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Summary Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurst

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Zora Neale Hurston sets the scene of the novel in Florida. The first setting mentioned in Their Eyes Were Watching God is Eatonville, Florida. At the time this book was written, Eatonville was the first all-black town in the US. Hurston grew up in Eatonville and like her character Joe Sparks, her father served as the town’s mayor.

Told through a limited omniscient voice, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of protagonist, Janie’s everyday life and her love life as she pursues her dreams in Florida. Her love story begins with a kiss upon Johnny Taylor’s lips and ends, leaving the only two men in her life dead. Through southern dialect and beautiful poetic lapses, Zora Neale Hurston writes about a time that greatly impacted her life and the life of those around at the time.

Janie’s hair- …show more content…

Janie’s hair is the object of affection for her husband, Joe Sparks and all the men who walk into the store. It symbolizes Janie herself. Her hair is as free as her personality. It weaves itself into the lives of Janie’s husbands. That’s why Joe Sparks wants to keep it covered up. He doesn’t want Janie’s beautiful hair to sway him into giving Janie special treatment. He treats her like he would any woman.

The pear tree-
I like to think of the pear tree as a piece of Janie’s childhood. She feels so at peace under there with the soft light, beautiful blooms, and bustling nature. In a sense Janie is the pear of the group of apples around her. She doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest and people can’t seem to ignore that. The pear tree was where Janie first started dreaming and even thinking about her love life. Love is a very important element to this storyline.

The

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In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston traces Janie’s quest for independence and the search of her self-confidence through events that happened before and after her epiphany immediately following Joe’s death. Throughout the novel Janie’s view of life, her independence, and her view of love changed exceedingly depending on who she was married to. This story centers around an important epiphany that Janie has when Joe dies; that personal discoveries and life experiences help people find themselves. Before her revelation, when Janie is 16 years old, she experiences a moment of realization in she discovers new-found feelings about love, marriage, . Under the pear-tree, she has a perfect moment in nature, full of passion

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Joe mediates this by trying gain more authority over what Janie does. Specifically Joe forces Janie to wear a head-rag, “[t]his business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But [Joe] was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store. It didn’t seem sensible at all.”

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