Synopsis by Brittany Andrews

Contextual Element: Synopsis by Brittany Andrews

“Their Eyes Were Watching God” Synopsis

           Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” follows Janie Mae Crawford on her search for love and identity.  Set in 1920’s Florida, it explores the history and culture of the black community and its continuing struggle to find its place after slavery was abolished.
The story, arranged end to flashback, begins with Janie, somewhat of a social stigma, grieving over the loss of Tea Cake, a man completely unknown to readers.  Janie begins to tell a friend her story—Janie’s mother, the illegitimate child of a slave owner, had been raped and subsequently abandoned by Janie’s father.  Janie had been left in the care of her grandmother, Nanny. At sixteen, Janie’s dreams of love were squelched and she was essentially forced into marriage to one Logan Killicks, a local farmer.  Very soon Janie grows desperate in her loveless marriage and runs away with Joe “Jody” Starks, a very ambitious young man who promises her the moon.  They arrive in the town of Eatonville and their life together begins.

           Eatonville was an all- black town that was established after slavery was abolished.  When Jody and Janie arrive, Jody proceeds to become mayor and turns the sorry village of Eatonville into a bustling town.  Janie soon realizes that her marriage to Jody is just as loveless as her first one.  Twenty odd years later, Jody is on his death bed and soon Janie becomes a very wealthy widow, pursued by numerous men, all of whom Janie has absolutely no interest in.

Things changed the day she met Tea Cake, a drifter some fifteen years her junior.  After struggling to trust him, Janie finally agrees to marry Tea Cake and leave Eatonville.  Eventually they end up in the Everglades, sharecropping on “the muck”.  Their marriage is filled with problems, but more so with love.  The action begins to rise as a hurricane strikes their village.  Tea Cake is bitten by a dog who is wild with rabies.  Tea Cake grows sick with “mad dog”, and soon Janie fears, rightfully so, for her life.  The climax of the story occurs when Janie shoots Tea Cake in self- defense.  Some time later, the story resolves as Janie returns to Eatonville and the story picks up where it left off in the beginning.  Janie finally finds peace in knowing that she had loved and been loved, and no one could take that away.

Author Biography by Rebecca Przetycki

Contextual Element: Author Biography by Rebecca Przetycki

                                                  Author Biography – Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 15, 1891. She then moved to Eatonville, Florida to a place she referred to as a “Negro Town”. “In Eatonville, Hurston was never indoctrinated in inferiority, and she could see the evidence of black achievement all around her.” Hurston’s Father was a minister and a mayor. Her Mother was a former school teacher and raised eight children. This society and culture was used as a basis for her novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in which her characters are portrayed as resilient and accomplished.

Hurston lived a relatively privileged and happy life until her Mother died when she was thirteen.  Thereafter, she left home and found it challenging to make roots and find her place in society.  She referred to this time as her “haunted years”. Hurston graduated high school from Morgan Academy in 1918 and then entered Howard University. Here she joined a literary club where she publishes her first story, “John Redding Goes to Sea”. She eventually obtained her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College. Hurston’s first novel entitled, “Jonah’s Gourd Vine” was published in 1934. Hurston married several times during her life, not unlike the character Janie in her novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Although she moved around quite a bit in her life she always considered Eatonville her home.

Hurston was described as a “bright and powerful presence” and charmed everyone she came into contact with.  Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance and is considered to be one of the most notable and successful black woman authors of the first half of the twentieth century. Hurston wrote four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays. Her home was a spirited open house for artists.  “When Zora was there, she was the party”.  When her autobiography, “Dust Tracks on a Road” was published in 1942, she was profiled in “Who’s Who in America, Current Biography and Twentieth Century Author’s”. Unfortunately, she never received the financial rewards that she deserved. The highest royalty she received was $943.75, so when she died on January 28th, 1960 at 69 years old from a stroke, her neighbors had to take up a collection for her funeral. There was not enough money for a headstone so her grave was unmarked until 1973.

