Symbols are just a deeper meaning in the story Their Eyes Were Watching God. In Their Eyes Were Watching God there area many symbols that serve a greater purpose and help when trying to understand the greater meaning in the book. In this story there are many symbols such as Janie’s hair, the Hurricane, the Pear Tree and the Horizon, Silence, and Race. Although these are all important to the book, there are ones that have more meaning and stronger purpose in the story than others.
The most important symbol in the story is Janie’s hair. Her hair is the biggest symbol in the story. Janie’s hair represents her identity as a person and her strength and power, and also her individuality. Her hair represents her as a person and her individuality because as everyone say that she shouldn’t be wearing her hair down at her age, she continues to flaunt her hair. At one point this also represents her beauty because Jody tells her to wear her hair up because he knows that her hair is attractive and draws a lot of men to her. Her hair also represents the power that she holds over people, such as Jody. Her hair is very powerful because Jody feels threatened by her hair and her beauty.
The next most important symbol in the book would be the Pear Tree and the Horizon, because Janie views this as the perfect moment in nature. The horizon I think represents the future and what she wants it to look like. She is striving for that beautiful and perfect horizon. This is the perfect moment because it shows the bliss and interaction between the bees and the Pear Tree flowers. She looks at this as the beauty of life and strives for this beauty in her own life also. These bees and their interaction with the flowers on the pear tree kind of represent her in a way and how energetic and happy they are as they go about their business. After this Janie chases this idea of perfect harmony and happiness.
The third most important symbol in this story I believe is the Hurricane at the end of the story. I believe this represents the end to the beauty of nature that Janie strived for so much. I think it represents how crazy and evil the world can be sometimes. The hurricane destructs everything in its path and tears it down completely. Everything Janie has built up in this life is suddenly destroyed by one natural disaster. The hurricane also makes the characters wonder if this is really where they are suppose to be.
The next most important symbol in this story is race and age. I think that race is a huge contributor to this story because race plays a huge part in the meaning of the story. Race in this story determines where you stand in life, but also changes throughout the story. In the beginning of the story race represents everything you are and all that you ever will be. In the end of the story race begins to represent less than that. It begins to be something that is less important. Race also plays a huge role in Janie’s life because in the beginning it was a bigger thing to her and towards the end when she begins to like Tea Cake and eventually marries him she realizes that the skin color doesn’t matter. I think that race in this story represents self-confidence. I believe this because even though Janie is only half white she has the confidence of a completely white person. This carries her farther in life because no one questions her to her face or says anything about her to her face because she comes off as very confident and doesn’t care what other people think.
The last symbol that I think is important is silence. The importance of this symbol changes throughout the story. In the beginning Janie is silent because she doesn’t know how to speak her mind. It represents her insecurities and how she just doesn’t care. This however changes towards the end of the story. At the end Janie choses to be silent because she just got beat by Tea Cake, but she remains silent because she knows that she is strong enough to handle it and that if she speaks up it could make it worse. She knows that speaking up could cause the end of her relationship, her only relationship where she has ever been truly in love.
Overall these symbols mostly help you understand the underlying meaning in the story. Without these symbols and being able to analyze them the story would not mean what it does. These symbols are also important to the development of the story and being able to recognize the changes in the character because of theses symbols.
Written By: Samantha Willman
