Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston: Literary Analysis

Their Eyes Were Watching God, a historical fiction novel written by Zora Neale Hurston in 1937, focuses around Janie Mae Crawford, an African American woman, and her evolution as a character. The story is told as a flashback by Janie to her best friend, Pheoby Watson. The novel begins with Janie returning to Eatonville and realizing that Pheoby is the only one there whom she can trust. Janie starts off by explaining how her Nanny raised her after her mother abandoned her, and how Nanny is conservative and therefore, she chooses Janie’s first husband for security reasons. Janie also discusses her three marriages to Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods in detail and the hardships she had to overcome with each relationship.
Throughout her life, Janie tries to recapture her youth, while also trying to find a connection with the nature around her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays Janie’s quest for love through her desire for independence, her external beauty, and the social class struggles of African American women. Janie’s independence appears to be an influential motive when it comes to relationships and marriages. Janie’s first two marriages with Logan Killicks and Joe Starks do not provide Janie with the freedom she yearned for. Logan is her Nanny’s choice for her husband, due to the fact that he owned a sixty-acre farm and offered financial security to Janie. However, Janie had said over and over to Nanny that she did not love Logan. Nanny kept saying that Janie would learn to love after marriage, as long as she waited for it. However, after several months, Janie doubts that she will ever come to love Logan, and she tells Nanny that “you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it" (Hurston 23). Soon, Logan is taking
Their Eyes Were Watching God aims to show readers what it was actually like for women and blacks who lived during this difficult time period. Even though slavery had been abolished before the novel was published, it still has an important historical impact on the Janie’s situation. Janie’s grandparents had been enslaved, which is primarily why her Nanny wanted her to marry. She did not want Janie to end up alone and have to find a way to live on her own without the help of a man. Nanny was actually raped by her white slave master, and gave birth to Janie’s mother, Leafy. Nanny tried her best to give Leafy a decent life in Florida provided the circumstances, but Leafy was raped by her schoolteacher, who ran off after committing the crime. African Americans, especially in the South, were still treated as minorities and it was more difficult for them to find work and equality. Nanny even told Janie that “de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out” (Hurston14). It is obvious with Logan Killicks and Joe Starks that women are not treated fairly and they are expected to be subservient to their male counterparts. Also, African Americans were not expected to live a lavish lifestyle like the whites. When Joe Starks bought nearly 200 acres of land from Captain