"She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her" (11)."Oh to be a pear tree--any tree in bloom! . . . Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made" (11).
A noted intellectual, anthropologist, and writer whose career began during the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in only seven weeks while in Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship. The novel, filled African American folklore, dialect, and poetry, tells the story of a young African American woman's quest for self. In the lines quoted above, Hurston uses the pear tree as a metaphor for the life her protagonist seeks. What is it that Janie sees as she lays under the pear tree? What is the voice that she hears? What connection do you see between Janie and the pear tree? What passages can you identify that reflect this metaphor?
As Janie lies underneath the pear tree, she marvels at the blossoming bud, which she has watched for the last three years. She sees a bee pollinating the bloom. “The thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation” (24). The voice that she hears is Johnny Taylor’s voice, a boy from the same town who kisses Janie while Nanny watches. The connection between Janie and the pear tree is that Janie is searching for the wholesome connection that the bee has with the pear tree. The connection or marriage is so natural and beautiful that Janie wants to find it in her own life. The narrator explains, “Oh to be a pear tree-any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her…She searched as much of the world as she could from the top of the front steps…Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made” (25). It is also shown by the way that she wants to wait for the love to begin in her first marriage. She yearns to find the connection and harmony that she observes as a young girl of the pear tree and the bee.
ReplyDeleteAs Janie lies under the pear tree she sees the blossoming of a tiny flower. The voice she hears is nature attempting to form a connection with Janie, as this flower symbolizes “the rose of the world breathing out smell” (10). Janie and the pear tree are both blossoming and growing in nature. Nature is the only perfect, pristine aspect of Janie’s life and so she is drawn to its comforts and pleasures. When the bees interact with the flowers a moment of perfection and harmony is seen. Janie desires to acquire this same perfection in her life and throughout the novel she struggles to reach this euphoria. “She had been summoned to behold a revelation” (11). Her marriage to Jody limits her natural tendencies, such as speaking her mind and standing up for herself. She is forced to hide the natural beauty of her hair by tying it up. When Jody dies, Janie is finally able to embrace freedom and live without hiding her true natural abilities.
ReplyDeleteJanie was laying under the pear tree as a way to get in touch with herself, and to get away from everything that was taking place in her life at the time. Every day she goes out to watch how the tree is growing, and she can relate to that. The voice that she hears under the tree is "the rose of the world" (10). It is talking to her, letting Janie get intouch with her inner self. Janie notices the relaxed and flawless nature of the tree and the bees, and how easy everything is. She wants to see herself experience this ease. When she was younger she didn't even know that she was black until she was six years old. And at that time of her life everything was perfect, but after she was shown the photo her life started to change. "Dat's where Ah waz s'posed to be, but Ah couldn't recognize dat dark chile as me" (9). She is struggling to become in touch with her true self, which is being smothered by the community that she lives in.
ReplyDeleteWhen Janie lies under the pear tree, she watches the beautiful simplicity of nature. She sees how a bee pollinates the pear tree, and how the two perfectly work together and both get something out of the situation. Janie remarks that this is what love is, as it should be perfect harmony between two people. The voice she hears when under the pear tree could literally be the boy she later kisses but is implied to be the voice of nature which brings harmony within her and makes her realize what love really is about. Janie identifies with the pear tree because she sees herself in the pear tree. The novel then becomes about Janie trying to find the bee to pollinate her so that she can find that perfect connection with someone. Every time an event occurs in Janie’s life that has to do with intense emotion, the image of the pear tree and references to ‘blooming’ are brought up. The first reference occurs when she is young and lies under the pear tree, where she describes it as “It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom” (10). The pear tree therefore relates to her sexuality and love. Then, when Nanny dies, her emotions are brought up again, and we again see her connection with nature, where she says “the words of trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, ‘Ah hope you fall on soft ground,’ because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed” (25).
ReplyDeleteWhen Janie first meets Joe Starks, she is not completely sure of his intentions or how she feels about him, because “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon” (29). This shows that she sees a possibility of love in Joe. Contrasting with this, when Janie realizes her relationship with Joe will not work after he hits her, Hurston writes that “She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be” (72). Finally, Tea Cake is described with much optimism, as “He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring” (106). These passages show that Janie is constantly looking for love and that it influences all her decisions and actions. She wants to be one with nature and be like the pear tree finding the perfect relationship with a ‘bee’.
