Identity In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hurston's novel “Their eyes were watching God” is not just a novel about relationships and finding true love,but a story about finding one's own identity and living for yourself.Janie’s sense of identity,the main character,is revealed through the symbolic imagery and narrative motifs associated with the scenes described to illustrate the overarching theme of identity and Janie's development into her own person,from her shapeless beginnings to a sturdy foundation at the end of the novel and the end of her journey into finding her identity. At the start of the novel Janie is but a young girl dreaming about the adventures to come in life;A new flourishing pear tree with youthful green leaves and singing bees all around ,raising its branches towards the summer sun filled future it hopes to be a part of. “Oh to be a pear tree-any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen.She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.Where were the singing bees for her?Nothing on the place nor in her grandmother’s house answered her.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 and leaned over to gaze up and down the road.Looking,waiting,breathing short with impatience.Waiting for the world to be made”(Ch.2).This quote from the second chapter of the novel sets the stage for Janie's search for her identity.She is only just beginning to see the
Through Tea Cake and her journey in life from her raw form with Joe to her molding with Tea Cake,the theme of identity in Hurston's novel “Their eyes were watching God” is developed and revealed in the use of symbolic imagery and narrative motifs associated with the scenes described to illustrate Janie's development into her identity by the end of the novel as a strong willed and free spirited woman with more life to live and a light at the end of her