For some characters, love is a moral value right from the start. Zora Neale Hurston introduces us to Janie in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie is a young, vibrant African American living with her grandmother. She marks the beginning of her need to feel loved and wanted early on in chapter 2 as she gazes upon a pear tree. “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the 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 arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. 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.” (Hurston 11). Janie wants to feel the way the bee does when pollinating the flowers on the pear tree. The alienation process begins here.
For some characters, love is a moral value right from the start. Zora Neale Hurston introduces us to Janie in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie is a young, vibrant African American living with her grandmother. She marks the beginning of her need to feel loved and wanted early on in chapter 2 as she gazes upon a pear tree. “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the 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 arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. 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.” (Hurston 11). Janie wants to feel the way the bee does when pollinating the flowers on the pear tree. The alienation process begins here.