Art Inspired by Their Eyes Were Watching God

She is starting down one road as two roads diverge. She also is looking backward. Her decision to walk down one road symbolizes life choices. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, Janie chose to run off with Joe Starks and didn’t look back, although she regretted it later. She also made the choice to marry Tea Cake. All of these choices affected her life immensely. Janie looking back symbolizes the distrust she begins to feel after she marries Joe and after she marries Tea Cake. She begins to realize that her life with Joe wasn’t going to be what she thought. Right after she marries Joe, she begins to notice a change. “On the train the next day, Joe didn’t make many speeches with rhymes to her,” (Hurston, 34). She begins to feel a difference in him that she had not noticed before she married him. After Janie first started running off with Tea Cake, the town’s people were a little weary of his intentions; they were afraid that he was only after her money. Janie ignored their concern but after their marriage we find that Tea Cake has an interest in the gambling. But he never goes out of control with her money.

 

This tree comes from the line, "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone" (8). Each color represents a specific emotion. For instance, black is pain, red is love, pink is happiness, purple is hate, blue is peace, orange is regret, yellow is excitement, and finally green is life and growth.

 

This is a water color depicting the opening lines of the book, which say, "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board."