
Through the use of literary devices used by Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God, readers are able to better understand the context of the time period and the way that her characters act throughout the novel. The literary devices she uses also help to characterize and show the personality of each character early on in the text so that readers have an image in their mind of exactly what each character is like. By looking at Hurston’s use of these devices: repetition, sentence structure, imagery, and metaphors, we see that Hurston is painting an image of how the world appears to young people who tend to see things in a completely different way than adults do. This is significant because understanding more about how young people view things helps to justify the thoughts and actions of Janie throughout the entire story.

In this passage, Hurston repeatedly describes the curiosity of Janie as she is “seeking confirmation of voice and vision” (Hurston 11) and once she “found and acknowledged answers” (Hurston 11). The repetitive mentioning of Janie’s search for answers and confirmation emphasizes the importance of her quest as well as the curiosity children often possess that leads them to searching endlessly for answers to their questions. This enormous amount of curiosity is further emphasized through the repetition of the question “Where?” and the word “waiting” which gives readers a sense of the impatience of Janie. These two phrases alone significantly help readers to understand that Janie is not just curious, but also has that sense of impatience- always waiting and wishing for something. With no time to waste, she wants to find answers, and she wants to find them right away. Janie’s curiosity and impatience lead to her leaving behind the life she knew so well without looking back over her shoulder, all so she can travel with a stranger in hopes of starting a more successful and exciting life in a new place. Without the repetitive mentions of Janie’s quest for answer or the questions she continued to ask, readers would not be able to grasp just how anxious she was as a young girl or how badly she craved answers immediately.

The short sentence structure used to express Janie’s thoughts intensifies the effect that her “Why?” and “Where?” questions have and the fact that she wants to know precisely how things will work out down to every last detail. Her unanswered questions of “Where? When? How?” (Hurston 11) once again highlight the curious nature of Janie as a young girl and show the readers how desperately she longs to find the answers to every single question she can think of. By writing the questions in this way, one right after another, Hurston is able to stress their meaning to readers. There are no other thoughts put in the same sentences as the questions and this short sentence structure shows readers that Janie wants to get straight to the point and find answers to suppress her curiousness. They show readers that young people think of one thing at a time instead of keeping the bigger picture in mind, and that when they want something, they want it given to them right away.  As Janie grows older, she doesn’t outgrow this feeling of curiosity that is shown through all of her questioning. Instead, this trait sticks with her and she is constantly questioning the motives and behaviors of her grandmother, her husbands, and others around her.

By using imagery in this passage of the novel, Hurston is able to help readers clearly envision just how the world appeared to Janie on that particular day. While Janie is inside of her house, the flies are mention as “tumbling and singing, marrying, and giving in marriage” (Hurston 11) as Janie walks inside her grandmother’s room to see that she is sick. Janie searching “as much of the world as she could from the top of the front steps and then went on down to the front gate and leaned over to gaze up and down the road” (Hurston 11) paints a picture of how to Janie, this one yard was her world. It was all she had ever known, and she had been confined to it instead of being able to be free to travel wherever she pleased. She stood at the edge of this yard, still searching and waiting for something. As a young girl, it seemed so vast to her although she grew up to realize how much she had been missing and how many new places there were to see in the world. As she grew older, it excited her to be able to travel to new places and create a fresh start for herself instead of being forced to stay in the one place that was familiar to her. The imagery describing Janie’s house and yard gives readers a sense of the place that Janie grew up in as a young girl, which shaped her into the person she became as an adult.

Through the use of a metaphor, Hurston compares Janie to a tree. She does so in such a way that she seems to be a beautiful tree with “glossy leaves and bursting buds” (Hurston 11). This description follows the mention of Janie’s age and creates an image of her being young, beautiful, and pure. If she were older and perhaps not a virgin, she would not have been compared to such a glossy and bursting tree and would’ve instead been compared to a tree less beautiful and lively. This passage links Janie to the the bright, happy, warm feeling of spring that she loved so much as a young girl. As she grows older, Janie loses this nostalgic feeling while she struggles in her marriages to her first two husbands. Janie’s desire to feel free and happy is something she possesses throughout the entire novel as she is searching the world in order to feel this way once again. She feels upset and controlled at first until she finds Tea Cake and is reminded of what it feels like to be truly happy. Tea Cake makes her feel like her age is just a number and that, like the tree from her youth, she is still so youthful, beautiful, lively, and that she deserves the world.

These four literary devices- repetition, sentence structure, imagery, and metaphors, are used by Hurston in a powerful way. They add depth to the passage and give readers a true sense of just how young and curious Janie is and how desperate she is to search the world for answers to her questions. These characteristics aren’t solely seen in Janie at the beginning as and adolescent, but throughout the whole novel as she becomes an adult. Although she does grow and develop as a character, she never loses her sense of wonder of her aspirations for feeling free and happy once again. Readers can also see that as a young African American girl, Janie did not have as many chances as others or as much experience living. She was sheltered at home by her grandmother, so having this one free time to be outside on her own letting her imagination and creativity run free brought excitement to her. She imagined the type of love and life she hoped to have, although her dreams would later be shattered by her grandmother forcing her into a marriage for the sake of her safety and protection. Janie knew from the start that she could never be happy with her husband because she didn’t love him, so she never gave up her search for someone who reminded her of the way that she felt on this spring day while she was outside in her garden fantasizing about everything she ever wanted.
