Their Eyes Were Watching God and the African-American Experience
By Matthew Cox


Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston reflects how African-American women in the 1930’s search for self-identiy. Janie, the main character, suffers through two abusive marriages. Her first one to Logan Killicks is arranged by her grandmother. Jody Starks, Janie’s second husband, seems nice, but later abuses and humiliates her. Tea Cake, the third husband, is a good person who is nice to Janie. Although he has some minor flaws, he accepts them and tried to improve himself. Janie and Tea Cake are caught up in a hurricane and flood waters. As they escape, the protagonist get attacked by a dog. The animal bites the husband who later gets rabies. Janie shoots him when he goes insane and tried to kill her. She returns home and tells her life’s story to a close friend named Phoebe. Hurston explores many themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God including women’s independence, racial equality, and abusive relationships.

Many teachers use Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston to teach the classes about the African American experience (Answers.com). Janie Starkes, the protagonist, marries Logan Killicks through an arranged wedding done by Nanny, her grandmother. However, the husband makes her do hard farm work including plowing. Also Logan abuses Janie. Later, she meets a stranger called Jody Starks. He invites Janie to come with him. She leaves Killicks and marries Jody. He opens a store and becomes mayor. After a while, the couple realize that they are growing apart and do not love each other. For example, Starks will not let her help with running the store. Also, he does not let his wife join in storytelling on the store's porch. One scene involves Janie buying an overworked and dying mule from an abusive owner. The animal dies and Jody refuses to let her participate in a mock funeral for it. Jody continues to beat and humiliate Janie. Later, the husband becomes fatally ill and tries to fight death. He dies and has a large and formal funeral.

Several months later, a stranger named Vergible Woods comes to town. His nickname is Tea Cake. He teaches Janie to play checkers. She feels like that he is treating her like a human being. They do many unseal things together including fishing at midnight. Janie falls in love with him, but does not trust him at first. She is also reluctant to have a relationship because Jody bequeathed her a large amount of money and the store. The main character sells the store and begins new life with Tea Cake. They move to Jacksonville, Florida to get married. Janie arrives on a train with two hundred dollars hidden in her suitcase. The morning after she is in Jacksonville, the main character realizes that her money and Tea Cake are gone. He returns the next day with only twelve dollars. Her husband said that he took it to throw a party. Woods promises to pay it back. When he repays her, she agrees to trust him with he additional savings. Tea Cake suggests that they find work in the Everglades.

He teaches her how to shoot and live in the wilderness. Both of them have fun with parties and enjoying social people. However, Janie gets angry when another woman flirts with Tea Cake. He assures his wife that it is nothing to worry about and they are not serious. Mrs. Turner, another woman, starts a friendship with Janie hoping that she will leave Woods for her brother. As a lighter skinned African-American, Mrs. Turner does not like ones with very dark complexions. This makes Tea Cake jealous who beats Janie to prove that he is boss over her.

A hurricane looms over Florida. Many people evacuate but Janie and Tea Cake decide to ride the storm out. When the storm hits they huddle in their cabin with “their eyes were watching God (answers.com).” Flood waters almost destroy the house and force the couple out. As they walk towards Palm Beach, Janie is attacked by a dog. She escapes by climbing on the back of a cow. Tea Cake defends her by throwing the dog into flood water. He gets tired and kills the canine with his knife. However, the dog bites him on the check. The bite does not appear to be serious and starts healing.

When the storm is over, the African-American men act grave diggers. They must separate the white bodies from the black ones; the whites will be buried in coffins and the blacks in a mass grave. The next day, Tea Cake encourages his wife to return to the everglades with him. After three weeks, Woods becomes ill with a headache. Also, he is not able to eat or drink. A doctor diagnoses him with rabies and will likely die. He is worried that Tea Cake will become violent and attack Janie. She eventually realizes that her husband is going insane from the disease. He chases her with a gun. Janie defends herself by shooting and killing him. The protagonist is arrested for murder, but gets acquitted for self defense. She gives him a fancy funeral. The story ends with Janie returning to her hometown. She meets Phoebe and tells the friend what happenes in her life.

