Their Eyes - Symbolism

                   In Zora Neale Hurston's book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, symbolism played a big role in the development of the story. Several things came into the story that foreshadowed, represented, or underlined key events and had double meanings. Below is a compiled list of some of these symbols, as well as their meanings and a picture at the end.

QUOTE/SYMBOL	INTERPRETATION
Trees/Roots	Equals People’s Lives
Pear Tree	Blossoming Womanhood Desire for Love
Mules	Equals Black Women At That Time (They did all the work)
The gate and road	The shore=gate Waves= road (The ships in gender argue)
Brought back mule	Logan wants Janie to help Tired of spoiling her
New Horizon	Janie is constantly looking over gatepost to road to new horizon
Store in town Also like light post	Center actually became a town
Joe + Janie house	Seems to represent authority like the authority of a plantation owner While townspeople live in shacks
Spitting vase	Shows power
Guitar	Playful side of people
Lamppost of Eatonville	Growing of town and power hunger from Joe Starks
Overalls	Working side
Janie’s hair being hung down	Janie is free
Packet of seeds	Call in her horizon at end Rebirth and remembering
Color blue	Tea Cake + Janie’s proof of love
Fishing and frying fish	Sharing relationship
Janie’s head rag	Bondage in her marriage
Checkers	Janie’s equality
Mrs. Turner	Racism inside of a race
Dirt in the Muck	The working class Rich + growth
Hurricane	God’s almighty power
Rabid dog	When good happens to Janie her life changes
Working in store and kept from pulling the mule	Joe’s power over Janie and his tyranny

Image from: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/~sanders/cali_box/box_sketch1_checkerboard.gif