Innocence, childishness, and immaturity are three words that define Janie’s personality and life in the beginning of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Through these characteristics Janie is more easily contrasted with the hardships that she endures. As a child Janie was taught to grow up immediately which created quite a weakness within her, she was no longer a child but a wife within a split second of time. By looking at Hurston’s use of symbolism and figurative language, we can see that Janie finding herself and her voice is a long process this is important because it helps to identify the main themes within the book which are self-awareness and discovery. Growing up for Janie was a physically normal activity, but mentally growing up was a more twisted process. 

Through the figurative language that is used Hurston creates a tone of ignorance throughout the novel, Janie is always representative of a stereotypically woman. This helps to make the descriptive nature of this novel to prevail throughout the earlier chapters when Hurston writes about Janie and her life as a young girl. For example, when Hurston writes about Janie’s duties and activities each day this helps to show her place in society is in the home. She does not make her own decisions in life, she is forced into situations that may not even be what she truly needs. Just after Janie’s childish act of kissing Johnny Taylor in her early teen years Nanny forces her to marry Logan. This represents how Nanny never allowed Janie to be a child or make her own mistakes. 

As stated in chapter two: “…Jane spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard…” (Hurston 10). This specific line uses the word “blossoming” to define two different situations, one being the actual tree growing and the second being Janie growing as a person. Yet, much like trees and their growth Janie was often stunted and her branches were broken by the men in her life. The pear tree represents Janie’s “tree of life” throughout the novel, some may even say that Janie is similar to a tree because as the seasons pass her life stages change. She may blossom in the spring but be shed of herself respect and life in the winter as the men take over. 

The pear tree is also a main symbol of innocence and where scandal took place in Janie’s life. Throughout this paragraph Hurston uses short questions and quick phrases to question and help to explain all the time she spent under that tree and how she pondered there often. Flowers and growth often are equated to virginity and abstinence; this is why being under the tree was scandalous as well. In this paragraph Hurston says “…From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…” (Hurston 10). This figurative language that Hurston uses such as “glistening leaf-buds” creates a picture of a delicate flower in the readers’ mind. This picture allows the reader to truly understand the importance of Janie remaining delicate and innocent because it is a life of less corruption then her later years. In her future she is structured and her innocence is taken by a man for the first time in her life. Logan is a symbol of the demand and judgment that men have in Janie’s life from this point forward. Because of Logan, Janie is unable to be or to even find herself, instead she is a slave to her husband which is a contradiction in-and-of-itself to what Nanny wants for Janie. This is the spark of dependency in Janie’s life.  

Hurston writes of some questions that Janie has while sitting under that pear tree she questions the world by asking “…What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears…” (Hurston 10). These short questions help the reader to also question the same and read into the novel more in depth. This in-depth reading and figurative language helps to express a central theme of feminism and women empowerment as well. This quotation shows the questioning mind that Janie had as a young child and how she was normal and wondered about sex and what it meant. By reading into this quote it is evident that Janie was not given an opportunity to have her questions answered, but rather she was forced into a life where she had to figure things out by herself. The singing that Janie heard was a positive and happy time in her life, a time of discovering boys and how she felt about them. This line filled with questions helps to give Janie a characteristic of normalcy and childishness. This is something that Janie is stripped of throughout this novel. The figurative language aided in showing how Janie may not have had the same experiences as others because she lives in a false fabricated world with false hope. She has false hope when it comes to the singing, her life is not actually “rainbows and daisies”, she lives in the rough. 

Janie was never handed anything in her life, she was forced into situations where she had no say in her future. Hurston uses figurative language to express how Janie’s changes throughout her life affect her in the long run. The figurative language gives readers the tools to create an imagine in their heads of Janie, where she lived and who/ what she was surrounded by. This helps the reader to understand Janie better and why she experiences hardships, which was likely because of the life that she was handed as a young girl. Janie is a symbol for all women in the world she overcame her discrimination and pushed on. Self-discovery is attainable for everyone, even those who are put to the side their whole lives and Janie is written proof. 
