What does the follwing quote from their eyes were watching god mean? Besides the Sparknotes explanation?

Question

How can you connect this to later in the story?

[Janie] was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!

Answer 1

(I'm assuming that this comes from the beginning of the story, near Janie's first marriage.)

The scene here seems incredibly peaceful and idyllic--calm compared to what Janie is about to experience. It shows her naivitee in that she almost compares marriage to the loving relationship between the bee and the ecstatic tree by placing the two next to each other (which is called juxtapositioning). She's unsure of what marriage really is. The three men that she marries will ultimately show her all the true definitions of marriage, but for now, it's a vague unknown that appears to be quite pleasant. She'll soon learn differently.