lants and flowers are great representation of Janie's desire to love and make love. They always have been the representation of the earth's beauty and fertility and are often connected with female characters. In Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie searches for the love she desires by the growing trees and the blooming flowers that inhabit the soil and which Janie walks upon and representing her growth, maturity, and happiness. The kind of love that she is representing is by her three marriages which will be discussed.
She could not care less that her grandmother is raising her. One afternoon, Janie was sitting "under a blossoming pear tree in the backyard" reminiscing her childhood memories (Hurston 10). Peace and quiet is all she wants to get away from all the drama and trouble that is surrounding her. While she sits quietly under a pear tree, she is slowly transforming from a young girl to a grown woman. Now that Janie has turned sixteen, her "glossy leaves and bursting buds" transform her like "a pear tree-any tree in bloom" (11). Her body has gone through many physical changes like every girl must go through which will make her even more pleasing to the eyes of many. .
However, Janie is neither happy nor satisfied about her Nanny forcing her into marrying Logan. In order to get away with it, she decides to run away with Joe Starks. A man she barely even knows and the worst of it all, she marries him. With Starks, Janie believes she will have "flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything" (32). Janie is very bubbly when she is with Starks, but as the time goes by she becomes disenchanted with him. He takes her freedom away which for her becomes very frustrating. This brings her to the point where she looks forward to the day Joe dies. Imagery of the plant is lacking during this time, but parallels Janie's decreasing happiness. .
Tea Cake is introduced to Janie eight months later after her last husband Joe died.