Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, is a coming-of-age story about a woman who explores intense topics including love, identity and power. This novel, taking place in the early twentieth century in Florida, follows protagonist Janie Crawford’s life as she navigates the many difficulties and obstacles that come with it.
Between not having stable parental figures, being forced to marry an older man at only 16 years old and having her sense of individuality stripped away from her for the majority of her life, Janie was no stranger to hardship. Most significantly, she endured several forms of unhealthy love throughout her three marriages, all of them ending with a dying husband. In all three of her marriages, Janie tolerated different forms of abuse, manipulation, and belittlement.
All of this being said, Janie was able to use her devastating life experiences and detrimental relationships to come out as a better person in the end. Throughout the novel, Janie took steps to discover her true identity and learn what love really looked like. With that, two of the most prevalent lessons that I learned from reading this book are how important it is to be independent and that healthy relationships, free from controlling behaviors, are crucial to have in life.
To give some background on my reading of this book, I read it in my AP Literature & Composition class, and it’s safe to say that I’d never been exposed to anything like it before. It dove into serious topics that were fun, not intimidating or uncomfortable, to unpack with my classmates during group discussions.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that the text is written in a southern dialect; the author wrote in this way with hopes of achieving historical accuracy and authentically portraying the characters’ voices. Some examples of the text using this unique tone are when it says “Ah” instead of “I” and “lak” instead of “like.” While it was initially challenging to make sense of all of this, I would say it was interesting and helped me become a stronger reader.
Like me, Mrs. Natalie Johnson, my AP Lit teacher, appreciated the novel’s distinct messages. “I think it’s a really good character development book for my students to analyze at the beginning of the year … it offers a lot of universal themes that we were able to analyze in terms of the idea about romantic love, self-love, and which one is more important,” Johnson said. “I think there’s also a lot of really great ideas about childhood and what kind of experiences shape it.”
Elizabeth Dirksen, a senior at ADM who I sat next to in class while reading this novel, also enjoyed it. “It had a lot of emotional insight, and, as a girl growing up in Iowa, I don’t normally get that kind of perspective on history and life,” Dirksen said.
All elements of the work considered, I’d rate Their Eyes Were Watching God 3.5 out of 5 stars. While it’s not something I would typically choose to read, I see its value in educational purposes in that it makes students genuinely analyze content and question the meaning of the work as a whole.
So, while it was far from my favorite book, I’d recommend Their Eyes Were Watching God to anyone who wants to try reading a different type of literature and ponder deep subjects. It will undoubtedly make readers question what they think they already know about life and prompt them to reflect on events that have happened to them in the past.
