Symbols and Imagery (And Almost Motif)

As Carolyn had mentioned really early on, the horizon had continuously been used throughout the novel as a symbol of unattainable dreams. Like Gatsby's green light, the horizon was something one could clearly see but could never fully grasp. The novel starts out, "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation..." (1). The horizon is a neverending line stretching into infinite space; it can never go out of one's sight, but it isn't ever tangible either. Hurston uses the horizon here as a symbol of people's dreams sailing along the horizon as a way of saying that their dreams are always there in front of them, there for them reach out to, but like the horizon, the dreams are elusive and forever unattainable. No matter how one tries, a dream that stays on the horizon is a dream that can't come true.

Again, the horizon is used as a symbol of lost hope when Janie felt Nanny had taken all her dreams away. "Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon -- for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you -- and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing..." (89). Janie feels as if Nanny had taken all of her dreams on the horizon and choked her with them by telling her to marry for protection rather than love. Janie's seemingly unattainable dreams had been completely taken away by Nanny, no longer present for her to even look at, unlike the men sailing on the ships along the horizon who at least had their dreams in sight. The horizon here is clearly a symbol of lost dreams again, which makes us begin to wonder whether this symbol could be a motif as well. I began to think that the horizon was a motif for unreachable dreams, but the last lines of the novel proved that it couldn't be because the meaning of the horizon changed:

"The kiss of his [Tea Cake's] memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She [Janie] pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see" (193).

I loved the last lines of this novel. Through the use of amazing imagery, Hurston shows that the horizon is an attainable dream after all. After all her hardships, Janie is able to achieve her dreams and make peace with the world. She pulls in the horizon as if it's a "great fish-net," wrapping the once untouchable horizon around her. Her whole life is in the great fish-net, all of her seemingly unattainable dreams, but in the end, she is finally able to grasp them.