The passage about Janie under the pear tree is, obviously, very sexually charged. Janie listens to the "alto chant of the visiting bees... and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her." (Hurston 11) This voice belongs to Janie and it expresses not only her sexuality but her desire to be an empowered woman. This voice, however, is constantly silenced throughout this novel by Janie's dependence on men, such as Logan Killicks and Jody. Later on in the novel, the narrator points out that "no matter what Jody did, [Janie] said nothing" (Hurston 76). Under the pear tree, Janie marvels at how both the masculine bee and the feminine tree share equal pleasure in their "love embrace" (Hurston 11). Janie strives for this equal relationship with a man. Though her first two marriages prove to be failures, Tea Cake seems to come the closest to sharing a mutual respect with Janie.
ReplyDeleteI think what Janie sees is a natural connection between the bees and flowers, and she decides to use it as a model for what she wants in life. The voice and the “singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears” (10) are her coming of age and her recognition of the many little unions or “marriages” in nature. While she was sixteen, the garden field and the pear tree opened her eyes to the possibility that there was something out there with which she could unite and marry and be, completely naturally. It is this nature about the pear tree that connects her to it. Janie doesn’t want to be alone, and even more so she wants to be a part of a bond that is true and feels natural. Later in the book, we can see what it is about her situation with Joe Starks that makes Janie feel like something is missing: “…‘Jody, it jus’ looks lak it keeps us in some way we ain’t natural wid one ‘nother. You’se always off talkin’ and fixin’ things, and Ah feels lak Ah’m jus’ markin’ time.’… A feeling of coldness and fear took over her. She felt far away from things and lonely” (46). Like Hayley said above, Tea Cake is the man who seems most similar to what she wants so far in the novel.
ReplyDeleteWhen Janie is lying under the pear tree she sees bees pollinating flowers and she thinks about love and marriage. She is sixteen years old and is finally becoming a woman; she is hoping to find love, which she confuses with marriage. The voice she hears comes from one of the buds on the tree; it is showing her what it is like to blossom. The tree is a metaphor for Janie’s life; at sixteen she is eager, hopeful, young and full of life. As the tree goes through different seasons it loses its leaves and shuts down, this mirrors much of Janie’s married life. This is reflected when Janie says, “she waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things” (25). This quote shows that she is unhappy in her marriage with Mr. Killicks and is waiting for her tree to blossom again. This is when she meets Joe Sparks and he brings her to life again, only to go through the same cycle. At times she mentions how her feelings change for him. When he insults her in front of a crowd she says, “It must have been the way Joe spoke without giving her a chance to say anything one way or the another that took the bloom off of things” (43). Clearly Janie’s marriage to Joe that started out in the spring with so much vibrancy is now dying out. The end of her love for Joe comes when she says “she had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be” (72). Unlike when she is sixteen, Janie is older and she sees that marriage doesn’t always mean love, and she has found that love can die. Finally when she meets Tea Cake there is hope that her tree will blossom and flower again. Even though she is harder to open up this time, when she does she says, “He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps” (106). I think that the pear tree is a metaphor for Janie’s life, in particular her love life. She seems to go in cycles between happiness and unhappiness and finally after being subdued by Joe she takes longer to blossom. Hopefully Tea Cake can finally show her the pear tree love that she has been search for all these years.
ReplyDeleteAs Janie is lying under the pear tree she notices a bee pollinating the pear tree. It is at this moment when she is amazed at the perfect relationship that the tree and bee share. She sees it as a perfect marriage. The voice that Janie hears is coming from the blossoms on the tree. “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bee’s, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her.” (11) Janie’s relationships are connected with the pear tree because when she was sixteen fantasizing under the pear tree she dreamed about this perfect marriage that she saw between the bee’s and the flowers. She then has these unhappy marriages, where she does not feel she is receiving the respect that she deserves and therefore it is not a perfect marriage. When Janie thought , “so this was a marriage” (11), she was telling us that marriage should be perfect and since her future marriages were not she was not happy.
