Zora Neale Hurston uses many similes in her novel, Their Eyes were Watching God. These similes contribute to both Janie’s character and the reader’s understanding of her. Through the similes, the reader learns that Janie is strong-willed, confident, and full of hope. Janie’s character is revealed in many ways and the similes all help to elaborate on the varying traits she has.
The first simile reveals a lot about Janie’s character by describing her physical appearance. “The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume…” (p. 2). From this, it is clear that Janie is a hard worker, confident, and beautiful. She was not wimpy or weak, and was not hiding her beauty either. When Janie passed people, her appearance alone commanded attention and respect.
The second simile brings attention to the fact that Janie has been through a lot and is able to look back on her life without bitterness. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches” (p. 8). The reader can easily deduce from this simile that Janie has had an eventful life. In addition, this shows that she is satisfied with her life and recognizes that there have been both good and bad events, completed parts of her life and parts that were left unfinished, and bad things had happened in the past, but hope lies ahead.
Two similes represent Janie’s discontentment with unsatisfying marriages. The first is “It was a lonesome place like a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been” (p. 21-22), and describes her feelings about the house she lived in when she was married to Logan Killicks. It not only describes her feelings for the house, but also represents her feelings about her marriage. Being with Logan was like being alone; Janie was not satisfied because this is not love. The second is “So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church” (p. 71), and describes the spirit of her marriage to Joe Starks. At first, the marriage had been what she wanted, what she needed even; however, the spirit of the marriage did not last and she was left with the same dissatisfaction that came from her first marriage. These two similes help the reader to understand that Janie has such an amazing idea about love that she cannot be satisfied by lesser versions of it. This emphasizes that her character is strong-willed. She knows there is more out there and is willing to continue looking for what she wants.
The next simile displays the hope in Janie. “The morning road air was like a new dress” (p.32). At this point, Janie has left Logan and decided that whether or not Joe Starks is waiting for her or not, leaving Logan Killicks is something she needs to do. This simile helps readers to understand Janie’s need for freedom and her willingness to do something about her situation. Janie is not going to sit around and wait for her situation to improve; she is going to make a change. Leaving Logan was what she needed to do, so she did it.
The final simile shows the knowledge that Janie has gained through her life journey. She had been seeking love all along and finally found it. “Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore” (p. 191). Janie and Tea Cake’s love was exactly the love Janie had been searching for, and even though it did not fit everyone else’s standard for love, it was pure and true, and could not be denied. This simile helps the reader to understand the satisfaction that Janie found in her love and marriage with Tea Cake. Their love changed her, possibly even completed her, and for Janie, it was exactly the change she had been looking for all her life. The similes in this novel were extremely important in order to understand Janie’s character. Her personality traits, hopes, and strength were revealed in them without simply stating them. The love expressed in this novel could not be described by a simple, definition of prose; it took the poetic nature of similes to explain Janie and Tea Cake’s love, and that is the beauty of it all.
