Their Eyes Were Watching God

4 Pages 944 Words

Stages of a Hero
Every morning you wake up, early. Think of the reason why, it’s because you have to get to work or you have to get to school. You have to leave your nice warm house, for a cold car so frozen that it won’t even start, the community coffee maker hell that has a life of its own and don’t even get me started on the boss. After a long hard day at work or school you return to your nice, comforting house, only to find that Mr. Tinkles decided to pop a squat in the middle of your white carpet. But finally, after cleaning up the present donated by the lovely Mr. Tinkles, you can relax. But your day has not been a complete waste, you have obtained knowledge that will someday help change the world; and you thought that work was just some evil invention meant to torture you... shame. We all go through these stages of a hero everyday, but does that necessarily make each one of us a hero? In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hursten, the main character, Janie, goes through stages of life that follow those of a traditional hero. She has a call to adventure, a journey, and then returns to a familiar place. Other heroes like Odysseus and even Superman follow these stages in there adventures.
Much like Odysseus is called away from his homeland to war, Janie is call to begin her journey into womanhood. She receives numerous calls to adventure, the first of which occurs while she lays under the pear tree. Janie has a sexual awakening while she watches the bees pollinating the flowering buds. She believes that the bees and the tree have a marriage of sorts, and thinks to herself, “So this is marriage!” and she is “summoned to behold a revelation” (11). Her revelation is that she wants to have what that pear tree is experiencing. She wants to get married and become a woman. She is young, only sixteen and has “glossy leaves and bursting buds” (11), and she wants to be married. She marries Logan, w...