Journal #2

When she reaches the narrow hallway she was reminded that her grandmother was home with a sick headache. She was lying across the bed asleep so Janie tipped on out the front door. Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her? Nothing on the place nor in her grandma's house answered her. She searched as much of the world as she could from the top of the front steps and then went down to the front gate and leaned over to gaze up and down the road. Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made.

For starters, this paragraph is filled with motifs. The first most significant one is the tree. Janie in this paragraph wants to be a pear tree or any tree in bloom. I think Zora Neale Hurston uses the word blooming to show growing. At this point Janie is young and she is not fully developed yet. I think that she wants to grow up faster and become a adult. Hurston also uses trees to describe Janie as a teenager. She says she had glossy leaves which could represent her limbs or maybe just her body in general. When I read the next line (and busrting buds), I first thought of the buds being her breasts. But then when I read it a second I thought that maybe bursting buds could symbolize her teenage ideas and beliefs about herself and the world. Another motif is singing bees. I think it both places this is used it means the good things of the world. Janie askes where the singing bees were for her. This could mean that she hasn't found any positive things in this world yet and she is wondering where they are and what they are for her.

Another word that is repeated in this passage is waiting. It makes me wonder if the waiting has to do with Janie waiting to be grown up and an adult. Or if it has to do with Janie waiting to see the good in the world. Hurston also personifies the house and makes the house be the only one that can answer Janies questions. It says that she searched the world and I think that Hurston said that because it shows that in Janies 16 years on life that she has not seen much good in the world and she has been searching for it long and hard.