BC: Citations!! "Pear Blossoms California." Web. 3 Apr 2010
FC: Motifs By: Katy Downs
1: "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a story about a teenager who learns to become a woman through the hard times with the Jim Crow laws and racism. She also has to deal with how her husband treat her because they control the household.
2: "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches." Hurston 8
3: Hurston uses the pear tree as a metaphor to love. Love blossoms but then sometime it will die. Janie's first marriage resembled a dead stump because it didn't turn out the way she expected it to. in her second marriage, Joe died and Janie was very happy. Neither of her first two husbands treated her well. Her last marriage was with Tea Cake. It was everything she wanted. Until he was bit by a dog with rabies and Janie had to shoot him.
4: "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men." Hurston 1
5: Hurston uses the horizon to symbolize dreams. There is one point in the story where Nanny makes Janie marry Logan and she said she pinched her horizon so she will never dream again. This quote means the for some people their dream will come true but they have to believe in their dreams or they will be forever lost at sea.
6: "This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn't seem sensible at all. That was because Joe never told Janie how jealous he was." Hurston 55
7: Janie's hair represents her independence. When Joe tells her to wrap it up, she does so obediently but he limits her freedom. Wrapping her hair makes her look like a slave. Slaves don't have freedom, there for she doesn't have freedom.