Summary Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

One hundred and ninety-three pages of brilliance, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a fictional coming of age novel that blooms with a realism of the world in the South during the early 1930’s for a black woman. The book has a southern dialect, powerful but vulgar language, and domestic violence, three points of the book that are crucial to understand the novel’s effect and is a part of life that people have to accept. A summary of Their Eyes Were Watching God is that of a woman, Janie Crawford, who grows from a silent girl and over time flourishes into a woman with a strong voice over the course of three marriages and with that, many hardships. Yet, the main topic is not about Janie, the main focus is about another author

More often than not, authors judge other authors work, but this criticism is one debatable.

In order to examine Wright’s judgement against Hurston, there first must be some introduction of both authors and their lives. To begin with, Zora Neale Hurston from when she was born in 1891 to the day she died from heart disease in 1960 made her mark on the world. Born in Notasulga, Alabama and later relocating to Eatonville, Florida Hurston has first hand experience with the South and adds Eatonville as her setting of her novel. Hurston published many stories, plays, articles, essays, and more. Her most famous works include: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Mules and Men, Moses, Man of the Mountain, Dust Tracks on a Road, and Seraph on the Suwanee. Great writers have great education for credibility. Hurston’s attended four different places for her knowledge, Howard

While it may have once been a book for the African-American race, it is now read across the world in high schools and universities. Specifically, the book genre is a coming of age African-American piece of fictional literature which is why it used in education in terms of life lessons, symbolism, and more. There are many covers of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most common one being Janie wearing a head rag. Others include, a peach tree, another is with Janie wearing her overalls, hair down, and her arms extend as trees, also a bright pear, and another being a colorful Janie lying down and looking up at the sky. Book covers have a tendency to take part in the book’s meaning and or foreshadowing an event in the novel. The most common cover with Janie’s head rag is a symbol of freedom when she burns them during one of her marriages. The title itself is six letters that could mean multiple ideas. One could be a simple idea of how the African-American townspeople who live in Janie’s town go to work everyday and are looked upon by white men. Thus creating the split between races with the white men being God. Another meaning, which I believe in more so than the previous one (but I do realize book titles can have multiple meanings) is that Janie at the end of the novel looks up to God as if God controls each person’s fate and she wonders what is next in store for her now that she