisher, Inc, 1998. Kindle PDF file.