You Want to Read this Classic: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Protagonist: Janie Crawford Killicks Starks Woods

Characters: Phoeby, Joe Starks, Tea Cake, Logan Killicks, Nanny

Antagonizer: gender roles, class expectations, racial discrimination

Setting: Georgia - Florida, unspecified 19th Century

"Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a literary gem. It was controversial in its day, drawing critiques from other black writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Despite the controversy, Their Eyes Were Watching God has become a timeless classic. It deals with love, death, and abuse. Through Janie, we understand how hard, and unexpectedly beautiful, life was for a black woman of the early 19th century.

Janie is an extremely likable character. She's deep, but most people are never able to see this since most of the novel appears to be thoughts kept to herself.

Janie is raised by her grandma, Nanny, on the land of sympathetic white people. Once she turns 16, Nanny forces Janie to marry an older man due to concerns about her physical safety, and financial well-being. The concerns are exacerbated by the fact that Janie is a product of the rape of her mother. Janie recounts this period of her life as ‘growing into a woman,’ because her first dream had been killed. The first dream is metaphorically depicted as a peach tree, under which her romantic fantasies blossomed. 

"De [black] woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see. Ah been praying fuh it tuh be different wid you."

"If you don’t want him you sho oughta…God a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road and…Dat’s de very prong all us black woman gets hung on. Dis love! Dat’s just what’s got us uh pullin and uh haulin…"

The marriage to Logan Killicks soon turns sour after Nanny dies, and that’s when she meets Joe Starks — an ambitious man headed to a growing colored-folks town to become a big voice. Janie is about seventeen here, and upon meeting Joe, she senses potential. The following period takes up the most time, and she ends up being married to Joe for twenty or so years until his death. 

"He did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon…for change and chance."

The years leading up to his death take the largest toll on Janie’s mental health, as she’s repeatedly subjugated by Joe, who believes that women ‘don’t know how to think,’ and that men should do it for them. During this time, the town grows, and she meets both Pheoby and Tea Cake here. Pheoby is mentioned earlier on as being a good friend but has only a few scenes in the book, most notably at the beginning and end, where Janie is recounting her life. 

"She had never thought of making a speech, and din’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things." 

Throughout the years of their marriage, Joe becomes increasingly bitter toward her.

"All dis bowin down, all dis obedience under yo voice—dat aint what Ah rushed off down de road tuh find out about you."

"Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered…The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place."

Tea Cake is the last man she marries and is the only one who truly satisfies her. They’re married for two years before he dies due to rabies contracted through a dog bite in a hurricane. It’s a tragic ending to their love story, and the reader feels lots of sympathy for Janie, even though Janie herself, appears to be soothed at the end. 

"Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could ever be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace."

Their Eyes Were Watching God is rich in metaphors. Zora Hurston does an exceptional job creating realistic characters, who are also strangely familiar to me. Some of the conversations feel like I could’ve heard an uncle or two say the same thing. Because the story deals with the suppression of Janie’s voice and personality due to things like racial discrimination, class expectations, and gender roles, Their Eyes Were Watching God is an early Black feminist novel.