ReplyDeleteWhat Janie sees with her eyes, is the process of pollenation. Yet, she appears to apply a deeper meaning to this sight than merely recognising it as a process of nature. The pear tree is reflective of Janie's naive view of the world. Through the bees she recognises a unified reproductive exchange that borders on sexual. Thus the tree to the reader becomes a metaphor for Janie and her desire to seek out such a perfect, fruitful union for herself.
ReplyDeleteThe voice she hears emerges from the tree itself and it is unclear from the narrative exactly what this voice is. It may, as speculated by many others on this blog, a voice that has emerged from within Janie herself, showing us her deepest ambitions and desires.
Nature is used as a metaphor for burgeoning sexual desire throughout the rest of the novel. For example, on page 11 we are told - 'She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.'
Throughout the novel Janie identifies the pear tree with love and marriage. In her first encounter with the pear tree, she observes a bee fertilizing a flower which prompts her to associate the pear tree with human sexuality. She believes that the voice of nature is trying to tell her about love and sexuality through showing her this very natural and beautiful act. She now views marriage like the relationship between the bee and the tree. This revelation causes Janie to crave a similar experience as the pear tree, and therefore, she allows Johnny Taylor to kiss her. Her connection between marriage and the pear tree can also be seen later on in the novel when she argues with Granny over marriage. Granny believe that a women should marry for practical reasons while Janie “wants things sweet wid [her] marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think” (Chapter 3, pg. 23). This metaphor is used again when Janie is deciding whether or not to be with Jody. Although “he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees” (Chapter 4, pg. 28), he did represent a change in which she craved. Therefore, the metaphor of nature and the pear tree to symbolize the ideal love and marriage is used consistently throughout the novel.
ReplyDeleteNote: I have a different version of the text so my pages may not be correct.
The passage about Janie lying under the pear tree denotes Janie's maturation from girl to woman, both emotionally and physically. Like the pear tree, Janie is "blossoming" into womanhood. The passage is full of romantic and sexual language, particularly in discussing the "kissing bees". Janie envies these creatures, for these bees appear to have a perfect, harmonious love for each other. At 16, Janie is still a strong believer in the notion of true love, and only in discovering her true love can she be satisfied with her life. Many allusions to the tree's blossoming, such as "snowy virginity of bloom", contain strong sexual undertones. Janie has literally bloomed into a sexual being, and desires to explore her sexuality. Janie's relationship with Johnny Taylor proves her to be a girl looking for both love and a sexual relationship, and not understanding the difference between the two.
ReplyDeleteWhile Janie lies underneath the pear tree she sees bees polinating the blossoms of a tree."The thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!" This quote, which Anna also used, is symbolic of the way Janie views love and marriage. The happiness and delight that the bees receive from the nector is the same delight that Janie wants to experience in her life. The voices and sounds Janie hears are from the bees and the wind. However, these "voices" are not singing for Janie, for she has yet to receive that happiness that is present on this sunny day. Janie believes that the only way she will achieve this ecstacy is by leaving the confines of her home and finding a man she can love and marry. Therefore, the pear tree and the bees represent a world of maturity, love and relationships which is what Janie wants to experience now that she has "glossy leavs and bursting buds." She is ready to be freed from the confines of her home with her grandmother, and be thrown into a world where she can make her own decisions and find the love that she sees within the pear tree.
ReplyDeleteWhile Janie is lying under the tree she sees a blossoming flower with a bee pollinating it. This represents the maturation of Janie and her ideal of love in the world. This view of the flower shows the ideal of what many want to find in love, and that is something perfect that comes naturally and does not have to be worked for. Something as natural as a flower and a bee is not as easy as love however, and this is seen when Janie's Grandmother threatens her when she is caught kissing Johnny Taylor. When Nanny tells her who she will have to marry, Janie's view of the flower deteriorates into a pile of manure that had been rained upon. This flower therefore represents what Janie wants to find in love, and may spend her whole life searching for it. This also shows that Janie does not like all of the rules that Nanny has placed on her. Since Janie is now 16 years old, she feels that she is able to leave the confines of the world that she has known for so long. She wants to be her own woman, and succeed in her life just as her Grandmother had done in her life.
