Nature’s Influence on Janie’s Desire in Their Eyes Were Watching God

As children we often cling to the storybook romance. The “happily ever after” cliché certainly appeals to the young romantic: however, the harsh reality of life may soon prove this to be foolishly sentimental. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston explores these circumstances as she outlines Janie’s pursuit of happiness. Janie is described as a child of nature. The spiritual power of nature has a tremendous affect on the development of her character. Hurston uses this metaphor to symbolize Janie’s eagerness to find love. Though as a child she craved a conventional romance, nature guides her to her one true love. Before meeting the man of her dreams, Janie experiences many failed relationships that highlight the changes in her desires. Throughout the novel, Janie is influenced by natural forces that alter these desires in her relationships with Johnny Taylor, Logan Killicks, and Joe Starks. On a spring day in West Florida, Janie spent the afternoon lying under a pear tree. The delicate serenity of nature filled her with sheer contentment and delight. In a dream like state, “through the pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road” that in “her former blindness she had known as shiftless Johnny Taylor” (11). Janie’s romantic visions are reflected by springtime. At sixteen years old, Janie, herself, was blooming into a woman. In a trance, Johnny Taylor became the target of her infatuation. Nature’s power of suggestion was able to “[beglamore] his rags and her eyes” (12). Just as Johnny Taylor kisses her, Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, wakes from her nap and catches the two under the pear tree. In desperation, Nanny has Janie married off to a wealthy farmer, Logan Killicks, and in an instant Janie’s carefree fantasies come to an end.
Logan Killicks embodies all the qualities that Janie detests. Though she cannot seem to find nature’s beauty within him, Janie agrees to marry Logan to appease her grandmother. Her naivety is made