For many, finding happiness and holding onto it throughout their lifetime is a challenge. In Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie struggles with just that. With the help of her sexual awakening, three key relationships teach Janie about what she desires from a relationship and partner in order for her to not only be satisfied, but truly happy with her life. Through twists and turns in her relationships Janie is challenged to remember this desire and prioritize herself. By looking at Hurston’s use of the symbolism of the road and horizon throughout the text, we can see Hurston is drawing attention to the struggle to find fulfilment and happiness in life. This is significant because by tracing Janie’s development throughout her relationships, we can see her challenge herself to find and hold onto this happiness. 

The first time that Hurston uses the horizon as a symbol is on the first page of the novel. Here, Hurston brings the idea of the horizon and its symbolism to attention by using the metaphor of dreams being carried on ships and never reaching their destination. Hurston states “For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing…” (top pg.1). Because Hurston uses the word “others”, This means that Janie is not like them and she does actually achieve her desire, making this an example of foreshadowing of what will happen by the end of her journey. In addition, because this is after Janie has come home, it is possible at this point in time in the story Janie has already accomplished her dream and reached her horizon. Also, since this is the opening paragraph the reader can assume that Hurston is trying to set a tone with what is written in it. By saying that dreams sail forever on the horizon, the reader gets a sense that they are often unreachable although as the next line states, they are close enough to believe they are still obtainable. This may be suggesting that in order to actually achieve your dream it is necessary to chase after it, and is not enough to watch it sail in the distance and hope for the best.

Janie comes to realize her dream in the second chapter of the book when she has her sexual awakening.  After observing the process of pollination, Janie realizes she wants the same passion and desire in a marriage that she sees the bees give the pear tree. Shortly after this realization, the symbol of the road comes into play, when Johnny Taylor walks down the road and kisses her. When Nanny catches her, Hurston narrates that Janie “extended herself outside her dream and went inside of the house. That was the end of her childhood” (bottom pg. 14). Johnny Taylor coming down the road, opens up a whole new world for Janie where she is treated as an adult instead of a child. By saying that Janie “extended herself outside her dream” Hurston is showing that because Janie is coming into adulthood she is not able to carry this idea of marriage around with her and must snap back to reality. Although she has been able to uncover what she dreams for to be happy, she does not have a choice in the matter of her romantic life. In order to make Nanny happy, she will be married off to someone Nanny approves of, Logan Killicks. 

Janie’s relationship with Logan is quite the opposite of her dream. It is dull, passionless, and towards the end he even begins to treat her like property by expecting her to work. In this relationship Janie is not treated as an equal and feels small and helpless. At this point she has come to the conclusion that in order to be happy she needs partner who allows her to be independent and successful. It isn’t until the road appears again that Janie is able to once again hold out hope for her dream. Joe Sparks comes whistling down the road one day and captures Janie’s attention. “He did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance” (top pg. 35). Within this passage, Hurston narrates Janie’s belief that Joe represents the idea of her dream and a potential new future, an opportunity to escape the relationship she is currently in. By saying that he does not represent sun-up and pollen, Hurston means that Joe represents the adult version of Janie’s desires instead of her childhood idea of a relationship. When marrying Logan Janie still held out hope for this idea of passion, but was not able to find that, and as now adjusted her dream to include someone who empowers her. Because Jody appears so proper and talks of marrying her and his business plans, Janie believes he has it all together and that if she leaves with him she will finally be happy and that they have a future. 

Unfortunately, Janie’s relationship with Joe is not all she imagines it to be when she first meets him. By the end of it, his death, she has been silenced, beaten, and restricted. Joe does not allow her to flourish to her potential and she certainly does not find her happiness with him. After his death when she is alone in the house she contemplates what this journey to find happiness has led her to. Here, Hurston narrates “She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people…But she had been whipped like a cur dog, and run off down a back road after things.” (bottom pg. 106). This passage is very powerful for several reasons. For the first time, Janie is finally free to make her own decisions and in this passage she is contemplating on her past decisions. She realizes that instead of being with someone who has the potential to fulfill her dream, she has been sacrificing her idea of love to first please her grandmother by marrying Logan, and then staying in a restrictive relationship with Joe. This is why Hurston italicizes the words people and things, because the things represent the men and sacrifices in her past relationships, and people represents her idea of a husband who fulfills her dream. By saying people, it gives her dream a human quality and makes it more believable that she will achieve it. Hurston says that she “has run off down a back road” meaning that instead of confidently walking toward her dream and not allowing the men in her life to stand in the way of it, Janie has become distracted and run back to stay in what is comfortable, this being the back road. She understands at this point that she needs to further challenge herself, and put her dream at her focal point, forcing herself to finally find her happiness.

Janie’s final relationship is the one that she prioritizes herself and her dream in. Her relationship with Tea Cake is the one in which she actually achieves reaching her horizon. In this relationship, she is empowered, sexually passionate, and finally happy. Sadly, Tea Cake dies in a tragic hurricane leaving Janie alone once again. The difference is this time, she feels completed. She has come back to Eatonville, and is no longer searching for happiness. The reader knows that at this point in time Janie has accomplished her dream because of the wording Hurston used in the first paragraph, and because this point in the book is the same time as the beginning. Janie solidifies this understanding by saying to Pheoby “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back now” (bottom pg. 225). Here Janie is telling Pheoby that her relationship with Tea Cake was her horizon and that she was able to reach it in the end of her journey. She references her horizon being accomplished with Tea Cake once more when explaining that she will never forget him and that he isn’t dead as long as she never stops thinking and feeling about him. She says “Here was peace. She pulled her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder” (bottom pg. 227). In this passage Janie wraps her horizon around her similar to a blanket, symbolizing that she is being comforted by the idea that she reached her horizon and is satisfied with her life. This is reinforced by the opening line of this quote saying that she has reached peace meaning that she has found her happiness and is able to hold onto it even though she is no longer in a relationship.  

By using the metaphors of the horizon and road, Hurston has allowed the reader to trace Janie’s journey. This use of symbolism allows Janie’s struggle to be better understood. Because these symbols are reoccurring, it is easy to compare how Janie feels about her dream at different stages in her life. By looking at when the horizon is first mentioned, the reader can clearly tell that it is meant to symbolize dreams. Combining that passage with the knowledge that Janie acquires through her sexual awakening one can understand that she desires a similar sense of marriage. Although this journey to find it is not an easy one, she does end up finding her happiness and accomplishing her horizon with Tea Cake. During this relationship Janie becomes empowered by being treated as an equal and is confidently able to tell Pheoby that she has made it to her horizon and back. She has felt her passion and love that she desired to a point in which she is satisfied with herself and is now truly happy. 
