One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

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In "There Eyes," Hurston tells the life story of Janie, an African-American woman. We accompany Janie as she experiences the very different men in her life. Hurston's great dialogue captures both the ongoing "war of the sexes," as well as the truces, joys, and tender moments of male-female relations. But equally important are Janie's relationships with other Black women. There are powerful themes of female bonding, identity, and empowerment which bring an added dimension to this book.

But what really elevates "Their Eyes" to the level of a great classic is Hurston's use of language. This is truly one of the most poetic novels in the American canon. Hurston blends the engaging vernacular speech of her African-American characters with the lovely "standard" English of her narrator, and in both modes creates lines that are just beautiful.

"Their Eyes" captures the universal experiences of pain and happiness, love and loss. And the whole story is told with both humor and compassion. If you haven't read it yet, read it; if you've already read it, read it again.

81 of 83 found the following review helpful:

An American Masterpiece, well worth readingOct 17, 2007
By Joanna Daneman
"Their Eyes were Watching God" has been variously described as feminist literature (though written in 1930), African-American literature (though the story is about people, first and foremost, and race is secondary to the novel) and as a lost masterpiece. It's a lost masterpiece. Thanks to Alice Walker and Oprah Winfrey, the book was brought back to the public's attention.

One of the issues with reading Hurston's novel is that it's written in dialect--in Hurston's rendition of how Southern Florida black dialect could be spelled out to her. So reading the book is a bit slow; you have to sound out the words in your mind. If this is a problem, then I'd suggest you listen to the book on tape (ably performed by Ruby Dee) and then read the book afterwards.

The story has barely a plot; Janey is a young woman whose grandmother was born in slavery. Her aspirations are no further than the front porch; to live in comfort means being simply able to sit, to sit on the porch and not be in constant motion, working every hour of every day for bare subsistence. She finds an older, established husband for Janey and insists she marry. Janey, then, has a life where, with reasonable work, she can fill her belly and sleep in shelter. Her life is not much better than that of a well-cared-for mule.

One day, Janey runs off with Jody Starks, a man of means who charms her with his worldy ways. This is a man going places. And they do go places; to Eatonville, a town that was chartered as an African-American community. Starks sees opportunity in every corner of dusty Eatonville, buys land, builds a store and a house and installs the beautiful Janey as a symbol of his mastery.

As Mayor, Starks has appearances to keep up. He has Janey stay in the house or work in the store, and when in the store, she is to keep her head covered. Janey has a wealth of long abundant hair, which Hurston uses as a symbol of life. Janey's hair is flowing and startling; men covet it. As the hair is covered, so is every enjoyment and thought Janey has. She chafes for 20 years under Stark's restrictive rules.

The scene where the "town mule"--a mule freed by Starks from an abusive owner and that became a sort of mascot, dies and is buried in the swamp is exceptional writing, worthy of Mark Twain. The mule is eulogized (by Stark, standing at one point on the mule as podium) and then abandoned to the waiting buzzards. The following scene where the buzzards arrive to do their undertaking is a flight of fancy that is hardly equalled in American literature. All along the book, Hurston takes smaller flights of language; her descriptions sometimes soar, or are humorous or completely imaginative.

Janey runs off after Stark's death with "Tea Cake"--a younger man. While her first two marriages were for the sustenance of the body (food, shelter, comfort, a home) this marriage is for the sustenance of the soul. Tea Cake plays guitar, plays games, dances, gambles, sings and flirts. Hurston is too clever to make him perfect; he hurts Janey, as only someone who loves another person can hurt them, and he is a bit of a cad, yet he brings out something in Janey that no life of pure material wealth could do--freedom and sensuality and joy. The culmination of the story is rather contrived, but still, the completion of the three marriages tells almost a fable-like story of a quest for personal growth. Janey comes home to Eatonville, and tells her story to Phoeby, her friend. The rest of the tale is up to us to fill in.

Sometimes the writing reminds me of Virginia Woolf--the interior dialog and mood of the character is the action as much or more than the action happening on the story's stage. Sometimes Hurston reminds me of Twain in her delving into the linguistic richness and uniqueness of Floridian life. Her education as a folklorist sharpened her ear, but her deep honesty into the interior life of women is what makes this story so great. It's definitely one of the top American novels and deserves to be read.

42 of 46 found the following review helpful:

Every woman's hero.Jan 27, 2000

At the end, I closed the book and I cried. Then I wanted to open it and start reading all over again from the beginning. Janie is a woman who has endured oppression, suppression, and tragedy. She found love and she found herself. She not only survived but discovered her own strength and accepted life without self-destructing. Janie, is every woman's hero, most certainly mine.

21 of 22 found the following review helpful:

Value as historical artifactAug 29, 2006
By Avid Rita
Funny how folks seem to love this or hate it. I admire the author's creativeness in the context of her time: the use of vernacular was quite creative at the time, and brings the reader intimately to the story. The very subject matter, a young black woman on a journey of self discovery-- easy to take for granted today how remarkable this publication must have been. That said, as a contemporary reader I didn't love this book and had to push myself to finish it (for my book club). Hard to care for this protaganist who passively scribes herself in relation to a succession of husbands. I just didn't like the person she was! But worth trying for yourself, I think.

21 of 22 found the following review helpful:

A Harlem Renaissance Classic!Feb 24, 2001
By thegritsdotcom "The-Girl-Reading-In-The-South.com"
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is a haunting story told in the black vernacular about one woman's search for true love and independence. At age 16, Janie Crawford believes that she has every right to find true love on her terms. The day she lay beneath a pear tree in her grandmother's backyard and witnessed a bee pollinating there was the day she realized the sensual pleasures she wanted very much to experience in her life. But instead of her being able to explore these feelings and find her soul mate, she is confined to a couple of loveless marriages. The first was to a much older man, Logan Killicks, out of financial security and respectability (under the advisement of her randmother). The second marriage to Jody Starks was out of desperation to escape her first marriage and for security. But it will be Janie's third marriage to a much younger man, Tea Cake, which allows her to feel a sense of freedom in choosing someone to love openly for the very first time. Of course when the Eatonville community she lives in shows their displeasure over her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie throws caution to the wind by marrying and moving away with him to start a new life in the Everglades. Even though her third marriage ends tragically with her killing Tea Cake in self-defense, she doesn't seem to regret her experience. In fact, she makes peace with all that has happened in her life and returns to Eatonville in spite of the envious stares and gossip from the people speculating what happened between her and Tea Cake. She comes back no longer under the ownership of a man, but as a self-assured independent woman who owes no one any explanations.

After reading this novel and discovering that Zora Neale Hurston was the recipient of 2 Guggenheims, the author of 4 novels, 12 short stories, 12 essays, 2 musicals, and 2 black mythologies, I could not help wondering how this literary giant disappeared from us for nearly 3 decades. To my disappointment I learned that her disappearance was due to her peers (mainly Richard Wright) criticizing her openly and publicly for not writing about the so-called "serious social trends" of the time. But what I cannot understand is how her peers could not think what happened to Janie Crawford (and women like her) by husbands and the community at large was not a serious social trend of the time. Just because Zora chose to write about the injustices done within the black community rather than the injustices done to the black community did not make her works any less poignant. The appeal and rediscovery of this novel by scholars, women writers, and the American public in general has definitely made THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD into a timeless classic of the Harlem Renaissance era.

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