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Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

Start date: March 1, 2021

Finish date: March 31, 2021

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Why we're reading this: March 2021 New School Classic Read
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New School Classics- 1915-2005

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Jun 28, 2024 Maggie rated it really liked it

Shelves: guardian-1000, classics, boxall-1001, usa, coming-of-age, romance, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Janie Crawford, a mixed-race girl, is raced by her grandmother after her mother runs off. Her grandmother marries her off to Logan Killicks, a man with sufficient land to provide Janie with security. He however does not love her, and Janie runs off with Joe Starks, an ambitious man who becomes the mayor of a new all-Black town, Eatonville. Despite being rich and respected, Janie feels stifled, and her marriage to Joe is loveless. She humiliates him one day, before Joe dies of kidney failure. Aft Janie Crawford, a mixed-race girl, is raced by her grandmother after her mother runs off. Her grandmother marries her off to Logan Killicks, a man with sufficient land to provide Janie with security. He however does not love her, and Janie runs off with Joe Starks, an ambitious man who becomes the mayor of a new all-Black town, Eatonville. Despite being rich and respected, Janie feels stifled, and her marriage to Joe is loveless. She humiliates him one day, before Joe dies of kidney failure. After his death, Janie feels free for the first time in years. She meets Tea Cake, a man with little money, but who genuinely enjoys time with her, respects her enough to teach her checkers and bring her fishing, and, despite his poverty, works hard to make ends meet. They get married and move to Everglades, where they work during the harvest season. Despite some difficulties, their love flourishes. After two years, a hurricane destroys Everglades. While escaping the waters, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog. He falls ills three weeks later, and as he grows increasingly mad, he tries to shoot Janie. Janie ends up killing him in self-defence, is tried for murder, and found not guilty. She returns to Eatonville where she tells her story to her best friend Pheoby.

"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.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

These are the opening lines of this book, and in them, they capture the lyrical, dense quality of Hurston's writing, and the rich, imaginative, emotive imagery. I looked forward to these passages, rolling them around in my mouth and my mind, savouring their lushness. The other voice that Hurston uses is the voice of the people speaking in their Black accent. This other voice can be difficult to read on paper, and is best understood when spoken out loud. Some use audiobooks, but I read these parts out loud, contributing to the longer-than-expected reading time of a relatively short book.

Hurston skilfully fits Janie's three marriages and transformation from an awkward teenager to a middle-aged woman who has found her self in a short novel of slightly over 200 pages. Janie is raised by her grandmother, who was born in the time of slavery, but Janie herself lives in an era where Blacks are finding independence and new ways of asserting freedom. Janie reflects on this by saying of her grandmother, "She was borned in slavery time when folks, dat is black folks, didn't sit down anytime dey felt lak it. So sittin' on porches lak de white madam looked lak uh mighty fine thing tuh her. Dat's what she wanted for me–don't keer whut it cost. Git up on uh high chair and sit dere. She didn't have time tuh think whut tuh do after you got up on de stool uh do nothin'. De object wuz tut git dere. So Ah got up on de high stool lak she told me, Pheoby, Ah done nearly languished tuh death up dere. Ah felt like de world wuz cryin' extry and Ah ain't read de common news yet."

Janie gets herself into a privileged position as the wife of a mayor, but finds herself having to live in an imaginary world in order to escape from the chains of her life. She finds true freedom in overalls, planting beans, and loving a man who truly cares for her and spends $200 on a whim to organise celebrations with friends. In learning to love, Janie finds her life, and becomes someone truly worthy of the love that she is given. ...more

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