Janie and the Pear Tree in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale H

Janie and the Pear Tree in Their Eyes Were Watching divinity by Zora Neale Hurston In Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God, the image of a pear head reverberates throughout the novel. The pear tree is not only a design of Janies life - blossoming, death, metamorphosis, and rebirth - but also the spark of curiosity that sets Janie on her quest for self-discovery. Janie is essentially rootless at the beginning of her life, never having known her become or father and having been raised by her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny even says to Janie, Us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ship canal (Hurston, 16). Under a pear tree in Nannys backyard, however, Janie, as a nave sixteen-year-old, finds the possibilities of love, sexuality, and identity that are available to her. This image, forever reverberating in her mastermind through two unsuccessful marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, is what keeps Janies spirit alive and enc ourages her quest for love and life. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep (10). Under the pear tree on that spring afternoon, Janie sees sensuality wherever she looks. The first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds to snow-white virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously (10). Gazing across the garden... ...ots her memory, the blossoms her dreams, and the branches her vision. After each unsuccessful marriage, she waits for the springtime pollen to be sprinkled over her life once again. Even after Tea Cakes death, she has a garden of her own to sit and revel in. Works CitedAppiah, K.A. and provide, Henry Louis, Jr. eds. Zora Neale Hurston Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York Amistad Press, Inc., 1993. Bond, Cynthia. Language, Sign, and Difference in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Appiah and Gates 204-17. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Wat ching God. New York Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990. Wright, Richard. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Appiah and Gates 16.