Alice Walker, a young writer who was inspired by Hurston took a trip to Fort Pierce to put a marker on Hurston’s grave. “Wading through waste high weeds, Alice Walker stumbled upon a sunken rectangular patch of ground that she determined to be Hurston’s grave”. The only headstone Walker could afford was a plain gray marker. “Borrowing from a Jean Toomer poem, she dressed the marker up with a fitting epitaph: “Zora Neale Hurston: A genius of the South”.

Cast of Characters by Haley Wiederhold

Contextual Element: Cast of Characters by Haley Wiederhold

•  Janie is a beautiful woman who is in search for her voice and where she belongs in the world.
•  Tea Cake (Vergible Woods) Janie’s third husband. Is 12 years younger than Janie but truly loved her. Made Janie happy.
•  Joe Starks Nickname Jody, given by Janie. Mayor of Eatonville, Janie’s second husband. He also owned a store, the post office and the most land. He wanted to be in control of everything and treated Janie more like an object.
• Pheoby Watson is Janie’s best friend in Eatonville; she stands up for Janie when the other women are gossiping about her. Married to Sam Watson
• Nanny Crawford Janie’s grandmother who raised her and wanted the best for her. Was a run away slave and had a tough life with her and her daughter getting raped. Arranged her marriage to Logan.
• Logan Killicks Janie’s first husband whom she never loved and never planned to love. He was able to support Janie financially and with respect but nothing more.
• Mrs. Turner worships white characteristics and frowned upon black ones. Janie looked whiter than herself and she worshipped Janie because of it. Tea Cake did not like her.
• Sam Watson Pheoby’s husband. Sat on Joe’s porch and full of humor along with great wisdom.
• Motor Boat lived on the muck with Tea Cake and Janie. Was with them when the storm came in and they ran together away from the storm.
• Dr. Simmons a white doctor who helped Tea Cake when he got very sick. Knew what was wrong with him and that Janie only killed Tea Cake out of self-defense.
• Hezekiah Potts worked as a delivery boy and shopkeeper in Joe’s store. After Joe dies, Hezekiah begins to act like Joe.
• Nunkie a younger woman who flirted very much with Tea Cake and made Janie not only jealous but quite insecure as well. Tea Cake reassures his wife that Nunkie means nothing to him.
• Annie Tyler a wealthy widow from Eatonville who married a young man who ran off with all her money. Janie feared Tea Cake would do the same.

Character Life Map by Haley Wiederhold

Interpretative Element: Character Life Map by Haley Widerhold

Literary Review by Brittany Andrews

Interpretative Element: Literary Review by Brittany Andrews

“Their Eyes Were Watching God”

Dreams of Love and the Search for Identity...

This modern classic by Zora Neale Hurston follows Janie Mae Crawford on her search for love and identity.  This story is an interesting mixture of condoning the domineering control of a husband and the self– discovery and independence of a woman.  It is definitely an interesting read that explores many historical and current issues regarding marriage, love, and self– fulfillment.

One of the themes in this novel is the idea of finding true love. Janie searches for it for her entire life, choosing to search for her fulfillment and identity in a man rather than within herself. This attitude appears from the very beginning of the novel. When Janie was yet sixteen, Janie becomes fascinated by the pollinating of a pear tree. She compares this pear tree to marriage, and also to herself, wishing to be in bloom like the blossoms of the tree. She gives no thoughts to her own personal dreams or aspirations save to be married.

The main conflict in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in Janie’s continued search for fulfillment. She goes two marriages, finding fulfillment in neither.  At that point, readers may hope that she will have learned her lesson and attempt to become an individual content to find purpose in her own identity.   However, this is not the case.  But this time around, Janie finally finds the true love that she always wanted. Hurston brilliantly created the character of Tea Cake, a man who allows Janie to be an individual rather than an accessory, to be Janie’s final husband.

