My thoughts on "Their Eyes Were Watching God"...

Having read the book previously in high school, it dawned on me how enthused I may have been at thew time not notice the story for it was. Maybe I seen it as just another book in a college preparatory class, I may have even spark noted it to pass my exam! Who knows, what I do know now is that the story is off the charts. The beginning is the most significant for me because it set the tone for the entire book. Kind of like a "little black girl lost" type of vibe. The fact that she grew up without a mother and father and had to live with just enough with granny immediately clicked the switches in my head about books I'd read with similar plots, but that was thing that got me, tis was only the exposition, not EVEN the rising action, I was intrigued. Anyhow the use of symbolism is ever so present with Janie's talk about spring, the bees, flowers, and most importantly, the pear tree. So to start from the top, and these are MY interpretations of the symbols posed; Spring time, in literary symbolism, the spring is a sign of birth and/or new beginning. The fact that Janie was starting to find her sexuality, and becoming of age solidified for me that she was either going to "become a woman" or break free from granny and start a whole new life fresh and anew. However, her constant referral to the color yellow (bees, flowers, the sun) made me second guess that her new life was going to be sugar. In fact, yellow symbolizes maturity, heat, violence, old age(Mr. Killicks' OLD SELF) and even decay(Janie's feelings that her life is slipping away before her once she gets with Killicks). To close this out the infamous pear tree, this symbolizes mourning and/or fleeting nature of life. So as I read on and Janie's grandmother revealed her strife and MOURNING for her daughter's life and her grand daughter's future. BUT, trying to sign poor Janie's life off to some old, rich, MAN, at sixteen was Janie's childhood decayed, her life was slipping away from her because she was unhappy and definitely not in love.