Essay on Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God -- Their Eyes Were Wa

Positive Imagery in Their look Were watching God In Zora Neale Hurstons novel, Their eye Were ceremonial occasion God, the life of Janie is presented as a journey. Janie survives a grandmother, one-third husbands, and innumerable friends. Throughout this journey, she moves towards her ideals about love and how to live ones life. Hurston chooses to define Janie non by what is wrong in her life, but by what is good in it. Janie undergoes many changes throughout her journey, but the imagery in her life perpetually conjures positive ideas in the mind of the reader. Janies life begins under the watchful warmness of her grandmother. Her grandmother has given up her own happiness to raise Janie and her mother. pay off away, it is obvious that Janies life is going to be polar than her grandmothers. For starters, Janie has very different ideas about love than any other character. She may not be able to clearly define her musical themes, but the reader still sees that Janies ideas are romantic and full of sensuality. The first glimpse into the past that the reader sees involves Janie underneath a pear tree, watching the flowers bloom. The descriptive language (From barren dark-brown stems to glistening leaf-buds from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom 10) beauti amply juxtaposed with complex thought (The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It . . . followed her. . . and caressed her . . . 10) lets the reader experience the corresponding feelings that Janie does, even though she is not yet old enough to fully describe them herself. Janies grandmother is old and weak. She never had a person in her life who cared for her and truly wanted to look out for her well-being. As a result, she is frightened by Janies refusal to follow the mold, ... ...tell it again. She doesnt need to. Janie has lived her life and survived her journey. Zora Neale Hurston closes off Their Eyes Were Watching God with one final, poignant image Janie calling in her unde rstanding to come and see 184 the splendor of her life. Works Cited and Consulted Bourn, Byron D. Womens government agencys in Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God and James Baldwins Go Tell It On the Mountain Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York Harper & Row, 1937. Johnson, Barbara. Metaphor, Metonymy and Voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Modern Critical Interpretations Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Lubitschek, Cyrena N. The Role of Imagery in Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. American Literature 58.2 (May 1996) 181-202.