Mules And Bees

1355 Words6 Pages
The Mules and the Bees In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston continually uses animals as symbols to the many struggles that Janie has throughout her life. Nanny has a very harsh idea of what a Black woman is and should be, while Janie just wants to be her. Throughout Janie’s narrative, the image of the mule and pollen laden bee are used to show Janie’s constant struggle against conforming to her Nanny’s definition of what a Black woman is. Because of the many hardships that Nanny has gone through throughout her life and she has seen other Black women go through she sees Black women as the most disrespected of humans. “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.”(14). Nanny in her own way wants what is best…show more content…
“She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!”(10). This quote signifies Janie’s awakening as a spiritual and sexual being. Janie uses this scene that she witnessed at the age of sixteen to explain to herself what a marriage is. To Janie a marriage is about a mutual and reciprocal fulfillment that should be filled with love. It seems that throughout the whole narrative, Janie is constantly looking for this type of ideal marriage and love and being at one with nature. In her marriage to Logan Killicks she hopes to find this ideal marriage, “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”(24). Logan Killicks crushes Janie’s child dream and any hope she had for that perfect marriage and love, so with this new realization, Janie knows that she must become a woman and do away with her childish dreams. Jody Starks soon becomes Janie’s out from this world of woman and adult ideas, but even she acknowledges that he does not resemble the bee that she was hoping for. “Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent the sun-up and

More about Mules And Bees

Open Document