Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a famous work by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston, a bildungsroman novel that tells the story of a black girl named Janie Crawford, whose experiences in three of her marriages eventually shape her into a complete selfhood. Hurston, in developing the story, takes on a different perspective and tone compared to her contemporaries and later writer like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, whose works often covers on the desperation and helplessness of African American women. Hurston’s success consists in the unique voice she gives to the protagonist, whose self-assurance allows her to see far beyond than others and whose emancipation is self-induced from the very start.

Janie may seem an oddity or even “new” to some readers who have a general understanding of African American Literature. Realist writers from the nineteenth century have long contribute to the shaping of woman’s voice, from Madame Bovary (1857), Anna Karenina (1875), The Awakening (1899,) to the more contemporary, feminist writings like Mrs. Dalloway(1925); however, to have an African American woman voiced her yearnings and desires, Janie may well be one of the first. Unlike most characters in her position, Janie yields not to the belief in destiny. She craves for love, and is determined to attain it however the circumstances dissuade her of being otherwise.

Therefore, the three marriages symbolize each a step towards a more mature being, for she becomes more of her self as she see more clearly, thus chooses more freely. Her first marriage is an answer to Nanny’s wish, the second being her attempted escape to the first, while only until the third one, despite much dissuasion, does she finally find the one to give her soul to. The third marriage that finally settles the Janie is the author’s mercy towards her protagonist, and despite what happens in the end, Hurston manages to infuse optimism into the much too bleak genre, like a light in the dark.

Abounds in lively, everyday vernacular dialogues, Their Eyes is a hopeful and profound reality-like fantasy that shines through its time and remains fresh until recent days. Even though the book was once criticized as being too unrealistic, and not contributing to the social realism that dominates the then literary circles, its sheer survival eventually proves that Hurston accomplishes a literary voice that transcends all the barriers between race, gender, and language, a perspective that all readers have been looking forward to sharing views and hopes with. The novel’s wide coverage on different culture experiences, together with the tear-shedding, truthful love between Janie and her third husband, should be able to satisfy all readers. The novel is a promise to a great reading experience.