After seeing her kiss a local boy, Janie’s grandmother contributes to the tree imagery that has become associated with her granddaughter by telling her “Ah wanted yuh to school out and pick from a higher bush and a sweeter berry.”
Their Eyes Were Watching God: 5
Their Eyes Were Watching God: 8
After she marries a man she doesn’t love, who her grandmother thinks is suitable, Janie’s first impression of his home is that it looks “like a stump in the middle of the woods where nobody had ever been.” This characterization can be contrasted with the description of a blossoming tree that Janie imagined her love life would be. In particular, after she imagines “the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch,” she thinks “So this is a marriage!” Later, she cries about her loveless relationship and tells her grandmother, “Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.”
Their Eyes Were Watching God: 10
Janie leaves Logan Killicks to marry a self-important man named Joe Starks, who becomes mayor of the small town they move to. During the ceremony for the start of his term as mayor, the townspeople ask to hear from his wife, but he says “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin.'” Even though Janie “had never thought of making a speech, and didn’t know if she cared to make one at all,” this incident still “took the bloom off of things” between her and Joe. This scene can be contrasted with her grandmother’s wish for a pulpit, from which it would be possible for her to “preach a great sermon.”
As Harriet Jacobs builds the courage to admit to her grandmother that she is pregnant, she sits down “in the shade of a tree.” The symbol of this tree, which is mentioned at the moment when Jacobs considers the consequences of her sexual relationship, parallels imagery from Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which a pear tree is the site of Janie’s sexual awakening. This parallel is strengthened by the fact that the women have similar confrontations with their grandmothers, after encountering the trees. Harriet’s grandmother tears Harriet’s mother’s wedding ring from her finger and says she is a disgrace. Janie’s grandmother, after witnessing her kissing a boy named Johnny Taylor, immediately proposes that she marry a man who is much older than her. When Janie expresses disgust at the prospect, her grandmother slaps her.