Their Eyes Were Watching God, Written by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, is a novel about Janie Crawford, a “light” african american woman living in the 1930’s. Janie’s life is chronicled as she tells her friend her story: a pear tree, a dead mule, three marriages, and a hurricane later the reader and the listener, Phoeby, feels they had “‘done growed ten feet higher from jus’ listenin’’” (192) to her story. However, overall Hurston wants the reader to understand that they have to find out about living for themselves by following their own expectations and not the expectations of others for them. The use of the stylistic elements: symbolism, motif, and imagery enhances the message of this novel about finding one’s self amidst a world where everyone has their own opinion, whether or not its for for other’s benefit.

Hurston in the novel uses symbolism in clothing to represent parts of Janie’s life. In the beginning, Janie tries to live life as her grandmother, Nanny, wished her to. She marries Logan Killicks because Nanny wants her to live happily and without work. However, Janie is unhappy in this and ends up running off with Joe (Jody) Starks to marry him thinking she’d be happier. An apron is used to symbolize the life Janie had with Logan, but an apron is also a symbolism of servitude, so when Janie is leaving Logan she, “untied (the apron) and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on,” (32). This deliberate act symbolizes Janie leaving Logan and the indenturement to him as his wife. In the next phase of Janie’s life, she is still, inadvertently, living by Nanny’s expectations in life, as well as now living by Joe’s expectations. Joe has Janie on a high stoop above the rest of the townswomen, so she is fairly lonely, as well ...

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... her to be mourning Joe. This has significance to the theme because it shows the contrast of how people feel and how people act when under expectations of others.

The theme of Their Eyes Were Watching God is that one should follow the expectations for themselves and not the expectations others have for them. Hurston in the novel uses the literary devices of symbolism, motif, and imagery in order to enhance this point and to add a bit of her own personal flair. While the message still may have come across to the reader, Hurston’s use of literary devices greatly enhances the theme. In the end we know that there are two things one has to do. “They got tuh go tuh God,” and, most importantly, “they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh themselves,” (192)

Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial Modern

Classics, 2006. Print.