Their Eyes Were Watching God (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
One of my all-time favorite novels. Most of all, I fell in love with the language in this book.There's not really any way to spoil this novel, as so much is revealed in the first chapter. And, this book is driven by its characters and its language, rather than plot.Their Eyes Were Watching God demonstrates the dual potential of language. Language may be used as an instrument of truth to express love, self-fulfillment, and honest emotions. Conversely, language may also be used as an instrument of deceit. In its negative sense, language may be used as a means to limit the freedom of others or, through gossip, to pry into others’ lives. Clearly, Janie Crawford, the novel’s protagonist, is affected by both aspects of language; though language often hampers Janie’s freedom, as she grows in confidence and maturity, she is able to overcome the negative language of others and to control her own use of language. Hurston introduces the negative use of language early in the first chapter. When Janie returns to Eatonville after having left with a younger man, the townspeople assume and hope she is returning in defeat. Rather than wishing Janie well, the porch sitters wait eagerly to get the “dirt,” so that they may dissect Janie’s life and feel better about their own. Hurston provides an articulate description of the porch sitters’ motivation and use of language: These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were one, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. (2)Gossiping gives the porch-sitters power. Janie, however, has learned a great deal during her life’s journey; rather than trying to hide her life and give the townspeople any opportunity to speculate on her life, Janie tells the simple truth. Significantly, Janie tells her entire story to her closest friend, whom she knows will be honest. Janie even encourages Phoeby Watson to repeat her story to the entire town. By revealing her life completely, Janie usurps the porch-sitters’ power. Janie is willing to give the narrative of her life to Pheoby because her trust in her friend is absolute: “You can tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf” (4). Janie recognizes Pheoby’s language will be just as true as her own.As Janie recounts her life, the oppression language has caused her immediately becomes evident. As a young girl of 16, a flowering pear tree “speaks” to Janie of love and fulfillment. When her grandmother (Nanny) sees her kissing a boy beneath the tree, she immediately calls to Janie and, in her speech, ultimately uses language to limit Janie’s world and freedom. Ironically, Nanny starts her speech by explaining how she always wanted to have a “voice”: “You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. You in particular. Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do … Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin' on high, but they wasn't no pulpit for me” (15). Despite Nanny’s own desire for language and power, her solution for Janie’s life takes away Janie’s voice and nearly destroys her. To ensure that Janie will have security, Nanny pressures her into marrying Logan Killicks, a man far older than Janie whom she does not love.[While I don't think discussing the plot lessens your enjoyment of this book, there may be spoilers ahead.:]Janie cannot communicate with Logan on any level, verbally or sexually. By the time Janie meets Joe Starks, his smooth-talking charm captivates Janie immediately. His language seduces her. Yet, Janie does not succumb completely; she realizes Joe Starks also falls short of the kind of love she envisioned at 16 when she was dreaming under the pear tree. Hurston depicts Janie’s hesitancy accordingly: “Janie pulls back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he speaks for far horizon. He speaks for change and chance.” Janie sense of uncertainty, her intuition that something is lacking in Joe Starks, for all his sweet language, quickly becomes evident after she leaves with him and travels to Eatonville.For Starks, language is power; language does not have to be truthful as long as it gets him what he wants. With incredible speed, Joe meets with the Eatonville townspeople and tells them what they need. Before Joe puts their needs into words, the townspeople had been relatively content. Joe’s words inspire awe but also make the townspeople feel small and ignorant. Janie soon realizes that Starks never stops talking and that his talk has only one purpose: to increase his power and self-worth. In many ways Starks’ treatment of the townspeople mimics the power tactics and condescension white people have often used to disempower African-Americans. Not surprisingly, Starks’ overpowers Janie the same way he overpowered the townspeople; Janie is forced to tie back her beautiful hair and remain silent while she works in the store. When the townspeople encourage Janie to speak, Joe makes Janie’s position clear: “Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech- makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home.” Despite Janie’s seeming submission, she is less a woman beaten than a woman in hibernation; Janie is simmering. After years of Starks’ overbearing abuse, Janie chooses to talk again when Joe berates her for not cutting his tobacco properly, and—in front of all the people in the store—tells her she has become old and unattractive. Infuriated, Janie retaliates and tell Joe, “When you pull down yo' britches, you look lak de change uh life” (75). The remark stuns both Joe and all the men in the store. Not only has Janie fought back but also, in one powerful sentence, she crushes Joe’s manhood. After nearly 18 years of