ReplyDeleteWhile lying under the pear tree Janie observes the beauty of Nature and its organisms’ dependence upon one another, such as in the case of the bees and the flowers. Janie hears a “voice” calling to her, and “kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world” (Hurston, 11). The voice is nature calling to her to embrace adulthood, womanhood, and the new phase of her life that is about to begin because Janie is at the age where she can begin to consider marriage. Janie is like the pear tree in that she needs the equal support and dependence of a partner in order to grow and blossom into the woman that she wants to be, as the tree needs the bee in order to produce flowers. Janie does not want to continue to be lonely, and that’s why she is involved in relationships that she believes will yield the sort of connection that she is searching for. When she begins to feel that her marriage to Logan must come to an end because of his inability to fully love her in the manner she desires, she says “From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (Hurston, 32), returning to the idea of the metaphor and Janie’s inherent need for a mutual respect and love for someone else.
ReplyDeleteJanie sees a bud blossoming above her as she lies beneath the pear tree. Her description of the “love embrace” and the “ecstatic shiver” of the tree recall a reciprocal romance. Janie fantasizes that she will find love much in the same way. She hopes her perfect match is as naturally compatible as the bee and the bud. As Janie kindles this daydream, she is reminded of a boy she kissed, Johnny Taylor, the voice of whom she hears in her head.
ReplyDeleteJanie wants her life to be complete. She wants to have the stability that comes from predictability. The juxtaposition of the bee and the bud images are personifications of male and female. The wording of the passage describing the planting of the pollen carries sexual undertones, a metaphor which accurately parallels Janine’s tentative transition to adulthood. She is unsure of herself and is establishing preconceptions of love’s infallible role in a relationship, especially a marriage.
The pear tree and the beautiful imagery that Hurston paints for us gives us the feeling of freedom and opportunity that Janie is entitled to as being part of nature. Her recognition of marriage (11) comes from those surroundings, and she wants to see something just as beautiful in her life.
ReplyDeleteNotably, the beginning of chapter 2 begins with the passage: "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the thing suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches" (8). Although not explicitly a pear tree, the element of nature in connection to Janie's life is important here. If we see Janie's opportunities as a multitude of branches all rooted in her person as the oak of the tree, perhaps she is looking at the pear tree in contrast to her own being. "Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom" (11) perhaps expresses her own willingness to be radiant like nature and be what she wants to be.
As Janie lies underneath the pear tree she sees how the bees pollinate the the "snowy virginity of bloom" (10-11). She sees how the blossoms and leaf buds extend from the "barren brown stems." She is like the tree. She was barren and brown but now at sixteen, "she had glossy leaves and bursting buds" (11). Underneath the pear tree she understands that real marriage is based on true love. This is why she can leave Logan without any guilt (32). She justifies leaving him because she thinks she loves Joe, "Form now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom" (32). Partly her definition of true love is sexually motivated as her repulsion of Logan attests to. However in love she expects to be sought after always like the bee seeks after the blossom. This is why her relationship with Logan and Jack fail to amount to her definition of true love (26, 46, 60).
ReplyDeleteThe voice that she hears underneath the tree is the combined sound of the "chant of the visiting bees" or the buzz of the bees, and the sound of the wind in the trees (11). The voice she hears and looks for confirmation of is like the cooing of a lover or the affirmation of admiration that she seeks in her relationships (11).
I agree with what Joe said about how Janie wants the perfect and harmonious love the bees and the pear tree has, in her own relationships. That's why she is so upset with her relationship with Jody and also Logan. I also agree with Chris' argument that Janie wants to be her own woman. That's also why she's so upset with Jody. As she says to him right before he died, "You'se whut's left after he died. Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way. But you wasn't satisfied wid me de way Ah was. Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out to make room for yours in me" (86). He wasn't the bee she wanted him to be. They did not have a reciprocal love. That's why she falls in love with Tea Cake. He allowed her to be her, acknowledges her ability to run a store but still offers her assistance, lets her play checkers, and appreciates her for her beauty and freedom (96, 103). Because he does not demand of her like her husbands did but does things for her out of seeking her love and approval, like bringing her strawberries, she loves him (107). She also desires to give back to him, like fixing him breakfast, for this reason (107). She sees that he could be her bee (106). He does not possess her but adores her.
