oppressive and restrictive as Janie’s first husband. When he dies, however, both Janie and the reader become acquainted with Tea Cake, a relatively poor yet nonetheless charming man who professes his love to Janie and asks her to run away with him to the Everglades. Janie does, and it becomes clear that Tea Cake and Janie are the perfect fit. With Tea Cake, Janie is happier than she has ever been, and it seems that she will finally achieve her dreams. When Tea Cake becomes infected with rabies and shoots at Janie with a gun, however, Janie is forced to kill him in a devastating twist of plot. Afterwards, Janie is thrown into jail and then tried by jury in order to decide if she will be convicted of murdering Tea Cake. If she is convicted, her life and her quest for happiness and the pursuit of her dreams will be destroyed. If she is allowed to go free, she can continue her life and her quest for happiness. In this pivotal courthouse scene, the climax of the story of Janie’s struggle to achieve happiness and the deciding moment of her fate, Zora Neale Hurston uses figurative language, varied sentence structure, and a unique, circular kind of organization of the passage in order to build tension and suspense and to create a vivid image of the courthouse and of…
The main character in Hurston’s novel, Janie Crawford, Janie’s hair is a symbol that portrays her individuality and resistance to the stereotypes that are intertwined in her society. As Janie begins to settle into her home in Eatonville, she is soon confronted by her husband, Jody, and the townspeople’s antithetical views about her proper role in society. In response to the constant critiques Janie receives for wearing her hair down, Jody demands that she begin to wear a head rag. After the next twenty monotonous years of Janie’s life, she begins to finally find her inner voice that had been suppressed by Jody’s…
Their Eyes Were Watching God features many symbols throughout Hurston’s novel; however, one symbol in particular attracts men towards Janie and creates Janie’s image and personality – her hair. Her hair is a symbol of power to her, an overwhelming presence in the eyes of men, and a strength most people don’t expect out of most women during this time.…
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.…
These metaphors, not only constitute a big part of the story but they also show Janie’s journey through marriage, and her resulting character as a self-aware, confident and balanced individual.…
In chapter thirteen there is one specific passage that holds a lot of meaning. This passage uses personification with the sun and how it “[sent] up spies ahead of him to mark out the road through the dark, he peeped up over the door sill of the world and made and went about his business all dressed in white.” This example of personification makes the sun seem like a person. The sun looks over the “door sill of the world” which is another way to say the sun was coming up and it got rid of the darkness. The sun was explained so intricately in the first few sentences to show its beauty, but Janie didn’t care about it even though it is described in such a way that makes it hard to ignore.…
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie identifies with a pear tree and makes it her life quest to imitate the marvel that is the circle of life. Janie's life mimics the life cycle of the pear tree, in that the tree blossoms, dies, and revives with every season. At the beginning of her life, Janie is can be seen as not having roots, as she does not have a mother or father to take care of her, rather her grandmother, Nanny, cares for her. Nanny even says to Janie, "Us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways" (Hurston, 13). Each connection that Janie is involved in blooms and withers away like the symbol of the pear tree from her childhood.…
There are these trees that are dark, tall and gloomy and have names on them. The names on the trees are of the Great Men of the Colony. The names are on the trees because the men sold their souls to the Devil. In the story, “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving there is this man that some people call “The Black Woodsmen” or “The Blackman” that runs this forest of souls that has been turned into trees. In this story, the trees symbolize that they are gravestones, and that they also symbolize the people in the story.…
Before his incident at the tree, Finny was a sports all star. He was gifted with superior sports skills; this was shown when he beat the school swimming record without ever having practiced at all. Once the fall occurred, Finny’s life was changed forever. “Sports are finished for him [Finny], after an accident like that. Of course. . . . If I [Stanpole] had the slightest hope that he could do more than walk I’d be all for trying for everything. There is no such hope” (55). Finny’s life revolved around sports, and once the accident occurred, his life was over. To Finny, the tree represented loss, sadness, and eventually death. As shown in the book, A Separate Peace, the tree plays a very important role in the lives of both Gene and Finny, the two main characters. The tree symbolizes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the Bible, it represents fear, hatred, and jealousy to Gene, and it also represents loss and sadness to…
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).…
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…
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…
Hurston Lorde and hooks all believe in social and economical equality. They believe that everyone is or should be equal. People in today’s society fight many different battles of discrimination, due to markers of difference. These three intellectuals give advice on how to raise future generations to become egocentric. In order to do this parents must raise their children with high self esteem. As they grow they will begin to explore differences with confidence and use their past to educate themselves and others.…
A very important use of symbolism in this novel is Finny. Finny is Gene's best friend. Finny symbolizes Jesus Christ in the story. Finny acts as a perfect person. Finny never lies. Finny also is a very forgiving person. He forgives Gene for pushing him off the tree branch and breaking his leg. He also betrays Gene. The sentence Finny quotes: "you want to break something else in me! Is that why you are here!"…
Morrison uses the elements of symbolism and metaphor to create a powerful depiction of emotions. The imagery of beautiful trees in Beloved attempts to mask the horrors that took place among them. Ironically ,beautiful Trees are perverted into a symbol of horrible acts. The characters of Beloved were faced in a time period where they have been oppressed to the point of dehumanization and subjected to the idea of companionism of inanimate objects (trees, in this case). Morrison crafts the novel around the idea of trees, how we see them today, and what they meant to people who witnessed the evil in other aspects of their life. It seems as if the characters' interpretation of what trees are gives the reader insight to fully analyzing a character. The characters' responses to trees give the reader insight to how, through horrific experiences , one can still find serenity within nature and trees, usually the only beautiful things when living life as a slave. Toni Morrison does an excellent job of piecing slavery hardened characters together that are ultimately formed by one element. The trees are there as a symbol of not only life, but death, and all the bad in between. The perception of this novel is totally up to the reader and interpretation is key to analyzing the element of trees…