Discovering One’s Euphoria
Various literary novels embody the notion of symbolic language. Symbolism can evoke striking feelings and communicate prominent ideas through its abstract language. A profound author, Zora Neale Hurston, known for her use of symbolism in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, conveys symbols to communicate the experiences of a beautiful yet determined black woman, Janie Crawford. Janie seeks to find her spirit, her euphoria, and her perception of self-recognition and love. What comes with her journey of her womanhood is her undying struggle and misery in discovering her aspirations from various marriages to realize her unconditional love that completes her. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses …show more content…
Within the novel, the image of a pear tree blossoming excites Janie of an overwhelming yet sexual feeling. She had lay “under a blossoming pear tree in the backyard” and “ever since the first tiny bloom opened” it had left a “snowy virginity of bloom” and “caressed her in her sleep” (p 10). Hurston uses the pear tree as a symbol for pleasure as its leaf buds’ stroke Janie in her sleep and leaves her wanting for more. The audience is revealed to how the tree’s symbolic image marks Janie’s desire for the finer things in life, especially of this pleasure-filled feeling that takes over her and leaves her curious for more. She seeks to search this feeling and fulfill it with the thoughts of her lovers that have yet to strike her romantic ideals. Further, as Janie waits for such desire and affectionate love to begin with Logan, she feels the marriage going passionless. Months travel by as she yearns “for love to begin” and expresses to Nanny, her desire for “things sweet wid [her] marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree” (p 24). Hurston reveals that although Janie is in a great stability of finance, the audience is brought aware of how she becomes more enlightened by her romantic ideal of love. She believes that her ideal love is similar to the sexual passion that …show more content…
In the beginning, Janie is captivated by a bee that associates with the blossom of a flower. She sees a “bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom” and meet with the “love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree” which was “creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight” (p 11). Hurston uses the bee and the blossom to represent Janie’s desire for love’s pleasure. The author reveals to the audience of how she is taken away by the overwhelming desire and passion shown from the “creaming” of the tree and the bee. This marks her virginity as she is presented pleasingly to the desire of sex, yet also conserve her purity through creating her expectations for her later affectionate lovers. Further, Hurston portrays the shattering of Janie’s bee and blossom dream when she is left to realize that being with Joe and his personality is an illusion as he slaps her. She “stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought” and saw that “her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered” causing her to have “no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man” (p 72). Hurston revealing Joe’s actual image to its reader reveals that Janie begins to realize how Joe was never the man of her dreams and just persuaded herself to believe that Joe was just a better man than Logan. She is
Various literary novels embody the notion of symbolic language. Symbolism can evoke striking feelings and communicate prominent ideas through its abstract language. A profound author, Zora Neale Hurston, known for her use of symbolism in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, conveys symbols to communicate the experiences of a beautiful yet determined black woman, Janie Crawford. Janie seeks to find her spirit, her euphoria, and her perception of self-recognition and love. What comes with her journey of her womanhood is her undying struggle and misery in discovering her aspirations from various marriages to realize her unconditional love that completes her. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses …show more content…
Within the novel, the image of a pear tree blossoming excites Janie of an overwhelming yet sexual feeling. She had lay “under a blossoming pear tree in the backyard” and “ever since the first tiny bloom opened” it had left a “snowy virginity of bloom” and “caressed her in her sleep” (p 10). Hurston uses the pear tree as a symbol for pleasure as its leaf buds’ stroke Janie in her sleep and leaves her wanting for more. The audience is revealed to how the tree’s symbolic image marks Janie’s desire for the finer things in life, especially of this pleasure-filled feeling that takes over her and leaves her curious for more. She seeks to search this feeling and fulfill it with the thoughts of her lovers that have yet to strike her romantic ideals. Further, as Janie waits for such desire and affectionate love to begin with Logan, she feels the marriage going passionless. Months travel by as she yearns “for love to begin” and expresses to Nanny, her desire for “things sweet wid [her] marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree” (p 24). Hurston reveals that although Janie is in a great stability of finance, the audience is brought aware of how she becomes more enlightened by her romantic ideal of love. She believes that her ideal love is similar to the sexual passion that …show more content…
In the beginning, Janie is captivated by a bee that associates with the blossom of a flower. She sees a “bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom” and meet with the “love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree” which was “creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight” (p 11). Hurston uses the bee and the blossom to represent Janie’s desire for love’s pleasure. The author reveals to the audience of how she is taken away by the overwhelming desire and passion shown from the “creaming” of the tree and the bee. This marks her virginity as she is presented pleasingly to the desire of sex, yet also conserve her purity through creating her expectations for her later affectionate lovers. Further, Hurston portrays the shattering of Janie’s bee and blossom dream when she is left to realize that being with Joe and his personality is an illusion as he slaps her. She “stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought” and saw that “her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered” causing her to have “no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man” (p 72). Hurston revealing Joe’s actual image to its reader reveals that Janie begins to realize how Joe was never the man of her dreams and just persuaded herself to believe that Joe was just a better man than Logan. She is