Janie's memories have the shape of a tree. The metaphor is appropriate because her life experience has been personified by what she experiences beneath the pear tree. Love, sex, renewal, beauty and passion surround this pear tree and Janie seeks to replicate these in her life. Ironically Janie's tree of memories contains nothing of the beauty she feels underneath the pear tree. She projects the natural wonder she feels under the pear tree into her dreams of the future.