Although he upholds several demeaning attitudes towards women, Tea Cake is no doubt superior to Janie’s previous husbands. Hurston uses the metaphor of a mule to describe her first two marriages.  Janie’s first husband horribly mistreats his mule, and while he never severely harmed Janie, it surely would have gotten to that point had Janie not left soon after the marriage began. Janie’s second husband was the mayor of the town in which they lived. He buys the mule to remove it from the abuse of its previous owner and then puts it out to pasture, never to use or care for it. These metaphors are startlingly accurate in regards to the treatment of Janie by her husbands.

Despite the many instances of debase disrespect to women in the novel and Janie’s sad inability to create her own identity as an individual, both have redeeming qualities. Janie’s second husband always forced her to wear head-rags, not wanting other men to be envious of her hair. Janie despised this order, and they became a symbol of his oppression of her. After his death, the removal of his power over Janie is beautifully symbolized when Janie burns all of the head rags. Also, at the end of the novel, Janie finally seems to come to the realization that it is okay to be an individual. She had lived her dream of finding true love, and now, after Tea Cake’s death, she comes to be at peace with her new role in life— being a self– fulfilled and independent woman.

Literary Device Evaluation by Rebecca Przetycki

Interpretative Element: Literary Device Evaluation by Rebecca Przetycki

Symbolism is defined as the use of symbols to represent an idea, quality or meaning of a person or object within a story.  In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston takes the reader on the journey of a young girl named Janie who is in search of the perfect relationship and her own independence. Hurston accomplishes this through the creative use of symbols.

One very important symbol introduced at the beginning of the novel is the Pear Tree. The pear tree is introduced for the first time when Janie is a young girl of sixteen years.  While daydreaming under the pear tree she observes the union between a bee and a pear blossom, “She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into their sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to the tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.  So this was marriage” (Hurston 11). This is when Janie creates her idea of a perfect relationship. The next time we see Janie under the pear tree is when she decides to leave her first husband Logan and run away with Jody Starks. The pear tree represents to Janie the idea of love and happiness and of the perfect union between a man and a woman. At the end of the novel Janie believes she has found the perfect life with Tea Cake.

Another important symbol used throughout the novel is Janie’s hair.  Because Janie is part Caucasian, to the women of Eatonville her hair represents a kind of superiority which sets her apart from them.  A status they can only dream about.  Conversely, to Jody Starks Janie’s hair represents her sexuality and her attractiveness to other men.  Because of his jealousy and insecurity, Jody forces her to tie her hair up under a scarf and thereby keeping Janie under his control.  Janie feels demoralized by this but nonetheless conforms to Jody’s demands.  After Jody’s death, Janie removes the scarf as well as the binds that held her a prisoner to Jody Starks.  She never covers her hair throughout the rest of the novel which can be viewed as a sign of Janie’s newfound strength and independence.  

The mule represents the struggle of black people, especially black women, to be treated with respect and equality.  Women in this time period were expected to work like mules at the demand of their husbands, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolk. De nigger woman is de mule of de world as fur as Ah can see” (Hurston 14). Janie’s first husband Logan owned a mule to work his land.  He expected the same from Janie and in essence also treated her like a mule. The mule in the novel is portrayed as very stubborn, not unlike Janie, and is neglected and abused by its owner and the other townspeople. Janie is bothered by this and attempts to defend the mule. This is somewhat ironic given that she really never outwardly defends herself to Jody. Jody eventually purchases the mule and allows it to live out its life in freedom.  His reason for doing this was not out of compassion for the mule but rather to reaffirm his control and power, not unlike the control and power he exerted over Janie.

Tea Cake represents the ideal man to Janie. She believes he will create for her a perfect union, like the bee to the pear blossom, “He looked like the love thoughts of women.  He could be a bee to a blossom - a pear tree blossom in the spring….He was a glance from God”(Hurston 101). Tea cake is much more unconventional than Janie’s first two husbands. Her attraction to him is in part because he allows her to experience a level of independence and freedom she was never allowed to experience before with her first two husbands as well as her grandmother. Sadly, this perfect union is cut short when Tea Cake gets bit by a rabid dog in an attempt to save her life. In the end of Janie acknowledges her undying love for Tea Cake.  

