by Erin K. Wiedemer

Created on: February 11, 2008

Zora Neale Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of repression and possession by men over women in black Southern communities. Black men in the South seemed to regard women as property. They were the masters of the household and women were the slaves in the relationship. It was an accepted fact. Their Eyes Were Watching God is Janie's story of awakening from this oppression into her own self-awareness and personal identity. Janie's path to awakening must take her through the wasteland of being a possession before she may enter the pear tree garden of her self-actualized dreams of love.

Janie was abandoned by her mother, so she was raised by her grandmother. The beginning of her awakening as well as the beginning of her slavery begins with her grandmother. Janie experiences sexual awakening in her grandmother's backyard while she marvels at a blooming pear tree. Janie is tremendously moved by the trees tiny blossoms and pollen dusty bees. Her emotional reaction to the tree's spring metamorphosis pushes Janie toward self-awareness, and certainly into a sexual awakening.

"Oh to be a pear treeany tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?" (Hurston, 11)

In this state of new realization, Janie abandons her grandmother's prudish advice and kisses a neighbor boy. This single act of youthful sexuality frightens Janie's grandmother to such an extent that she determines to marry Janie off as quickly as possible. Nanny believes that Janie needs the support of a man, and she wants Janie to marry a relatively rich man. Nanny chooses Logan Killicks, a man decades older than Janie, because she feels that he could best materially provide for her. Janie is married to Logan without any thought to what she desired. She was not given a choice in the matter. She was married to Logan as a mare is mated to a stallionwithout consent.

Logan married Janie as a man would add another coin to his collection. She was merely another possession for him to boast about. Janie felt her marriage was, "destructive and mouldy" (Hurston, 21). She longed for her love image of the blossoming pear tree, but she experienced not even the scent of a single blossom, not even the drone of one bee. She confided to Nanny that she was not attracted to Logan in the least. However, Nanny is a product of her black

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