THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
by Zora Neale Huston
(New York: Harper Modern Classics, 1998. 240 pp., $10.85)
Review by Margaret McGuire
Zora Neale Hurston crafts an unforgettable story of an African-American woman discovering her true value in turn of the century Florida. Mindful of the gossips rocking on porches in the town of Eatonville, Janie Crawford tells her life story to friend Pheoby Watson over dinner, comfortable in herself. She tells Pheoby that talking “don’t amount tuh uh hill uh beans.” The novel’s Southern black dialect emphasizes the underlying achievement of Janie’s discovery of her own unique voice.
Abused and abandoned by her mother, Janie was raised by her grandmother, Nanny, after her mother ran away. Pragmatic in her own way, Nanny arranged a marriage between Janie and Logan Killicks, a well-to-do farmer. Nanny sees in Killicks the stability she always lacked, and tells Janie, “marriage creates love.” Janie discovers this is not so. Killicks first treats her as if she awed him, and then beats her and expects her to work like a pack mule. Janie chafes under his yoke, unable to love her oppressor.
One day, while Killicks is out, Janie meets Joe Starks, a man even more well-to-do than Killicks. Smitten with Janie’s good looks, he encourages her to come away with him. They eventually elope and move to Eatonville, where Joe makes himself the mayor of the town by buying more land and starting a store. Janie becomes Mrs. Mayor Starks, a mere offshoot of Joe Starks’ powerful persona. Joe showers “honor all over” Janie and gives her the best things money could buy. But Janie struggles with the isolation and “propriety” he expects in return.
After twenty years of marriage and emotional abuse, Janie confronts Joe on his deathbed. Her verbal tirade begins a new life. Many men try to court her, some for her money, some for her welfare, but all are turned away. Janie enjoys her freedom too much to give it up until she meets Vergible Woods, known better as Tea Cake. Tea Cake honors Janie’s growing confidence in herself. They leave Eatonville and go to the “muck,” joining migrant workers in the Florida Everglades.
Tea Cake’s honesty and tenderness blunts her suspicions of his motives, but their bliss is short-lived. A hurricane comes up, and they decide to brave it out, “stuffing courage into each other’s ears.” The hurricane turns Lake Okechobee into a monster. The wind pushes Janie into the flood waters, where she grabs the tail of a floating cow, oblivious to the hydrophobic dog growling on the other end. Tea Cake is bitten by the rabid dog while rescuing her.
In a fit of insane jealousy weeks later, Tea Cake pulls his pistol on Janie, but she is ready and shoots first. It all but tore Janie’s heart out to do it, but, as she explains to the jury later, she had no choice. Tea Cake was so deranged that the only way to save him was to kill him. The jury found her not guilty. Janie buried her beloved Tea Cake and went back to Eatonville.
In Janie’s world, she is inspired by nature and afraid of it. Janie’s romantic dreams based on the bees find a passionate counterpart in the nightmare of the end of her relationship with Tea Cake. God’s participation in the world is a paradoxical question. And yet, through it all, she discovers within herself a deep and resonant voice, a self that cannot be destroyed by hardship nor isolation.
Discussion Questions:
- Everyone needs to believe in their inherent worth in the world. Janie finds hers despite a hard life. What episodes in your life have increased your self-esteem? Does self-esteem only grow through enduring difficult situations?
- The dialect of the novel is itself a commentary on the voice that Janie finds and shares. In the Song of Songs 2:12,14, it says, “Arise, my love, my fair one and come away…let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is comely.” Can you hear God asking you to speak in this passage? Like Janie, all women need to find that voice within. What might you do to discover that voice God has given you?