silence, Janie’s short speech defeats Joe entirely. Shortly before Joe dies, Janie speaks again and tells Joe of his cruelties and inadequacies. Unlike Joe, who liked the sound of his own voice, throughout their marriage Janie spoke when it was necessary and then spoke only the truth.In contrast, Janie begins to speak a lot more after Joe’s death. Her re-birth is particularly evident when a stranger, a young man named Tea Cake, comes to town. Unlike Logan Killicks or Joe Starks, Tea Cake treats Janie with equality and delights in her conversation. Their romance stirs up the town gossips who immediately begin speculating that Janie is acting like a fool, that Tea Cake, a man 15 years younger than Janie, must be after her money, and that Janie should still be in mourning. Janie discounts the judgments of the porch-sitters, recognizing that their supposed concern masks their jealousy and self-righteousness. When Janie leaves town to meet Tea Cake in Jacksonville, her re-birth is complete. Though their marriage is occasionally volatile, they speak the language of love. With Tea Cake, Janie has found the promise suggested so many years ago under the pear tree. Even working in the Everglades “muck,” Janie feels alive and is able to find joy and happiness despite her limited circumstances. Mrs. Turner, a smug “mulatto” proud of her light coloring and disdainful of the other people living in the “muck,” provides one of the few overt references to race. Mrs. Turner, impressed by Janie’s light coloring and “class,” tries to befriend her. Both Janie and Tea Cake recognize that Mrs. Turner hates her own race and speaks the language of hate, a philosophy Hurston depicts as follows: "Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself [Mrs. Turner:] was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness.” Following the aftermath of Tea Cake’s death, the trial, and her eventual acquittal, Janie realizes that she needs to go home. Her life has come full circle, and the love she has experienced with Tea Cake will remain with her as long as she remembers him. In part, she will keep his memory alive through language, just as she does when she tells Pheoby every thing that has happened. Throughout her journey, Janie has learned both the oppressive and the liberating power of language. Ironically, Hurston also felt the negative power of language. Although Hurston later received negative reviews for her use of language in Their Eyes Were Watching God, like her protagonist, Janie Crawford, Hurston preferred to tell it as it is. Deliberately, Hurston uses the nuances, rhythms and dialect of the African-Americans she portrays to preserve the richness of their language. Like Janie, perhaps, Hurston defied the mores of her culture and chose the language of truth and love over conformity.adapted from a prior publication
“To meet as far this morning From the world as agreeing With it, you and I Are suddenly what the trees tryTo tell us we are: That their merely being there Means something; that soon We may touch, love, explain.” Some Trees by John Ashberry.Janie returns to Eatonville with the sunbeams glowing on her shoulders giving her the appearance of a luminescent and almost unearthly goddess whose bare feet voluptuously caress the dusty road. Women on porches sing a harmonious chorus of gossip and covetousness while men stare greedily at Janie’s lustrous and long hair and sweeping hips moving to the rhythm of a life washed by the sea tides of love and scented by the pear blossoms of desire.Pheoby, Janie’s best friend and confidante, loses no time to meet the newcomer and inquires after the reasons of her unexpected homecoming. It’s under the shadows of dusk, when languid leaves and elongated branches dance at the tune of ephemeral loves and perennial memories, that Janie discloses her journey in flashbacks and unconsciously intertwines her ultimate search for fulfillment as a woman with the three marriages in her life.From Nanny’s sour aftertaste of slavery that comes with the sustained abuse in the hands of the white master, the debasement inflicted by the mistress and the burden of attaining freedom and not knowing what to do with it, to the subtle division between those with fairer skins and those with darker ones, Zora Neale Hurston elevates Janie’s story to an icon portraying the richness of the Afro-American oral culture and its folkloric dialect, symbolizing the survival of the African spirit after decades of merciless oppression and gratuitous atrocity. “You know, honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. You in particular. Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do.” (p. 31) The magic of Hurston’s writing style relays not only in the use of the Afro-American dialect but also in the contrasting classical lyricism of some passages that bond life, love and sensuality together with natural imagery like trees, celestial bodies, seas and shores, which brings enchanting reminiscences of the melodic British Romantic Poets, creating a counter effect for the drumming rawness of the allegorical vernacular. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches."