Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered a fantastic literary piece. The symbolism Hurston incorporates into her novel plays a significant role in expressing the important themes and messages she depicts in this popular novel. The story follows the main character, Janie, on her journey to find love and live a happy life. The main symbols range from Janie’s hair, a pear tree, Janie’s clothes, a mule, and games. There are many more symbols in the book, but these five seem to hold the strongest symbolic value, and they each evolve and represent something different throughout the story.
Janie’s
hair is the most common and significant symbol in Their Eyes Were Watching
God. This the most important
symbol because the way Janie wears her hair is mentioned countless times from
start to finish, and each time it means something different. Her hair shows the status of Janie and
her independence, but is also a picture of her beauty. The first time Joe sees Janie her hair
falls down so he stops to talk to her (27). It is clear that Joe likes Janie’s hair, because when he
asks her to run away with him he says, “Kiss me and shake yo’ head. When you do dat, yo’ plentiful hair
breaks lak day” (30). In an act of
power and possession, Joe makes Janie wear her hair wrapped up. The other men acknowledge this and
suspect that Joe is being selfish and is keeping her hair up out of fear that
they will recognize Janie’s beauty and run off with her (50). Hurston writes, “She was there in the
store for him to look at, not those others” (55). When Joe dies and Janie is freed from her unhappy
relationship, she lets her hair down and burns all of her hair wraps from him
to emphasize her newfound freedom and happiness (87). She later finds Tea Cake and he too sees the value of
Janie’s hair, but he lets her keep it down. He tells her, “It so pretty. It feels jus’ lak underneath uh dove’s wing next to mah
face” (103). Janie keeps her hair
down throughout this relationship because she has independence and the power to
do as she pleases. Even after Tea
Cake dies and she returns to Eatonville, Janie keeps her hair down. This causes quite the controversy from
the townspeople who always saw her with her hair wrapped up. This scene holds the main
representation of Janie’s hair: her independence.
The
pear tree is the second most important symbol in this novel and is also
mentioned many times throughout the story. Janie first recognizes the blooming tree before she kisses
Jonny Taylor. Hurston writes,
From barren
brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; fro leaf-buds to snowy virginity of
bloom. It stirred her [Janie]
tremendously How? Why?… 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
screaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage! (11)
This is the start to Janie’s
journey to find a love that is true and a marriage that fits her. She can’t see her first arranged
marriage to Logan as love like the pear tree, so she protests her grandma’s
plans (14). Later she describes
her loveless marriage to Joe by saying, “the way Joe spoke out without
giving her a chance to say anything one way or another...took the bloom off of
things" (p 46).
Finally, when Janie finds her happy marriage she says, "He
looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom--a pear
tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world
with his footsteps" (106).
The pear tree symbol was evident in each of Janie’s romantic
relationships.
Janie’s clothing is ranked number three for the most important
symbol in Their Eyes Were Watching God. What she wore on different occasions was a clear picture of
her emotions or whom she was with romantically. The first noteworthy scene involving Janie’s clothing was
shortly after Joe died. Phoebe
expressed the town’s judgment about Janie’s mourning clothes for Joe, to which Janie replied, “’Ah ain’t grievin’ so why do Ah
hafta mourn’“ (113). Shortly after
this, she left town in a fun, blue-satin dress. This was a statement of her happiness and relationship to
Tea Cake. She states, “Tea Cake
love me in blue, so Ah wears it” (113).
After forcibly killing the love of her life, Janie wears the same
overalls to the funeral that she had been working in with Tea Cake. Hurston writes, “She went on in her
overalls. She was too busy feeling
grief to dress like grief” (189).
When returning to Eatonville, Janie stayed in her overalls as another
statement to her life with Tea Cake and her changed personality. Janie’s clothes helped to clearly
express her emotions that changed through the story, which makes this symbol
very important.
The
mule in the story isn’t as reoccurring as the other symbols, but it still holds
a central message. In it’s small
number of scenes, the mule is a strong symbol of the women in Eatonville,
especially Janie. The men of the
town make jokes and harass the mule (56), just like they are hard on the
women. Sam works the mule too
hard, matching the pressure on the women of the town to serve their husbands. Janie
takes note of this and says, “People ought to have some regard for helpless
things” (57). Her statement isn’t
only for the mule, but is also suggesting that Joe and the other men go a
little easier on her and her friends.
Joe finally buys the mule to save it from the harassment and Sam’s
unfair work (57). Joe also
attempted to do the same thing with Janie. Back when he first met her he made her promises of not
making her work and showering her with nice gifts. Joe also did it to show off how much money he has and to
look powerful. Janie tells him, “’You
got uh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king us something”
(58). Joe uses his possession and
rule over Janie to show his power as well. There are many symbolic similarities between the mule and
Janie.
The
fifth most significant symbol in the novel was the games Janie played. Like some of the other symbols, these
were used to further portray Janie’s happiness and equality. In Eatonville, Janie rarely got to sit
out on the porch and never got to participate in stories or games. She says, “De men folks treasures de
gaem round heah. Ah just
ain’t never learnt how’” (95). The
men loved games, but never cared Janie or valued her enough to teach her how to
play. When Tea Cake shows her,
Hurston writes, “Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice” (96). Janie also got to participate in games
and stories in the Everglades.
This shows she was considered more equal with the Tea Cake and the
people in the Everglades.
Their
Eyes Were Watching God is packed with many literary and poetic devices that
make this novel a very entertaining and enjoyable read. Janie’s hair, a pear tree, Janie’s
clothes, a mule, and games are the most important symbols in this story. Not only do these symbols help show off
Hurston’s artistic writing skills, but they also help emphasize how her
characters are feeling and illustrate her main themes.
Written by: Kailey Mayry
Written by: Kailey Mayry
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