ReplyDeleteAs Janie lays underneath of the pear tree, she sees the tree as a representation of her self. Blooming, and full of life, the tree symbolizes Janie as she begins to find herself. The repeated references to the bees and pollinatin reflects Janie's recognition of herself as a sexual being. Under the pear tree she realizes her attraction to the opposite sex, "Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes" (p.12). Every branch on the tree represents to Janie a different opportunity to her; the opportunity to love, to be loved, to follow her dreams. Also, like her Granny had said, Janey has no roots, she has no parents and no siblings; thus, the tree gives to Janie a sense of stability and attatchment that she does not have in her life right then.
ReplyDeleteThe voice that she hears comes from her inner self. While on the outside, she is constrained by her skin color, social status, and gender, her inner self has the ability to transcend all of these barriers. Much as the pear tree represents the possibilities of Janey's life, the voice she hears while lying underneath it are her hopes and dreams that she is able to recognize when she can free herself from the constrains that society imposes on to her due to her external being.
I agree Maria’s idea that her vision of the pear tree and the bee is one vibrant with her sexuality. She sees the harmony that exists with the mutual interaction of the blossom and the bee and wishes that she could find love in her life with this same mutual existence, where she would be able to benefit as much as her partner. I did not think that the voice she heard could be the voice of nature before looking at Maria’s idea; however, now it makes sense. At first I just believed it was the boy who lived in the same town as her whom she kisses, but I can see how it is implied that it is the voice of nature which makes Janie find the harmony within herself and makes her realize the love in which she idolizes. The pear tree definitely becomes a symbol of her sexuality and love throughout the rest of the novel as she attempts to find the bee to pollinate her blossom, or the same connection and harmony that the bee and the blossom had when she was a young girl. When she sees the possibility of love with Joe, she “pulled back a long time because he did not represent sunup and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon.” However, after he hits her twice, she finally decides that this relationship will undoubtedly not work out. I had not thought before Maria’s post of the almost explicit contradiction of how the illusion of the pear tree is described in relation to her love with Tea Cake. He becomes the only man that she truly loves because he treats her with respect, waits on her, takes her fishing, and actually wants to be with her for the person that she is. Her other relationships had wounded her, especially her relationship with Joe. He insulted her beauty to make him feel better about himself. This makes Janie unwilling to let Tea Cake into her life at first, but then she realizes that he is unlike the other men that she has had in her life. The quote of “He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring” shows that Tea Cake has a real impression on Janie’s life and makes her hopeful that she too will find the love and harmony that she observed between the pear tree and the bee as a young adolescent.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anna in that Janie is looking for the same harmony in a relationship that she observes the bee and pear tree have. However, I do think that this harmony also includes the sexual aspect of love; this scene is rather graphic and very sexually charged. Janie wants a relationship that she takes just as much pleasure in as her partner. This equality then filters through to the other aspects of a relationship. Janie does not want to be merely a possession whose only use is to please her husband.
ReplyDeleteWhen Janie is sitting under the pear tree she sees a bee land on one of its blossoms. This is symbolic of a reciprocal moment of love although the bee seems to be the male or the agressor, which is another important subject in this book. The pear tree is comparable to Janie's sexuality and emotion as it is a symbol that Hurst continues to reference throughout the book. I agree with Maria when she said that the two work perfectly together and both get something out of the situation. "This is marriage!" Janie exclaims. While Hurst has made the reader understand than women and men in this novel are not usually seen as equals, Janie dreams of a marriage or relationship where she is equal to her husband, where they can do things together and each benefit from the other. Her marriage to Tea Cake mirrors this want as he asks her to play checkers, fish, and even work beside her even though she has money left over from Joe.
