g to swim, she proves that anything is possible. Janie learns the same lesson by refusing to do extra labor on the farm. She resists Logans attempt to add to her chores. When he calls her spoiled she responds, Ahm just as stiff as you is stout. If you can stand not to chop and tote wood Ah reckon you can stand no to git no dinner (Hurston 25). Janie stands up for herself and is starting to find her voice. Realizing that the oppression caused by her femininity is unfair, she strives to find an environment where she can be free to explore and be an equal. These first experiences of male domination act as their guiding light towards liberation. Both characters do not break away from these marriages until they realize that the love and support they expected the union to provide does not exist for them. Edna and Janie thought that [h]usbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant (Hurston 20). They thought their marriages would offer them love when it only stripped them of their identities. On the brink of losing their dreams and desires, Edna and Janie discover that marriage did not make love (Hurston 24). Although it is not necessarily love that they are seeking, they know that if they do not escape these relationships now, they will lose their freedom forever. Both authors use imagery and symbolism to convey the status of their heroines progress towards independence. Edna is symbolized as a caged bird who repeats at the beginning of the novel Get out! Get out! Damn it!, a clue that she needs to escape from the cage in which marriage and societys view of women has imprisoned her (Chopin 5). She needs to learn how to establish her own identity and define her own life. Likewise, Janie needs to open up to the world around her. The pear tree represents Janies desire to be free: Oh to be a pear treeany tree in bloom (Hurston 11). Although the imagery is sexual, it shows her desire to fully bloom ...
