In Zora Neale Hurston's book, Their Eyes Were Watching God- we follow the life of a young black woman, Janie, as she matures and experiences life. Ms. Hurston uses many metaphors to further illustrate the experiences that Janie goes through. Her use of metaphors greatly enhances the book by allowing the reader to think about, compare and identify with the Main character.
             Many metaphors are used and developed throughout this book, and I will address some of them. The first one Addressed in the book is that of a mule. The mule is often referred to in the book as a symbol of a woman. Janie's grandmother starts the comparison between black women and mules, declaring "De woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see" (14). The concept that woman just works and obeys her husband will is the same as a mule's characteristic of just working mindlessly and bending to the will of its master. When Janie returns to the Town in which she lived with Joe Starks, the people are described as follows;
             " These Sitters have been...eyeless conveniences all day long.
             Mules... had occupied their skins." (Page 1)
             This sentence describes the old women sitting on the porches in the town, being slaves and "mules" all day long. It is a sharp contrast to Janie, who walks into town almost proudly, beautiful, and without a front porch to be tied to.
             In addition, each of Janie's husbands owned mules. And how they treated their animals was a direct contrast to how Janie was treated by those husbands, respectively. For example, Logan Killicks, Janie's first husband owned a Mule. He purchased a second mule to work them hard. On the same note, he wanted Janie to work with the mule in the field.
             "Ah Aims to run two plows, and dis man Ah'm talkin' 'bout is got a mule all gentled up so even uh woman kin handle 'im" (page 27)
             Here Logan shows the comparison between the mule ...