James B. Ziegler
September 7, 1996

Blossoms Blooming

    Flower blossoms blooming can seem so beautiful with a myriad of designs, colors and contrasting shades reflected within the look of a beholding eye, so rich with complexity in aromatic fragrances sniffed into a perceptive nose, so soft and velvety to a delicate touch by curious fingertips, so tasty and scrumptious upon the tip of a discerning tongue. Strong impressions are easily left upon the mind of someone just titillated with such a variety of sensory stimuli--even if by the written word. In literature, these strong impressions can be exploited to conceal other meanings. Unraveling these mysteries of symbolic word puzzles can be one of the most fascinating investigations for the discerning reader to undertake because the process may reveal insights into one's own secrets. A comparison between selected passages of two books: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, will show that symbolical language can reveal even more insight. In this comparison, symbolism in the passages containing variations of the words "blossom" or "blooming" will be examined to reveal human development beyond sexuality and anatomy.
    The protagonist, Janie, in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, was sixteen years old when a series of natural events led to her to unlocking the secrets of her own sexuality. "Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back yard" introduces a location suitable for observing a miracle of reproduction in nature. The word "blossoming" indicates the narrator's comments are in the active present tense. The next few sentences, changing to past tense, reveal that this particular day--the third day--was much different than the first two. "That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened." The author poetically reveals progressive stages of pear tree flowers "blooming" along with their pollination by bees. This process so intensely intrigues Janie that her enhanced awareness triggers previously hidden sensual emotions and desires. Janie's continuous observation of the interplay among the plant and insect kingdom--mixed with her own intuitive feelings while lying on her back beneath the pear tree--leads her to a burst of insight. "So this was a marriage!" she exclaimed (10).
    The author had changed the narration into the past tense to articulate Janie's insight resulting in a profound and personal experience with puberty--the orgasm! "Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid" (11). The symbolical implications herald a "blooming" of Janie's anatomical development in pubescence, intellectual growth in powers of awareness, and an acknowledgment of her own individuality in separateness from others.
    Janie now realizes her world has completely changed and that the life she lived prior to her very personal turning point had been merely a simple existence of a child. This realization, found in the climax of her discovery, invokes even more questions and searching in her discovery of self--questions about womanhood and her place in the world. "After a while she got up from where she was and went over the little garden field entire. She was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers" (11). Her new-found powers of observation and discovery had to be tested for reassurance immediately; and so she explored the nearest scientific mystery available--herself! "The little garden field entire" is symbolic of all the "ripe fruits" of her body waiting to be harvested by something akin to a gardener with the caring skills of husbandry. At this point the author changes into a narrative tone again to accentuate Janie's experience with laws of nature and discovery being translated into active journeys into the adventurous world beyond. A great turning point in her life occurs again as grandmother "Nanny" discovers ". . . Johnny Taylor lacerating her Janie with a kiss" (11).
    The previous exposition of sexuality and anatomy using examples from the female perspective of Hurston can be contrasted with a male oriented viewpoint from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. However, it is much more difficult to detail events of the "blossoming" passage of the latter. Development of the protagonist character, Jay Gatsby, is fragmented throughout the book. Therefore, a short reconstruction of the protagonist's mindset logically follows so as to clarify how Gatsby's coming-of-age in manhood happens in a much more complex way than Janie's straightforward adolescent "excursion" into womanhood.
    Jay Gatsby was about twenty three years old after having sailed around the world for five years (98 - 101). After joining the army, he met the principal female character, Daisy, who was also young (151--Fitzgerald does not say how old.) Until this meeting, the author characterizes Gatsby as having a history of being a lecherous womanizer whose previous sexual relationships were Platonic (99). But on a romantic autumn evening, under the bewitching moonlight, Gatsby has come to appreciate Daisy as "the first 'nice' girl he had ever known" (148). It is here that Gatsby begins to mature quickly. He began to sense things happening between he and Daisy that he hadn't experienced before. ". . . and there was a stir and bustle among the stars" (112).
    At this point, the author switches from an omnipresent, external viewpoint, to an internal one of Gatsby's mind--what he was seeing and thinking. "Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees--he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder." The passage may seem confusing to the average reader because it employs what dream work psychologists term "visual representations of psychoanalytic symbols." Suffice it to say that it's obvious Gatsby was considering selfish notions of having sexual intercourse (mounted to a secret place) with Daisy at this time.
    However, the author now changes the style again from Gatsby's philosophical dreaming to a real-time awareness of what was really happening between the two of them. Gatsby was now making conscious decisions to treat Daisy with respect--not like the other women--because she was "nice" (and he was falling in love with her.) He had begun to recognize the rare value of a pure relationship based on more long-term considerations than just sexual satisfaction. Jay Gatsby was finally beginning to understand what true love and tender passion was all about since the time of his adolescence when "his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot" (99). This is equivalent to Janie's cry of "So this was marriage!"
    "His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God." The passage continues to build strength toward personal growth in true love. His "unutterable visions" he initially imagined that would culminate in sexual release were rather being overtaken and brought under control by higher- order thinking. He was learning endearment, fondness, affection, tenderness, kindness, courtesy, and respect for someone other than himself. Instead of the billions of thoughts he previously harbored about everything in the universe "like the mind of God," he would become quieted, focused, and could now listen to purified feelings and experience the new expressions of peace, joy, friendship, and mutual happiness.
    And now, like Janie "going over the little garden field entire," Gatsby would contemplate his new-found knowledge just a little longer before experiencing it all with the one he loved. "So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete." He did not have an orgasm. He had true love for the first time in his life.
    When the cited passages of Hurston and Fitzgerald are compared as shown, more of the cloaked secrets of symbolism within their books become exposed. Some examples of new insights gleaned from the study might be: we can relate to Daisy's feelings while she "blossomed" for Gatsby because we can understand her sexuality through Janie. We can relate to Johnny Taylor's feelings and motivations for Janie because we understand his maleness through Gatsby. These revelations in turn help us see the symbolism of the "fence" that Janie leaned over to kiss Johnny Taylor (12), or the "indiscernible barbed wire" that seemed to prevent Gatsby from relating to other "nice" girls like Daisy (148). In other words, both Janie and Gatsby had stumbled into a new awareness because of major turning points in their lives, but these were just beginnings! They had graduated from being "grown up children," but now they were like "children at being adults" still having much to learn.
    The remaining story developments of both books detail further growth in the character development of the protagonists and the principle characters. And so it is with us and how we unravel the mysteries of symbolism in literary word puzzles, that we as readers can also grow like "blossoms blooming" through the eyes of Hurston and Fitzgerald.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1953.

Hurston, Zora N. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row, 1937.

email responses to James B. Ziegler, jziegler@niu.edu.