Like most novels, Their Eyes Were Watching
God contains numerous metaphors. I do not have a list of all the metaphors
in this work, though there are plenty to be found. The language throughout Hurston's
work is full of figurative and metaphorical imagery. The last paragraph of chapter 4
is a great example. It says:
So Janie waited a bloom time, a green time and an
orange time.
She knew the world was a stallion rolling in
the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and
built a new one by
sun-up.
The novel is filled
with such language, and the metaphors are too numerous to list. The pear tree in the
beginning of the novel is clearly a metaphor, as are, probably, the rabid dog, the
hurricane, and the marriages.
The metaphor (technically
the simile) which is most applicable to the theme of the novel. however, regards Janie's
view of her life. The first line of chapter 2 is a metaphor for how Janie sees
her life:
Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with
the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and
undone.
Just do some
reading, and you'll find metaphors of this kind everywhere you
look.
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