(p.20)The natural world offers silent wisdom to sixteen years old Janie when laying down languorously in the shade provided by the branches of the pear tree, where the bees hum and disappear in the hidden crevices of its blossoms, she understands the mystery of sexuality. “She 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 painting 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 marriage!” (p. 24) But the trodden path of life will show Janie that marriage doesn’t compel love like the sun the day. Forced to marry Mr. Killicks, an older farmer who is supposed to offer her the security Nanny so much covets for, passionate Janie discovers that some bees stifle the female spirit, which is screaming out loud to be acknowledged to apparently deaf ears. Defying convention and showing uncommon valor, Janie rebels against stupor and elopes with Joe Starks, an ambitious man who has plans to become a “big voice” in Eatonville. Unaware at first of Joe’s chauvinism, Janie believes to have found a worthy companion and marries him only to discover throughout the years that her second husband has tyrannical opinions about the role of women in society. Relegated to a mere personal possession, Janie witnesses her own voice drown into the vast ocean of isolation and degradation.Both Killicks and Starks profane that pear tree ignoring the over-ripe fruit that has been waiting to be cherished as it deserved and it is not until many years later, when Janie becomes a forty years old and attractive widow, that Tea Cake appears disguised as the bee that blossoming Janie has been waiting for during all her life, making her soul crawl out from its hiding place. “He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung around him. He was a glance from God.” (p.161) And so Janie’s melody is finally listened to and her soul sings cloud-high along Tea Cake’s sweet-scented one while they both stare at the dark waters, while their eyes are watching God. But nature, as life, can be miraculous one minute and treacherous the next, and Janie will have to face the tide of misfortune and swim with courage in order not to be dragged by the relentless currents of injustice and despair.Zora Neale Hurston writes with the vivid force of the unheard and the defeated, revealing uncomfortable truths about race and gender while kissing each one of her words with uncanny lyricism and giving voice to the silenced by the weight of history. The shores are waiting to be shaped by the sea of love and waves of memories will sweep the tragedy of mortality imprinting a permanent image on a never-ending horizon. It’s only a matter of keeping the watch in the darkness, trusting that God is looking back. “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” (p. 284)
What do You think about Their Eyes Were Watching God (2006)?
I hate, hate hated this book, and I really can't explain WHY very well, but I'll try.It was well written, the metaphors, etc were good (I read it for an English class so I know ALL about the metaphors), the characters were well rounded, it IS a really fine example of Hurston's work. What I hated was the forward in the particular version I read. It was about a conference of women who loved the book or something, and one lady just went on and on how Janie is a strong female character, and something about how the Tea Cakes of the world weren't prepared for them. So, after reading this forward, I went into the book hoping for someone who was this amazing pillar of strength, not some anti man disestablishment type of strength, but someone who at least stood up for themselves. I understand how her strength can be perceived. However from my point of view she was someone who relied heavily on the men around her, never really stood up for herself, and was just lost most of the time. reading this was like watching the idiot babysitter go in to the basement when you KNOW the scary monster is down there. She made decision after decision leaving me thinking...why, why is this woman seen as strong?edit: teacup = Tea Cake, obviously I did not pay attention to the man's name.
—Alisa
Time 100 Greatest Novels. Newsweek’s Top 100 Books: The Metalist. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010). Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: The Definitive List.But what attracted me really to this book is its title: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Why? Who were they? Why in past tense? Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a popular black writer during the Harlem Renaissance (also known as “New Negro Movement”) in the 1920’s to 30’s. When the Great Depression came, this movement ended and taken over by a new bunch of black writers espousing “social realism.” Included in this was the highly political black novelist, Richard Wright who criticized this book as not a serious fiction and Harlem Renaissance as a cultural bourgeois movement. Hurston died penniless and buried in an unmarked grave. Her books stayed out of print for more than a decade and only came back to circulation when another popular black writer, Alice Walker rediscovered her works and wrote her 1975 essay, In Search of Zora Neale Hurston.Critics compare this book to the more popular books about slavery in the South like “Absalom, Absalom” of William Faulkner or “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. Hurston, being a black woman writer has been compared to Toni Morisson. Those are obvious. However, remove all the references on being black from this story. What will be left is that this is just a story of a poor young woman searching for her place under the sun. Then in that search, she ends up experiencing three husbands , now rich, finally finds her “voice” and most importantly free and can start her life anew.However, being black is this book’s essence. Just like being gay is the essence of Annie Proloux’s Brokeback Mountain. Thus, this book gives a resounding voice to women especially black women during that time. And that is reason enough for all those accolades that this book has gotten. The black people at that time were looking watching up to God. They were hoping for better chances in life. This novel came out in 1937 when the US was just starting to recover from the Great Depression. My questions answered. My brain has just been feed with a good book once again.
