Their Eyes Were Watching God-Literary Analysis
Janie’s experience underneath the pear tree affects her views of love and her decisions for the rest of her life. Hurston uses words and phrases like: virginity, gold, panting breath, sanctum of a bloom, arch to meet the love embrace, and frothing in delight, all of which are connected to sexual experience. Janie has reached a developmental stage where she is now curious about sex and love. This one experience of Janie’s observing the pear tree causes her to question where, when, and how the beautiful things she saw will happen to her. This scene sets up what Janie thinks love should be like and sends her away feeling that one day she must find this kind of a love. Every time Janie meets a new man, she is automatically comparing him to the pear tree. Janie’s decisions are affected by the pear tree because if the man Janie is with does not live up to her vision, then she feels a strong desire to keep searching in other places. Janie starts searching right away and “through pollinated air,”(pg11) finds Johnny Taylor. Janie kisses Johnny because, “The dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes”(pg 11.) Janie’s grandmother disapproves of her kiss and soon marries her to Logan Killicks. Janie tel
In conclusion Janie’s experience with the pear tree gave her views of love, and influenced many of her decisions throughout the course of her life. It influenced her abandonment of Logan and her marriage with Joe. It influenced her dream fulfilling love with Tea Cake and her insistence to remain by his side until the end. ls her grandmother, “Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think...” (Pg 24.) Janie is forced to go anyway and as soon as she reaches Logan’s house she calls it, “ A lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods”(pg 21.) It is very obvious that Logan does not live up to Janie’s expectations. Janie is looking for a pear tree; not a stump in the woods. Janie is still with Logan when she meets Joe. Janie decides not to leave with Joe right away “because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon” (pg29.) Janie eventually learns to trust Joe and decides that Logan could never be her pear tree because she “hates the way his head is so long one way and so flat on de sides and that pone uh fat back uh his neck” (pg24.) She decides to leave and see if Joe could be the pe
Some topics in this essay:
Joe Janie,
Tea Cake,
,
Killicks Janie,
Taylor Janie,
Janie Joe,
pear tree,
Janie Logan,
tea cake,
love tea cake,
pear tree janie,
janie logan,
joe janie,
love tea,
wasn’t joe,
decides leave joe,
decides leave,
tree janie,
leave joe,
bloom things”,
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Approximate Word count = 819
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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