Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake was the first instance she truly fell in love with someone. Although Janie had previously been in two marriages, she did not truly fall in love with the men she married. In actuality, she mostly resented them and wanted to leave them. Her grandmother arranged Janie’s marriage for her, and Janie utterly hated her husband and her marriage to him. She did not feel ready for marriage, which she states on page 12 saying, “What Ah know ‘bout uh husband?”. Her second husband abused her and did not allow her to speak her mind or do as she pleased. He accomplished this by keeping her in his…
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).…
The first symbol i saw was with the peach blossom and the it had a connection to the battle and that was that young boy’s have to go into the battle to defend their country and the peach blossom symbolizes that joby has a little hair on his face. The Drum, the connection to the battle was that all joby had was a drum and two sticks that was his shield. It symbolize joby’s protection and comfort.…
The tree is therefore personified as a woman in the story as she exhibits characteristics of the "maternal instinct" and though she did not give birth to the boy she takes him in as if she had. One of the main messages portrayed in the story is that unselfish everlasting love ultimately has the greatest effect on the lover not the one being loved. The mother figure/tree was deeply wounded in the long run as every time the boy came for something more, she would have to sacrifice a part of her body to make him happy or satisfy him. Psychologist Barbara Frederickson offers a psychosocial theory on the concept of everlasting love. She describes that it does not exist and ultimately any connects a human being engages in is true love if those engaging in the scene are both portraying strong positive emotions. Taking this theory as fact, it leads to a counterargument on whether or not the tree truly loved the boy or felt obligated to show feelings towards him. Either way, she along the journey of her life loved more than the boy but ultimately ended up sacrificing everything for him, once again portraying that maternal instinct. There was also a metaphor…
A scene that shows Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship is on page 115. During this scene, Janie tells her good friend Pheoby that Tea Cake taught her the maiden language all over again. This means that Tea Cake taught Janie how to love again and how to open her heart. This is a very important detail to Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship because Janie’s journey throughout this entire book is to find love with someone and also within herself.…
Janie is a blossoming flower coming into the intense world of womanhood. Even though she is physically a woman, her emotional needs are not fully completed until the very end of the book. She had pests who tried to poison her roots and trim her stems and pick the flower that is Janie. In the book, Janie is constantly looking for the bee that will make her flower bloom. There are three main themes of the natural world that present themselves in this book: A pear tree, the horizon, and the hurricane. These three natural occurrences represent her relationships throughout the book. Nature comes into play as well when defining who the “God” in the title of the book is referring to. The human body is made of organic material, thus coming from nature as well, so Janie’s physical appearance, more…
In conclusion, the pear tree had a lot of impact on Janie’s decisions on who she would marry. She had had to kiss a lot of frogs before she could finally find her voice and independence. Her drive to find true love kept her going where others would’ve given up, which is not only inspirational, but also makes her a heroine in the…
The pear tree is a motif of sexuality and the possibility of connection between self, the world, and other persons within Janie. In ancient Chinese mythology, the pear tree symbolized immortal life because of the longevity of the tree, the same thought can be applied in Their Eyes Were Watching God. If Janie had not continued to have hope that love was an attainable idea than she would not have been so open to connecting with Tea Cake on a deeper emotional level, she let her ideas of love be immortal and long lasting, just like a pear tree, because she didn’t allow her feelings to die, she is able to learn that marriage is about love, happiness, and business. Janie has her first experience of sexual awakening under the pear tree with Johnny Taylor very early into the story, Nanny sees this and tries to warn her that love is not what she thinks it is and begins to express her traditional ideals of love and marriage to Janie, explaining that love has very little to do with marriage and Janie…
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 Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid (11).” This is Janie’s idea of marriage. She believes that the sensation she felt is marriage and this is the feeling that she wants. She also believes that with marriage comes love and Janie looks forward to this feeling to come with marriage. This blossoming pear tree represents love and mentioned again later on in the novel. Soon Janie marries a man, named Logan Killicks, that her grandmother, Nanny, set her up with. A few days into the marriage, she confronts Nanny. “But Nanny, Ah wants to want him sometimes. Ah don’t want to do all de wantin’ (23). ” Here Janie realizes that the feeling she’s been expecting to feel with Logan isn’t there, therefore there is no love. At this point in the novel, Zora Neale Hurston is illuminating what it is that Janie wants.…
Tangerine, a realistic fiction novel written by Edward Bloor, is about a dysfunctional family and the family’s dark secrets. Motif is a repeated element, such as an image, a symbol, or a theme in a work of literature, the motif of “sight” is used often in the novel and plays a huge role in the novel and symbolizes the harmful and positive affects of hiding the truth. Through the motif of “sight”, the main character, Paul, has a growing understanding of his friends, family, and himself.…
As Janie learns more about herself and finds happiness, the setting of the book changes with each husband. She is raised in West Florida, a southern state once influenced by the Confederacy. Therefore, she is exposed to racism at a very young age. The urban setting of Eatonville with Jody symbolizes a world of corruption. Janie’s freedom is stolen by Jody through his abusive way of life. Janie is repressed behind the city walls where she is confined both physically and metaphorically by Jody. Rural areas symbolize periods of innocence and relative happiness in Janie’s life. She finds peace and serenity living among nature, under the pear tree as a child and in the Everglades with Tea Cake. These rural settings show Janie’s poverty and her kindness…
To Pearl the forest is like a best friend. It treats her as if she were one of its own. The animals do not runaway at her ever move, instead they come to her with open arms. The light is chasing her no matter where she goes. She is able to run and play freely to her innocent hearts content. She can do ;;that because her heart is innocent and the forest recognizes that. Family love. Bastard.…
Comparing Tea Cake to Janie’s symbol of the pear tree; symbolizes Janie’s finding of complete happiness. Earlier in the book Janie compares herself to the tree that is bare, however now that she has met Tea Cake “He could be a bee to a blossom a pear tree blossom in the spring” (101), which suggests that the blossom on Janie’s tree is a piece of happiness and the bee, which is Tea Cake, is spreading and contributing to that happiness of Janie’s. Hurston makes another comparison when Janie was feeling blue about Tea Cake’s death, that “Tea Cake, the son, of the Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.” (183) The symbol of sunsets is used a lot and in this context comparing Tea Cake to the evening sun, suggests that Tea Cake was the happiness to Janie, but she didn’t know till she had lost him and experienced…
“There was a pear tree near out vineyard, full of fruit, but it was not tempting because of its taste or appearance. Many of us lewd young me went late one night (having prolonged our street sports as was our custom) to shake and rob that tree. We took huge loads, not so we could eat them, and after tasting the pears, we threw the, to the hogs. We did this because we wanted to and because it was prohibited. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which you pitied in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Let my heart tell you what it sought there: that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to wickedness, but wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved my own faults, not that for which I was at fault, but the fault itself. Foul, soul, falling from your heavens to utter destruction, seeking nothing through the shame, only the shame itself!” (Excerpt by Augustine of Hippo from his Autobiography, Confessions)…
Throughout The Cherry Orchard, inanimate objects are utilized as symbols for the characters. These physical things reveal aspects of the characters’ personalities, feelings and principles. Over the course of the play, the meaning of the symbols change reflecting the development of the characters they are representing. These symbols include the bookcase, the nursery and the cherry orchard as a whole.…