Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston

I read Their Eyes Were Watching God for the first time when I was in high school, and the majority of books I had read up to that point were geared toward kids my age. There were the few exceptions, of course, but most real 'literature' had come across as strange and unsettling for me, so I mostly avoided it. Yes, I admit it. Their Eyes Were Watching God was required for the college-level literature class I was taking and my opinion of it was no different than my opinion had been of The Grapes of Wrath. 

Weird. What I hadn't liked about it before was the way Janie had left her first husband and then not found happily-ever-after with her second husband. She did find happily-ever-after with Tea Cakes, a man about half her age, outside of wedlock. This all disturbed me. I also was uncomfortable with the references to sex, having never been married or had sex myself.

So, when our adult book club was scheduled to read Hurston's work this February (to get us thinking about Black History month), I was nonplussed.

But a funny thing happened when I started reading this work for the second time. I loved it. I was able to accept and get past the rough edges of Janie's relationships with men and appreciate a view into southern black culture in the 1930's that I hadn't seen before. I was also able to appreciate the unique similes and pictures Hurston uses to explain herself.

Here's an excellent example from when Janie realizes her second marriage isn't the happy ending she had dreamed it should be:

Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over."

Lovely. I won't go on and on about this book, but I encourage anyone to read this who wants to get a broader view of life in the United States or who wants to read about a strong woman or who simply wants to get a taste of talented writing.