The Role of Trees in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee and Their Eyes Wer

The Role of Trees in Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee and Their Eyes Were Watching God Trees play integral roles in Seraph on the Suwanee and Their Eyes Were Watching God as sites of sexual awakening for Hurston’s heroines, providing a space under which dreams bloom into â€Å"glistening leaf-buds† or over-ripen and die like spoiled fruit. Close readings of Janie’s pear tree and Arvay’s mulberry evoke strikingly disparate images of female sexuality despite Hurston’s articulation of both experiences as the realization of â€Å"a pain remorseless sweet.† Depicted within the first quarter of each narrative, Hurston places great emphasis on her characters’initial sexual experiences as shaping the development of Janie and Arvay’s identities. As suggested by her pensive pose beneath the pear tree (â€Å"stretched on her back†), Janie possesses agency, navigating the course of her own sexual maturation by searching, inviting, and questioning the tree and herself for â€Å"voice and vision.† Hurston’s diction constructs a purely sensual scene, for like the flower opening up and summoning the â€Å"dust-beari...