Hurston’s use of nature (the pear tree, the ocean, the horizon, the hurricane) functions as both as a plot device and a metaphor. The pear tree is used as plot device in the beginning of the novel when Janie admires its complexity and relates it to a marriage. Her young teenager desires are seen as she “wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her” (Hurston 11), desperately wanting to have somebody to love and mimic that relationship of a pear tree and flower. The pear tree represents her aspiration for love and harmony in a relationship, and she always returns to the pear tree when judging her marriages. She finds this type of love with Tea Cake, comparing him to “a bee to a blossom — a pear tree blossom in the spring” (Hurston 106). Her relationship with Tea Cake fulfills her long lasting dream of love; her journey to find it is finally complete. Janie encounters the ocean when arriving at the Everglades, noticing the giant size and lack of boundaries of Lake Okeechobee. It didn’t look aesthetically pleasing, but Janie admires the ground and dirt being “so rich and black that a half a mile of it would have fertilized a Kansas wheat field” (Hurston 129), signifying her favor of adventure and spontaneity over luxury. The hurricane displaces Janie and Tea Cake and forces them to work together to save their lives. It destroys everything in its path, and Janie and Tea Cake struggle to escape its dangerous winds and waters. It comes near the end of the novel, symbolizing that no matter the conflict Janie overcame (abuse, fear, fitting in societal norms), nature would always be a stronger force that destroys her life. This is seen when Tea Cake is bit by the vicious dog in attempt to save Janie, where he later gets rabies and develops a predator-like behavior. Janie has no choice but to shoot Tea Cake as he threatens her life; therefore, the hurricane ending up being a tragic downfall in her life. The horizon is mentioned several times throughout the novel, including the beginning, end, and transitions between relationships. It symbolizes the hope Janie has for a better life since she never took her eyes off of the horizon, no matter how low her life got. In the end, she “pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net” (Hurston 193) as she recognizes that hope helped her become the person she was and created the life she lived.
Janie’s journey through her three marriages can be seen as a coming-of-age novel as she experiences the highs and lows of having relationships with men. After seeing Janie with Johnny Taylor, Nanny scolds Janie about how she should be marrying a decent man who financially secures and protects her in the white-majority’s society, and she initially endures her plain marriage with him by following his orders to work and never raising any concerns about their lack of affection for her grandmother’s sake. However, she quickly became fed up with Logan’s constant working demeanor and felt used and unloved, for she “‘wants things sweet wid mah marriage lake when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston, 24). After Nanny dies, she reflects on her marriage and realizes that it didn’t make love as she previously thought. Disappointed that her dream did not come true, Janie, a new woman, runs away from Logan and starts a new life with Joe Starks, whom she is attracted to for his sly personality. Although Joe states that he would make Janie an obedient and silent housewife and would only appreciate her beauty, Janie favors it over Logan’s constant demand for work, so they get married and move to Eatonville, Florida. Joe’s ambition and dominance over Janie start to become more apparent as he becomes the mayor of the small town. He used Janie as a tool to build up his reputation by making her run the store, not letting her talk to the other townspeople, and ridiculing her whenever she had complaints. In this abusive relationship, Janie learns the power and potential of her voice. After holding in the pain from Joe’s abuse for several years, she finally releases her bottled-in emotions Joe is on his deathbed as she explains all the things he has done wrong to her. She accuses him of ignoring her as a wife since he “‘was so busy worshippin’ de works of yo’ own hands, and cuffin’ folks around in their minds till you didn’t see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have’” (Hurston 86). After Joe dies, Janie feels free for once in her life from holding her thoughts in for so long. Lastly, she meets Tea Cake, whom she is originally attracted to for his charm and treatment of her as an equal. Throughout this marriage, she finally gets to experience the love she dreamed about when she was a teenager. Although it wasn’t perfect, this is the most authentic and loving relationship Janie has with a man, where both sides care deeply about one another. After encountering the hurricane, Tea Cake asks her if she regrets marrying him because she wasn’t expecting all the events to come. She replies that she made her life better by saying “You come ‘long and made somethin’ outa me. So Ah’m thankful fuh anything we come through together” (Hurston 167). Janie learns what true love is and gets a sense of self-recognition when she attempts to save herself in court for killing Tea Cake. Janie’s marriages guided her to recognizing herself as a strong and emotionally-powered woman.