The Hurricane introduced at the end of the novel represent’s God’s power. It also represents the destructive forces of nature. Men have historically attempted to control other men, but men cannot control nature. Hurston uses the hurricane to connect readers to the title of the novel, “They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God” (Hurston 151). Here Janie and Tea Cake were searching for answers from God of how to survive the devastating hurricane. They realized their fate was in God’s hand and that they were powerless to nature’s wrath.  Their efforts to move on after the hurricane reflect their determination and resiliency. Unfortunately, the hurricane creates a set of circumstances which ultimately lead to the demise of Tea Cake and the perfect life he and Janie shared.

It was interesting and enlightening to experience Ms. Hurston’s use of symbolism. These symbols helped define her characters and build upon the overall theme of the novel.

Symbol Chart by Karinna Ramnarine

Interpretative Element: Symbol Chart by Karinna Ramnarine

Symbol	Meaning and Interpretation	Evolution and Recurrence	Rating*	Rationale
The Mule	The town pet becomes a representation of Joe Starks when it dies. The way in which the animal dies signifies the manner in which Joe dies later in the story. It is even noted that the way the mule dies is strange (59). This struggle the mule experiences is the same stubborn fight Joe confronts during his death. The mule’s defiance and unwillingness depicts Joe’s attitude toward death later in the story.	The mule’s body dies but its character lives its final moments in Joe at the point of his death. The symbol recurs because it also foreshadows Joe’s death. It would not be a symbol if it did not represent Joe’s subsequent death thus, its recurrence is essential if it is to be defined as a symbol.	3	Effectiveness: The symbol achieves effectiveness since it illustrates Joe’s death. The mule’s attitude is parallel to that of Joe in a similar predicament (death) which indicates that it is meant to symbolize Joe and his passing away. Creativity: The symbol accomplishes creativity because Hurston replaces Joe with an animal to personify his character and situation. Hurston cleverly chose this animal to show that Joe is as ‘stubborn as a mule’. Significance: The mule is not significant until Joe’s death. Since the symbol dually foreshadows his death, its meaning is not revealed until the event being represented actually occurs. Though its significance is not initially available, it nonetheless accomplishes symbolic importance as it predicts and describes Joe and his death.
Mrs. Bogle	This woman is the opposite of Annie Tyler. Mrs. Tyler represents Janie’s fears whereas Mrs. Bogle is a model of Janie’s aspirations and desires. Mrs. Bogle is the epitome of Janie’s values (freedom, independence and desirability). Janie suppresses the concept of Annie Tyler (abandonment, neglect and brokenness) and embraces the concept of Mrs. Bogle.	Mrs. Bogle only appears once in the novel but the symbol of Mrs. Bogle recurs in Janie after Joe dies. One of Mrs. Bogle’s traits—desirability— occurs in Janie when “men made passes” (Hurston 147) at her. This happens in the town soon after Joe dies and again in the Everglades. During both of these periods, Janie assumes the identity of Mrs. Bogle, the identity by which she has been inspired and motivated.	2	Effectiveness: This symbol potently represents Janie’s values since 1) Mrs. Bogle is everything Janie wants to become and 2) Janie later fulfills the role of Mrs. Bogle herself. These two events confirm that Mrs. Bogle sufficiently meets the definition of a symbol. Creativity: Since Hurston uses another human to describe a human, this symbol is not as noteworthy as some of her other symbols. There is no doubt that Mrs. Bogle is a role model to Janie but exhibiting Janie’s values in another woman is not as innovative as other metaphors. Significance: Mrs. Bogle plays an influential role as she inspires Janie therefore she is a significant character and symbol. Her purpose is to be a living version of Janie’s innermost desires. The employment of such a role helps explain Janie’s self which is an important aspect to know and understand.
