on of her consciousness and establishing joyful relationships with others. Her eyes have been watching God-the God that expresses himself in nature, in other human beings and, especially, in our deepest selves (Bush 1038). During certain phases of her journey her dreams were crushed and her horizons were clouded by disappointments and empty marriages, (Jones 371) but Janie emerges as a woman that has been to the horizon in reality, instead of her dreams. Callahan concedes Janie has seen it all and is glad her journey has finally come to a rest. Alone at forty she dreams of integrating the immensity and intimacy of experience in the unfolding of the story of her life (106).Janie has worn her path and has discovered that only she can determine where it leads. She has been to the horizon and has become more aware of life and her inner-self. Janie is proud of who she has become in an existence full of mental, physical, and verbal abuse. She has come to be an independent woman with voice, identity, and a conscious. Janie now knows the truth and love of what life is made up of. “Increasingly Janie’s identity comes not in rebellion against someone else, but from the pleasure she takes in her reencounter with the world. Left to herself, she will not sit anywhere; hers is to explore, to move out from the sanctum of the pear tree” (Callahan 106).Searching for an Inner-SelfIn the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston a young girl named Janie begins her life unknown to herself. She searches for the horizon as it illustrates the distance one must travel in order to distinguish between illusion and reality, dream and truth, role and self” (Hemenway 75). She is unaware of life’s two most precious gifts: love and the truth. Janie is raised by her suppressive grandmother who diminishes her view of life. Janie’s quest for true identity emerges from her paths in life and ultimatly en...
