A tale of humanity and triumph lay with the words of Zora Neale Hurston in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. It’s the story of Janie Starks’ life through three husbands and the trials she faces along the way. This novel speaks of our ultimate need, as humans, to be able to express ourselves freely. Huston addresses the male-dominated world that Janie Starks struggled through and what seems to be the endless search for her own happiness. All one can extrapolate is that each person must follow their own paths to their final contentment.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God begins at the end, with Janie returning to her old home. Women begin to gossip about her, yet she doesn’t care. She begins to tell her story to her friend Phoeby. So the story unfolds. Janie grew up with her grandmother, a former slave, who raised her in the backyard of the white family they worked for. Nanny, Janie’s grandmother, wants to marry off Janie in order to protect her. She teaches her the value of a man that can provide for her. Unwillingly, Janie marries Logan Killicks, but after a while realizes she doesn’t love him. Nanny tells her to forget love and to appreciate the security of marriage. Later, Janie meets Joe Starks, who tells her of an all-black town he plans on going to. She falls in love with him, really falling for his smooth language, and runs off with him to the new town.

            Jody, as Janie called Joe Starks, soon became the mayor of the new town. Eatonville, the name of the place, was filled with regular people who found awe with Joe Starks and his accomplishments including a store, a post-office, and a street light for the town. He and Janie love each other at first, but as time moves on, he becomes more and more power-hungry in all things, including politics and love. He begins mistreating and insulting Janie to assert his control over her. She silently accepts it. He wants her to be of a higher class and not to mix with regular townspeople. As they both get older, and uglier, Jody continues to grow more vicious. Then finally, Janie responds to him with insults. More time passes and Jody gets sick. In a last talk, Janie lets out her emotions of rage and anger as he slowly dies. For six months after, Janie “pretends” to act sad, even though she felt free of Jody’s oppression. She later meets another man that charms her: Tea Cake.

            After “secret” meetings with Tea Cake, Janie falls in love with him. Warned that he is too low for her or that he may deceive her, Janie still loves him, yet still with some doubt of his sincerity. They later marry and leave Eatonville for the Everglades. They settle and make a happy life for themselves. Janie finds contentment. However, trials do arrive with Janie’s unnecessary jealousy of a young girl. Also, a black woman named Mrs. Turner arrives as well with ideas of racism and hatred toward blacks and their ways. She begins to try to get her brother and Janie together. Through that hardship, Janie and Tea Cake survive. However, later on, an inevitable and ominous storm is predicted to come to the town. Tea Cake and Janie stay, instead of leaving like most of the town did. When the hurricane arrives, they decide to flee. Janie gets caught swimming in the flood and a dog tries to attack her. Tea Cake wrestles and kills the dog. They reach safely in Palm Beach, and Janie thanks Tea Cake for saving her. They return to the Everglades awhile later, trying to rebuild from the aftermath. Tea Cake becomes crazy due to the fact that the dog in the storm was rabid. In a psychotic fit, Tea Cake nearly kills Janie. She ends up killing him in defense. After being arrested and tried for the murder, she returns to Eatonville and tells her story to her friend Phoeby. The story ends how it began. Janie reminisces about Tea Cake, and contemplates on the fact that his spirit was still alive through her.

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            “Dawn and doom [were] in the branches” of the tree Janie saw as her life.” Hurston uses analogies like these in many parts of the book. I enjoyed her use of these small metaphors because they added to the reader’s understanding of the book’s theme. When the storm came, and Janie, Tea Cake, and their friend, Motorboat, stood before the door when it arrived, Hurston brings her ultimate analogy where the title of the book’s roots were. She says “six eyes were questioning God.” It is here she captures the nemesis of the male dominance prevalent through the book. There was a higher being that was more dominant than those men who’d think of themselves as Gods. These and many more analogies are what made my mind deeply think while reading this book. In addition to those metaphors, what made the book a much better experience was the narrator’s third-person style. The dialect spoken by Janie wouldn’t have ever been fully understood if the book was written in first-person.  The narrator’s omniscient view let the reader know the characters’ thoughts and feelings. However, I liked how the narrator was also adaptable, in that, in certain parts, Hurston begins speaking like the characters, only with proper grammar and more understandable spelling. Moving along, the story begins with the end. I liked how the entire book was written as a flashback. Usually, flashbacks are poorly written and it isn’t the best method of storytelling. However, despite the fact that this whole book was a flashback, it felt like it was written in present tense. Part of that was assisted by the narrator. To exemplify, in the beginning of Chapter 7, the narrator said, “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul.” In that sentence, the narrator still captures Janie’s emotions even though the story is in third-person and is part of a flashback. Although the story didn’t happen “now” and Janie wasn’t speaking firsthand, you still feel what she is feeling with those words the narrator speaks. To continue, the ending of the book was bittersweet. I liked it, as most readers would, because it ended somehow happily. Janie finally finds contentment and peace. She realizes that her love lives in her memory. That was why the ending was good. However, the ending, and the book as a whole, did fall short in some areas.

“What dat ole forty year ole ‘oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak some young gal?” In the beginning pages of the book, I, unfortunately, had to dissect and translate this and other dialogue similar to this into something coherent. A definite weakness of the book was the dialect used. Even though it helped set the premise of the book, it wasn’t really introduced or slowly brought into the book. It turned me off from reading the book. I struggled in the first few chapters, but eventually I understood. However, in all honesty, if I didn’t have to read this book for my school assignment, I wouldn’t have read it due to the dialect. Another thing I disliked was the few parts where the events didn’t make any sense. They didn’t seem to fit properly into the story. To illustrate, in the book, Tea Cake was supposed to be much like the hero, or a good person. However, in one part of the book, he actually beats Janie due to his jealousy. It just didn’t seem to follow the story. Aside from that, the theme of the story did accomplish being universal, but the way the story was told wasn’t universal. After reading the novel, I realized this book would just be enjoyed by only a particular audience (I’d say African American women). This was mainly because it literally dealt with the issues that African American women faced. In a figurative sense, the book’s message and theme is for everybody. However, the book itself wouldn’t be liked by everyone. Finally, as mentioned before, the ending of the book was both bitter and sweet. What made it bitter was the fact that it didn’t end “happily” in the conventional sense. Tea Cake, Janie’s beloved husband, became sick and psychotic, eventually dying from a gunshot fired by Janie. It was a tragic and sad ending. However, like Romeo & Juliet, it still doesn’t take away too much from the overall book.

            Though difficult to understand and read at first, Their Eyes Were Watching God did end up being a great book after all. It gives you an outlook into the troubles of African American women and tries to give you a lesson for your own life. It makes you appreciate the freedom and rights that we all have today. Primarily, this book was meant to empower African American women, as well as all women in general. As a boy, I didn’t like the story as much as I think a girl would, even though it does contain good messages and vibes. I’d recommend it mainly to girls my age and older. However, anyone who gives it a chance will see the good in it and maybe take something to apply to their own lives.