—K.D. Absolutely
Except for the scene where Tea Cake combs Janie’s hair and is actually scratching out all her dandruff (ew), I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the writing style. I’m not terribly keen on poetry, per se, but Hurston’s prose felt poetic and many of the sentences beat out a steady rhythm I could almost hear, even reading silently to myself. The dialogue between the characters was it’s stark opposite, using a phonetic dialect commonly used by black people living in the south. Switching back and forth between more traditional English and the spoken dialect slowed me down a little bit so it took me slightly longer to read this book than I’d anticipated, but that’s not a complaint. I really enjoyed it and think that this is one of those books that all women, regardless of race or geography should read at some point in their lives.The main character is a young woman named Janie. She is 17 at the start of the story and living with her elderly grandmother, Nanny Crawford. Her grandmother had been a slave and when the Emancipation Proclamation came down, Nanny walked away with a baby in her arms (Janie’s mother) who had been conceived after Nanny was raped by a white man. When Janie’s mother was a young woman, she was also raped by a white man, which was how Janie was conceived. Shortly after Janie’s birth, her mother ran off and Janie was raised by her grandmother. Since her father and grandfather were white men, Janie’s hair looks different from the hair of other black women. It is smooth and silky and even though Janie isn’t an exceptionally beautiful woman, men are still very attracted to her and her unusual hair. Her skin is also lighter, described as a “coffee with cream” color. When Janie’s grandmother catches her kissing a no-good young man, she decides it is time for Janie to be married to a respectable man named Logan Killicks who is a wealthy but unattractive farmer and somewhat of a dud in Janie’s opinion. The only reason Janie agreed to the marriage in the first place was out of a sense of duty and obligation to her grandmother. Janie and Logan are only married for a very short time and when Janie finally realizes that she can’t fall in love with Killicks, she runs away with a second man named Jody Starks. Starks was also wealthy, handsome, charismatic and for quite some time, Janie was content in her marriage to him. Jody and Janie moved to Eatonville, FL, an all black town in Florida where Jody was quickly promoted to Mayor. Before too long, Starks became controlling, verbally abusive and even physically abusive to Janie. He forced her to keep her head covered so none of the other men in their neighborhood could admire her “white” hair. He frequently scolded her, citing the reason a woman should do whatever her husband told her to do was because women were incapable of thinking for themselves. After 20 years of marriage, Starks dies due to kidney complications and Janie takes over running the store he had opened early in their marriage. Less than a year after Joe Starks passed away, Janie meets and falls in love with a man who is 12 years her junior, Tea Cake Woods. Janie and Tea Cake get married. The relationship is passionate but not without problems. They are faced with jealousy and several issues crop up that seem to stem from the age difference between them. On top of all that, a biracial neighbor named Mrs. Woods begins to harass Janie for her involvement with Tea Cake, basically telling her that he isn’t worth the time because his skin is too dark and that mixed race people with dominant Caucasian features should be “classed up” and given rights that will both distinguish them from black people and move them closer to the spheres that are traveled by white people. Overall, I thought the book was good. There were certain parts of it that probably could have been fleshed out a bit more and made the book even better. Regardless, the issues covered in the book are something that all Americans will have some reaction to, no matter our personal backgrounds.From a female perspective, the book is about how Janie discovers herself and grows into her own self which is something that all women have to do at some point in our lives. Janie was able to discover herself after three marriages to three different men and that made me think about some of the experiences I’ve had so far in my life in comparison to the experiences other women have been through (sister, mother, grandmother, female friends, etc.). It’s interesting that so many of us “find” ourselves after being mistreated by men. When you talk to a man about how he discovered himself and what happened when he fully accepted and grew into his manhood, it seldom had anything to do with a woman. But even in our more progressive society, one where women are not second-class citizens, many of us are still in a position where we don’t recognize the power within ourselves to be strong and capable until we’ve been screwed over by a man. I’ve never really considered myself much of a feminist but when I read something like this, it almost makes me feel like a reluctant feminist. It was a very interesting book, one I could see myself rereading in the future.
—Beth F.