ReplyDeleteI think that Chris’s comment about Janie wanting to be her own woman and wanting to be successful is important, especially having read the second part of the book. In the first part of the novel her first two marriages dominate her life and don’t allow her to be the woman she wants. She is defined by her husbands who push her around and make her what they want. All the while she is realizing that this isn’t what she wants, but she still doesn’t act to change it. Only with Tea Cake do we start to see the real Janie. Here, like Chris says, she can be the woman she wants to be. She doesn’t wear pretty dresses, she works in the fields, and when she cooks it’s because she loves Tea Cake, and not because she’s forced too. The only thing I would disagree with is that I don’t think Janie was trying to be successful, at least not in the words usual meaning. I think that Janie’s dream has always been to find love and feel at home, with Tea Cake she finally realizes her sixteen year old dreams about romance and love and she is part of community. Janie is nothing like her grandmother in the sense that for her love is more important than practicality in a marriage, and by finally breaking away from her grandmothers views of a happy life she actually finds the life she has always wanted.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Elizabeth’s comments on how the tree symbolizes Janie. Now that she has turned sixteen she is embracing her sexuality and blossoming into a women just like the pear tree is beginning to bloom. This scene has sexual instigations as Janie realizes that there is no sexual attraction between her and Logan, which is something that must be fulfilled in marriage. It was interesting when Elizabeth said that Janie desires to be chased after like a bee chases a flower, desiring to receive nourishment from it. Elizabeth is right when she states that because Janie aspires to be chased after both marriages fail because neither husband constantly pursues her. The voice, in my opinion, is nature calling her to embrace the freedom bestowed upon her at birth.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah’s comments about how Janie confuses love with marriage. Through this, Hurston is making an important differentiation between love and marriage. When Janie is young, she is naïve, and after she marries Logan she says that “Yes, she would love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so”. Although Janie has some doubts about loving Logan, she is young and dependent and therefore believes what she has been told by Nanny. Later, she learns that marriage does not mean love and that love is not something she can necessarily find easily. To Nanny, marriage is what matters as this comes with economic and physical protection and stability, which she finds is most important for a girl to get out of life. Janie, however, does not value this stability and instead wants to look for love.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that Janie continuously tries to be her own woman and that she is not able to do this until her marriage with Tea Cake. Because this novel is a Bildungsroman, it is about the development of the main character Janie. Even before her marriage with tea cake, I saw a change in Janie from being completely dependent on Nanny and believing everything she said, to making some of her own decisions. She decides to leave Logan to marry Joe. When Joe dies, and Pheoby says that people think Janie is not mourning for long enough, Janie responds with “Let ‘em say whut dey wants tuh, Pheoby. To my thinkin’ mourning oughtn’t tuh last no longer’n grief” (93). Janie’s marriages become part of a journey that facilitates her change to becoming an independent woman and finding love. When she is married to Tea Cake, she can finally do what she always wanted, despite what is expected from her by society because she is a woman.
I agree with Ryan Goss in that Janie is definitely unsure of who she is in the beginning of the novel. In addition to her inability to recognize herself as black, she goes by many names which makes it hard for her to develop a sense of self. This disconnect from self is strengthened through her marriage with Joe. Even when she is now willing and able to make her own opinion and decisions on issues, she is not allowed to voice her opinion nor act on her decisions. Joe feels that it is a man’s responsibility “to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows" (Chapter 6, pg. 67). He also forces Janie to tie her hair back which further symbolizing his control over Janie and her inability to be who she really is. However, when Janie is finally able to stand up to Joe in front of the other men on the porch, she gains back some sense of self. Her transformation towards gaining a hold of her true identity is advanced further after Joe’s death when Janie is finally able to untie her hair. This is a pivotal turning point in the novel for Janie.
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ReplyDeleteI like Ryan's point about Janie finding her true identity and figuring out who she is. Earlier in the novel it certainly seemed that she didn't make very many choices for herself. However, this is a Bildungsroman, and it's enjoyable to watch the growth of her character as she gradually stops taking orders from Killicks and Starks (and his town) and starts to assert herself more. In her past relationships she was another mule of Killick's, or a bell-cow for Starks, but with Tea Cake I think she was finally Janie Woods. Her advice to Pheoby at the end of the book reinforces this point: "Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." (192)
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Whitney says, specifically when she mentions the "reciprocal love" shared by the bees. For a love to be reciprocal, that implies that each person in the relationship feels the same type of love for each other. Janie struggles to discover this reciprocal love within her relationships. Her first marriage, with Mr. Killicks, certainly lacks the presence of reciprocal love. Killicks, as an old farmer, loves Janie more as a workhorse then an actual person. When Janie runs off with Joe, she believes that she has found a harminous relationship like the bees shared.Janie soon discovers that Joe is more into himself then he is to Janie.
ReplyDeleteJanie finally discovers true, mutual love when she meets Tea Cake. He treats Janie as an equal, even offering to teach her checkers. With Tea Cake, Janie finally feels freedom, and can finally relate to the bees under that pear tree.