The last pages of the novel serve as a full-round conclusion to not only the end of the retelling of Janie’s life to Phoeby, but also to the end of the novel. The imagery of the passage ties back to the setting of the beginning of the story, the readers now knowing the whole backstory of Janie’s life and her growth to the person she has become. The tone of the passage is satisfied, for Janie is happy to be where she’s at in her life. She uses bright imagery of nature, such as the sun, horizon, and pine trees, to emphasize the content tone and current state of happiness. Her story ends in both triumph and despair since she lost Tea Cake, the person who helped her learn real love, but comes to the terms with the person she has become. She reminisces the fond memories she’s had with Tea Cake as she says “He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking…Here was peace” (Hurston 193). In the end, Janie recognizes her own self for once instead of worrying about others and is grateful for the life she has lived.
Janie’s journey — from West Florida, to Eatonville, to the Everglades — represents her increasing discovery of herself and novel’s immersion in black culture and traditions. In West Florida, Janie grew up alongside other white children and didn’t recognize her own race until she saw a photo of her. Janie marries Logan Killicks to fulfill her grandmother’s wishes, and this is where Janie is furthest from her true self, trying to fit into the white mold that Nanny wants her to fit in. Logan even accuses Janie of having a white mindset that makes her too privileged to do work, emphasizing that he could “take [Janie] out de white folks’ kitchen and set you down on yo’ royal diasticutis and you take and low-rate me!” (Hurston 31). When she runs away with Jody Starks to Eatonville, she is immersed into an all-black town for the first time. However, Jody’s ambitious demeanor makes him seem as a wealthy white man trying to control an upclass town full of people desiring to live as white people. Jody and Janie’s glamorous white house even represented one that was similar to a slave owner’s, where it was so big that the “rest of the town looked like servants’ quarters surrounding the ‘big house’” (Hurston 47). Although Janie was immersed in black culture, she lived as a quiet submissive wife of a powerful “white” man that controlled the town. Janie learns the power of her own voice and value, which she carries on into her marriage with Tea Cake. In the Everglades, she experiences authentic black culture while learning to live within a caring and lively community. The migrants she works with are happy to do their work, even if it requires a lot of physical labor and doesn’t pay a lot, because they enjoy being part of a community. Janie joins them in working and feels liberated from the pressure she felt from the people in Eatonville, stating “Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” (Hurston 134). Her authentic self can be seen when she finally utilizes her empowering voice to speak up for herself at the court, where she justifies her killing of Tea Cake by the telling the story of their relationship.
Throughout the novel, Janie makes many biblical references in attempt to interpret the things that are happening around her. The whole novel follows Janie’s journey of chasing her dreams of love, and in that process, she finds her voice and herself. The title of the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, implies that Janie’s voice was found through faith in God. Utilizing biblical allusions throughout the story shows that God was always a part of Janie’s life guiding her down her predestined path of life. This can be seen in the beginning of the story, where Janie’s view of love is symbolized through a pear tree, a paradise that is similar to the Garden of Eden that she tries to achieve in each of her marriages. She also references the bible when she is in the Everglades as Janie describes Mrs. Turner’s colorism as a god-like worship, where “her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars” (Hurston 145). Tying in the story of Moses and the Jews, Janie receives a new perspective on life from her own people and greatly affects her mindset. When Tea Cake saves Janie from the dog in the hurricane, it is a parallel to Noah’s Ark and parting the waters for salvation. The most literal reference to the title is when Janie describes how everyone in the neighborhood turned to God in hopes of salvation from the hurricane after the white people have ignored them, stating “they seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God” (Hurston 160). All of these examples show how Janie turned to God to understand the people and events around her. In a way, the book symbolizes Janie’s own version of the bible, a complete account of her life, filled with times of despair, joy, conflict, rivalry, death, and worship. It is also told from her future point-of-view looking back at her life, just as the apostles who wrote the actual bible.
