Narration And Symbolism Eyes Were Watching God English Literature Essay

Zora Neal Hurston wrote “Their Eyes Were Watching God” during a time when women’s voices, especially black women’s voices were marginalized. The story was written in the early 20th century and reflects the conditions that women faced when the book was written and still do now. Hurston’s protagonist, Janie Crawford is a reflection of the need that Hurston saw to preserve an oral tradition of storytelling as a source of identity and self awareness. She develops a sense of identity and self-fulfillment through the narration of her life story to her friend Phoebe Watson. The centrality of symbolism and narrative technique in Janie’s life story reflect the importance of these elements in the lives of women whose voices have been traditionally repressed.

The opening paragraph describes ships at a distance, carrying every man’s dreams. Hurston links the horizon to a person’s dream, by saying “For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing.” (Hurston, 9) At the end of the book after Janie has realized her dream of an emotionally fulfilling relationship she says “Here was peace. She pulled in the horizon like a great fish-net.”(Hurston, 286) Janie’s journey starts at the beginning of the book where she describes the horizon as carrying dreams out of sight, never landing for some. For those whose dreams do come in, it is with the tide. The tide is a symbol of nature, the rhythms of which are beyond the control of humans. In contrast the act of telling her own story empowers Janie and her dream of a satisfying relationship has been realized. The journey of how Janie gains the power to realize her dream is contrasted between the passive realizations of dreams described in the first paragraph of the story with the clearly volitional nature of Janie “Pulling in the horizon like a great fish-net”. Janie pulls together the story of her life (Jones, 185) and can now account for the experiences of her life. The difference between the description of the horizon in the first paragraph and the description of the horizon in the last paragraph of the book highlights the journey of empowerment that Janie has realized. Ryan Simmons (181) says that many critics see the novel “as a celebration of Janie’s ability to free herself…to attain a new form of cultural power, the ability to shape her own story.” She went from being at the mercy of forces beyond her control, to realizing that she had the power to change people and the world around her by telling her story.

Janie finds peace and fulfilment from having ‘got tuh go there tuh know there.” She has experienced three marriages, and only the last came close to fulfillment. Hurston cleverly saves Janie’s horizon realization moment for after Tea Cake has died, implying that ultimately fulfillment comes from searching out your own path to happiness, not necessarily from the perfect man.

Images of trees appear throughout the story. Matthew Wynn Sivils explains the significance of trees like this: ” In southern literature, trees often function as connecting points between human experience and the natural world, as anchors in time, place, and human spiritual conscience.” (Sivils, 89) One of the most significant instances of tree imagery occurs on page 23 when Janie connects the pear tree with something larger. The image of the bee pollinating the pear blossom is a symbol of the mutual fulfillment that Janie seeks in a marital relationship. The larger meaning is her recognition of a fundamental human need: to love and be loved. Janie describes the pear tree like this “From barren brown stems to glistening leaf buds; from the leaf buds to snowy virginity of bloom.” This passage symbolically describes and predicts Janie’s own journey of self awareness.

In stark contrast is Nanny’s view of the symbolism of trees. On page 31 Nanny tells Janie that “us colored folks is branches without roots, and that makes things come around in queer ways.” A branch without a root is dead: it cannot grow toward the horizon and it doesn’t experience the bursting forth of springtime life that so stirred Janie under the pear tree. Nanny saw domestic life as a protection against “bein’ kicked around from corner to post”. (Hurston, 31) Janie saw marriage without love as a restriction, saying “Nanny had taken the biggest thing that God ever made, the horizon-for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you-and pinched it in to such a little thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her.” (Hurston, 138) Nanny’s view on the nature of how a marital relationship should be focused on protection from the gendered oppression she experienced as a slave. The sexual and violent trauma that haunted Nanny and her offspring eliminated the roots and therefore the life, from the tree that was her family. The protection that Nanny sought for Janie turned out to be the very thing that suffocated her roots.

Tea Cake Woods represents another element of the symbolism of the tree. His name itself gives away the metaphor: Woods are full of trees and trees both those without roots and those with flowers pollinated by bees. Although Tea Cake is working class and doesn’t have roots in the form of family financial roots, he symbolizes the realization of Janie’s pear tree experience. He embodies the opposite of Nanny’s restrictive characterization of colored folks as trees without roots. Tea Cake and Janie together put down roots in the muck and grow closer through the trials of navigating a relationship.

Narration plays an important part in “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Hurston starts and finishes the novel in third-person omniscient narration. This unnamed narrator uses Standard English. Janie’s and Nanny’s stories however are told in colloquial Black English. This is significant in several ways. The use of two forms of narration crosses temporal limitations. It links the current to the past across differing experiences. Sharon Jones (173) argues that “By avoiding strictly sequential ordering for the narrative, Hurston conveys how the past and the present influence each other; time and our perceptions of it are dynamic rather than static.” Nanny and Janie both experience the repercussions of repression and the lack of identity and self awareness imposed by oppression both as women and as blacks in the Jim Crow era.

Nanny sees sexual knowledge outside of marriage as a dangerous trap. Her solution is to marry Janie off immediately after witnessing a kiss between her and Johnny Taylor. Nanny’s desire to protect Janie was doubtless prompted by the fear that Janie would fall by knowing too much. However, where Nanny sees death and shame, Janie sees an affirmation of mutual love that reinforces and supports each partner. It is a reflection of the nature of the mutualistic relationship between bees and trees that are pollinated by bees. Both the tree and the bees benefit and neither are harmed. In fact they benefit from each other’s resources rather than one benefiting at the expense of the other.

Nanny’s dream for Janie’s future aims for security and identity in a domestic sphere, where possessions and status take highest value. This is something that Nanny didn’t experience. Nanny understands the need for a woman to find her own voice but sees the path to that goal in a very different light than Janie. On pages 31-32 Nanny tells Janie that “Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high but they wasn’t no pulpit for me.” Toward the end of the same paragraph Nanny tells Janie “Ah said Ah would save de text for you.” The “text” is Janie’s life story charged with the power to shape the world around her. The power of her story is evidenced by Phoebe’s statement “Lawd! Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus’ listenin’ tuh you, Janie” Nanny never had the power to shape her own situation. Nanny and Janie both wanted the same things from life but Janie arrives at her moment of realization through a very different path than Nanny envisioned. Eventually Janie does find the pulpit that Nanny didn’t have. That pulpit is the realization of her own identity and self awareness.