“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 (Hurston 191).” Janie, the fiercely independent and passionate heroine of Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God, speaks these words to her best friend Phoeby in conclusion of her life’s tale describing her search for love and as a message to pass on to the townsfolk of Eatonville. Janie is sure they will judge her for her love, because it is different from what they as a society would believe love should be. However, to modern readers, Janie is an engaging and loveable character because of her fierce determination to find what she believes is true love. She does not give up her search after her two failed marriages, and ultimately finds it with her third husband Tea Cake. However, throughout her life and marriages, love is always present. Not the true love that Janie desires and searches for, but other forms of love – a protective love and a possessive love. Despite feeling trapped and suffocated by her first two marriages, it is through them, and the discovery of the love she sought, that she finds her voice and becomes the strong willed woman readers admire.
The first love Janie experiences is with her Nanny – or grandmother. Nanny loves and cares for Janie dearly in a protective way, but has a different vision for Janie’s life. Janie believes love and marriage to be like the bee and the pear blossom, based on an experience she has as a 16 year old girl. “She [Janie] 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 the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight (11).” This experience marks Janie’s shift to womanhood and also creates a romantic ideal for how marriage and love should be. However, Nanny wants her to be safe when she passes away. Once Nanny encounters her granddaughter...