Their Eyes Were Watching God Metaphor Analysis

Their Eyes were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, is a unique novel about the experiences of a black woman, told mostly through a rich, continuous use of metaphors. Three of the most important metaphors Hurston uses are the porch, the pear tree, and the horizon. The porch represents the black community with its conventions and judgements. The pear tree symbolizes the epiphany about Janie’s sexuality and her hopes for her future that the main character Janie experiences when she is 16. The horizon, however, is the most important metaphor of them all. It stands for an almost unattainable goal that nevertheless influences almost everything Janie does until she overcomes the tragic death of her true love Tea Cake and is made stronger,
Together these three metaphors create the fully rounded character of Janie for the reader. The porch is a powerful metaphor because its use emphasizes the black community’s judgement of its own members. When the novel begins, Janie is walking back into Eatonville, Florida after living in the Everglades. At the same time, the black women in Eatonville finish their day's work and sit together on a porch, venting their envy of Janie by criticizing her. “What she doin’ coming back here in dem overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on?....Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?” (Hurston 2). The criticism of Janie is influenced by the jealousy of the other black women toward her. “What dat ole forty year ole ’oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal?—Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid? (Hurston 2). The women obviously envy Janie’s attractiveness. “Why she don’t stay in her class?”
Under a blossoming pear tree, Janie has an epiphany of her own sexuality, and she formulates a vision of her hoped-for future. “It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness. (Hurston 13). Janie’s realization of her own sexuality while she sits under the pear tree causes her to long for sexual fulfillment. When she sees bees pollinating flowers, and thinks about sexual completion, the first person she sees is the lean Johnny Taylor. In her bemused state, he takes on a different appearance. “Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being....she had known....as shiftless Johnny Taylor....before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes” (Hurston 14). When Janie’s grandmother and protector, Nanny, sees Janie and Johnny kissing, she calls Janie to her and urges her to marry Logan Killicks, a black middle-aged, prosperous farmer, for protection and security. Before she dies, Nanny wants Janie married. Janie is very unhappy about this, she doesn’t want to give up her pear tree dreams. “She began to cry. Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think” (Hurston 29). Janie does marry Logan Killicks to please Nanny, but she is so unhappy in her marriage that she soon leaves him for Joe Starks, who has a dream for the future that Janie wants to