I agree very much with Sarah's comment that the tree represents Janie's life. In the beginning of the story when at sixteen she is day dreaming underneath the tree, she becomes aware of the bee's pollinating the tree, leading to new and continued life. Much as she comes to awareness of the role of reproduction, "love," for the tree, she becomes awakened to her sexual being and romantic desires as well. Furthermore, the different branches of the tree represent the different developments in life that Janie experiences. While at first she was young, newly blooming, and full of life like the young tree, she becomes weathered by the elements and hardens into a stoic character. While her first two marriages represent hard seasons for Janie's tree of life, such as a drought or a long winter, Tea Cakes represents a new awakening, a new spring season for her tree, where she can once again grow to her fullest potential. The tree is a symbolic presence that can be related back to Janie throughout the novel.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Alex’s comment I feel like there are some good points that I had not thought about. First is the notion of the voice and her coming of age. Janie is realizing that there will be a natural relationship that she will find, and like Alex said, it is her problem when she marries Joe Starks. The marriage never really has that natural chemistry and she waits as long as she can for something to click and ignite a fire between them. When she meets Tea Cake she seems have found that natural bond that she saw in the pear tree. I also feel as if it is what she saw in the pear tree that keeps her striving for something more. I am sure there were women in this novel who stuck their hard marriages out to the end, but Janie doesn’t because she has seen this perfect marriage already and desires to have this perfect marriage that she see’s.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brittany’s comparison of the pear tree to Janie’s future. Using the branches to signify opportunities and the roots to represent stability, Hurston develops Janie’s relationship with nature. The tree represents Janie’s aspirations. She wants to have opportunities and stability. As Brittany mentions, she desires attachment and as a result wants to feel needed. Janie’s fixation with the functioning of nature and her need to apply it to her own existence could speak to the faith that she puts in fate to steer her on the right path. Instead of concentrating on how badly her life is going at any certain moment, Janie appears to stay hopeful marriages in her future will be as dependable as the processes of nature. Her relationship with Tea Cake gives her the reciprocity that she craves. Tea Cake acts as Janie's “pear tree,” in a way, reliably providing her with stability, opportunity, and mutual respect.
ReplyDeleteI think Sarah's observation in her first post about the cyclical nature of Janie's development is an important one. Like the flowers that bloom in spring after being dead/dormant throughout the winter, Janie's personal journey is shaped by a a cycle. In one sense, she returns back to Eatonville at the end of her journey. In another sense, she found her voice, literally as she tells her story, but returns at the end of the novel to reflect on her love of Tea Cake, the person who loved her as she first dreamed of being loved under the pear tree. There is a tension though, between the first sexual images that Hurston creates and the ultimate sense of self that Janie finds. She has to kill Tea Cake in defense, destroying the love that she has always desired. Yet, the act of destruction to save herself demonstrates an ultimate act of self actualization, survival. In I way Janie found what she wanted, an equal, loving relationship with Tea Cake, and what she needed, to be her own woman, both in the relationship and without him.
ReplyDeleteAs Janie lies under the pear tree, she sees what she believes to be a metaphor for the perfect marriage, “…the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!” (10-11) This is the point at which Janie is recognizing what she wants from life and love. This perfect harmony of the bee and the tree in bloom represents her emotional, spiritual, and sexual desires—she knows what it is that she wants from a marriage and she longs to achieve it.
ReplyDelete“This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears” (10). This voice or singing is the beauty and perfection of nature showing itself to her, and is represented by the pear tree in bloom. In her mind she knows what the tree or nature is trying to tell her, and this is how she hears without her ears. Beauty, naturalness, and enlightenment are not things you experience with one sense alone, but through all of them together, and this is what Janie is feeling when she lies under that pear tree.
In response to Micala's comment I agree that nature was the one pristine aspect of Janie's life, and I think that's an interesting connection to make, and one that I hadn't considered before. However, when one considers Janie's failed marriages and everything that's gone wrong for her in the material world, it makes sense that she would turn to the natural world for solace and comfort. Janie's whole life has been controlled by other people, and it's interesting for her to observe the natural course of things, with no input from civilization. Also, as David said, Janie wants the harmony and beauty of nature to be mirrored in her own life. Her likening of the pollination process to the idea of marriage, the give and take mentality, display this.
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