Annie Tyler	Mrs. Tyler is more than a person: she represents Janie’s fear. When Janie develops a relationship with Tea Cake, she fears he will abandon or take advantage of her. Mrs. Tyler is the human manifestation of this fear. She embodies the things that Janie never wants to happen as a result of a bad marriage.	The character Annie Tyler does not occur later in the novel but Janie’s fear stays with her. Though the physical person dies, Mrs. Tyler’s story still troubles Janie’s unconscious mind. Janie’s fear surfaces when Tea Cake is not home for several hours and Janie’s money is missing. She remembers Mrs. Tyler’s experiences and fears the same will happen to her (118).	2	Effectiveness: Annie Tyler portrays Janie’s fear in a tangible way allowing one to grasp the reality of Janie’s situation. Mrs. Tyler is the essence of Janie’s worst fear. No other object could more accurately and effectively represent Janie’s apprehension. Creativity: Using another person to describe Janie’s feelings is not one of Hurston’s more interesting uses of symbolism. Using an inanimate object would have been more unique and original. Significance: Annie Tyler is a meaningful symbol in that she is the character in which Hurston outsources Janie’s fear.
The Dog	The rabid dog represents and even foreshadows Tea Cake’s death much like the mule symbolized Joe Starks. The physical dog was the host for the ‘animal’ that would later possess Tea Cake. It represents madness, darkness and death. The same entity that took over the dog’s mind becomes the “fiend in him [that] must kill” (184).	The actual mad dog, though killed by Tea Cake, is referenced again when Tea Cake is ill. Janie repeatedly mentions the ‘thing’ inside Tea Cake. Janie notices Tea Cake’s behavior; “This strange thing in Tea Cake’s body” (182) is the same illness that consumed the mad dog and urged it to kill. The same “pure hate”  (167) in the dog’s eyes is later found in Tea Cake’s eyes.	3	Effectiveness: The mad dog expresses and reveals the impending death of Tea Cake. It represents the manner in which he behaves and dies, therefore it is an effective symbol. Creativity: Using the mad dog to symbolize Tea Cake’s death is unique. Hurston chose an appropriate object (the dog) to represent a vicious entity. She transforms a common animal into a wild being that robs Tea Cake of his sanity and Janie of her security. This adds dynamic and interest to the story and its purpose. Significance: The mad dog’s significance is proven in its influence on the plot and characters. At first, the mad dog is merely an animal but its disease later afflicts the characters physically and emotionally and changes the plot of the story.
The Everglades	The Everglades is a physical place that represents a deeper, spiritual place in which Janie finds the freedom she has been seeking. It facilitates and represents her becoming and her transcendence as a woman. This sprawling, adventurous and lively environment is Janie’s personal Mecca. Unlike her time spent in Joe’s house, living in the Everglades has allowed Janie to become the woman she has wanted to be.	Janie’s time in the Everglades is relatively brief but throughout that time, the meaning of the place does not evolve into something different. This is intentional. The Everglades represent the final stage of Janie’s fulfillment and becoming so it is necessary that its meaning remain consistent and established. It is this constant nature that allows Janie to mold herself into the culture of the Everglades which reciprocally shapes her as a person.	3	Effectiveness: The Everglades serve as an effective symbol since it is more than a mere physical location. This place stands for many of the ideals in which Janie strongly believes and values. Creativity: Since the Everglades is a location and a nonliving object lacking in any literal human qualities, it must have taken more ingenuity to create and communicate the concept that would represent Janie’s becoming— a human, spiritual phase— therefore, it is considerably one of the more creative symbols in the novel. Significance: This symbol is arguably significant since it represents a transformation of Janie’s character which impacts her, the other characters and the plot. Its meaning is deep and insightful and its effect and purpose are greatly influential.

*Rating: 1- Poor, 2- Adequate, 3- Excellent