What we hope for is not always what we need. This is prevalent in the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, where the characters have their dreams shattered for the sake of fate. This is especially true of Janie who strives throughout the novel to realize her dream of the "pear tree", and Hurston shows this using a variation of metaphor, imagery, and personification. Janie's attempts to make her own pear tree fail, however, this is done so that she can discover for herself that adventure and life experiences are more important than love alone. It didn't take long for Janie to learn her first lesson, but after leaving Logan, “She now knew that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead” (Hurston 25). Janie sought to have her "pear," which meant she wanted a perfect relationship with a man, soon calling her an addict. Once Logan starts demanding more of Janie and stretching that thin fabric that is Janie's loyalty left to him, Janie will experiment with Jody and learn the same lesson. Hurston personifies the scope of Janie's dream by stating that it is "dead," demonstrating that Janie largely pursues her dreams and will continually do so until she reaches her own horizon. When Janie lives with Jody she is repressed and her quest for perfect love is once again dashed, except this time she learns to defend herself from this malice: “You haven't tried to pacify anyone but yourself. Too busy listening to your big voice." (Hurston 87). We see once again that Janie is denied her big dream and is taught another valuable lesson, how to stand up for herself. Janie demonstrates her independence as a woman by living without a man for the next few weeks and... middle of paper... nothing but a little jab" to show how strong the misconception Tea Cakes was and to show how Tea Cake is a poor judge of the magnitude of a certain situation. Each of these characters played a role in shaping Janie and leading her towards achieving her horizon, it just so happened that all of these characters had to die for Janie to achieve her well-deserved dream. Janie eventually becomes independent and reaches a slightly different pear tree than she had imagined in the beginning, however she had to modify her dream to deserve it. Hurston uses many examples of figurative language such as personification and imagery to convey the symbolism in these ideas of Janie; Furthermore, Hurston uses metaphors and diction to highlight the importance of the impact that the other characters have had on Janie in her adventure. Works Cited “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston