The image of the horizon in Their Eyes Were Watching God is a reaccuring image throughout the novel. The novel begins with an image of the horizon:

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. (1)

and ends with an image of the horizon:

She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see. (184)

The theme of the horizon is important in the novel because it directly connects to Janie's development. It is at the horizon that Heaven (God) meets the Earth, and the place where Janie states that she has been to and back (182), and it is because of this that she is now content. The horizon is the grandest thing in the world to Janie - the most intangible, inconceivable thing there is. Janie says that Nanny has the ability to take the horizon, the "biggest thing God ever made...and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her" (85). This is one of the ways in which Nanny tries to suffocate Janie with her notion that Janie needs to be surrounded by things. Janie's view is that things are not going to get her ship very close to the horizon, but people will. Throughout the novel, Janie keeps referring to the horizon. She says that "no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you" (85). The horizon contains what is collected at the basin of Heaven and holds one's experiences, family, friends, love, hate; one's life. Janie says at the end of the book that she "pulled in the horizon like a great fish-net....So much of life in its meshes!" (184). The horizon is the ultimate point of life - it is coming directly into contact with God. Each person has a journey to persue, and until they meet God (as Janie does in the flood), their journey is not complete. Janie finally meets the horizon, and her journey to find herself is finally over. She can now sit in her "house and life by comparisons" (182).