Hurston explores various themes in the book (Answers.com). Most of them chart the development of African-American women in the 1920’s and 1930’s as the search for their true identities. Janie speaks for many different women. Literary experts see her three marriages as a search for true identity. She fights against her grandmother and two abusive husbands to find her voice. Jody, her second husband, symbolizes how greed corrupts people through wealth. He shows this by beating and humiliating her. This prevents her from living happily. When Tea Cake meets Janie, she sees that her role in town is decided by Jody’s and the town’s expectations. Tea Cake treats her with respect and lets the main character be who she wants to be. Some experts claim that that Woods stifles her independence by encouraging her to go on adventures with him. They also point out that she often times follows his lead without questioning it. Some literary experts feels that the climax when Janie shoots him forces her to reacts impulsively and not while thinking. However, other scholars feel that she does the right thing to protect herself.

Language is an important part of the novel. It reflects the speakers and the culture that they live in. For example the men in Eatonville do “eternal arguments, a contest in hyperbole and carried on for no other reason (Answers.com).” The males do not let women to participate because they think that women are not good enough to do them. However Janie learns to press “her tenth together and learned to hush” to keep out of trouble (Answers.com.). However, characters including Jody use harsh words to put her down. For example, he says “When you pull down yo’britches, you look lak de change uh life (Answers.com). Janie retaliates by comparing his body to a woman going through menopause. She learns how to assert herself and let him mistreat and control her. After the main character married Tea Cake, she joins him in socializing and participating with him. This is shown by “the men held big arguments here like they used to on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to. She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest (Answers.com)."

Although race is rarely mentioned In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston implies that there is a strong racial divide. For instance, many African-Americans do not have the equal rights or opportunities as whites do. Jody wants to start an all-black town and have power to them. He has a “bow-down command on his face” and a large house than makes the others seem like servant dwellings (Answers.com). This reflects the contrast between slaves and slave-owners before the Civil War. Such attitudes are ironic because Jody does not like being dominated by white people. Furthermore, he flaunts his wealth with expensive furniture, clothing, and cars. He even acts like an upper class white by looking down on poor African-Americans.

Hurston’s also criticizes attitudes on skin color with Mrs. Turner’s snobbish feeling about light-skinned African-Americans being superior to darker-skinned ones. Janie is a mulatto because her grandmother is raped by a white man. Mrs. Turner comes from an upper-class background and says “We ought to lightrn up the race (Answers.com)” Janie replies “Us can’t do it. We’se us mingled people and all of us got blck kinfolks as well as yaller kinfolks (Answers.com).” She does not see divisions in the African-American community and movers freely between social classes. Hurston uses images like these to criticize the way Americans view skin color as a social class issue. She sums up this idea about Mrs. Turner with “Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise — a heaven of straight-haired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs. The physical impossibilities in no way injured faith (Answers.com).” The author later reveals that the woman is consumed by her own hatred of being part white and part African-American. Discrimination in the black community is just as devastating as racism between whites and African-Americans.

Hurston explores many themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God including women’s independence, racial equality, and abusive relationships. African-American women in the 1930’s face many challenges including chauvinist beliefs, racism, and being sociologically disadvantaged. Janie, the main character, speaks for women going through such experiences. Her grandmother marries her off to an abusive man named Logan Killicks. She later marries Jody Starks who seems like a good person. He becomes a successful business owner and town mayor. However, Jody abuses Janie physically and mentally. Tea Cake, the protagonist’s third husband, is decent person with some minor flaws. He understands them and tries to correct his behavior. The couple get caught in a hurricane and are flooded out of their house. Janie gets attacked by a dog when they leave. Tea Cake kills the dog but is bitten. He gets rabies and tries to kill Janie. She protects herself by shooting her husband. The protagonist goes home and tells her experience to good friend named Phoebe.


Work Cited

“Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Answers.com 2008. 27 March 2008.
http://www.answers.com/Their%20Eyes%20Were%20Watching%20God