Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God - Admission/Application Essay Example

Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Across the globe, each individual exhibiting interest in love possess a unique perceptive on love. As human beings, we seek to find the factor that would seem to separate us from the assumed mockery and guile associated with animals theoretically unassociated with emotions. Janie Crawford’s expectation of love was defined by what she witnessed as a teenager, which was the act of a dusty bee harvesting nectar from a flower, consequently being able to pollinate the pear blossom.

She viewed this as a natural marriage fuelled by love. She proceeds to try generically to define this action. “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister calyxes arch to meet the love embrace…” (Hurston) This clearly shows what her expectation of what love should be, she relates it with the nature in her surroundings. Part of her expectation of love emanated from her grandmother’s seamless experience of the subject. According to Janie’s grandmother, marriage had the ability to compel love between marriage partners who previously did not love each other.

Her childhood and teenage-hood comes to an abrupt end when Nanny, her grandmother, witnesses Johnny Taylor steal a kiss from her. Her naivety manifests when she seemed taken aback by her inability to show affection to her first husband, Logan Killicks, a farmer much older than she was. “The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear but Janie didn’t know how to tell Nanny that. She merely hunched over and pouted at the floor ” (Hurston). Janie had no choice in the decision to marry Logan, as her grandmother arranged the marriage.

Nanny hoped the arranged marriage safeguarded her granddaughter from harsh conditions, which turned out not to be the case. Janie soon lost interest in her marriage and the sight of Jody Starks, though not the pear blossom and bee she was anticipating, was enough to convince her to move out with him, leaving the pragmatic Logan. To her dismay, Janie ends up in a marriage where she, once again, realizes that her ideas about love were misconstrued. Jody marries her, not because he loves her, but because his ambition and drive makes her an ideal spouse for furthering his intricate prospectus in the political arena.

“Janie pulled back a long time because Joe did not represent the sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for a far horizon. He spoke for change and chance” (Hurston). Discovering her conceited side after breaking off from Joe’s never ending ridicule while on his deathbed, Janie also detaches from her once naïve self on the love subject. She stops the almost fantasy belief of the pear-blossom and bee type of love. This is exacerbated by the death of the mayor, her husband who was previously in a frail condition, which allowed her to muster courage enough to tell him (Joe) off.

Finding love in an unlikely and younger character in Tea Cake shows the less fantasized and mature definition of love. A storm and a canine mishap causes the demise of Janie’s third husband, Tea Cake. From Nanny’s, to Logan’s, to Stark’s, and finally to Tea Cake’s home in the everglades, Janie’s relationships more or less represent her unique definition of love. This can vaguely be translated as something that only nature can facilitate if it has to be experienced. Nothing forced or voluntary, but written in the leaves of the tree that represents life.

Work Cited Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1937. Print.